Sam’s eyes meet mine, his gaze full of the things I should be feeling: wonder, awe.Hope.Willa has found her magic, which means imagination and healing have returned to my kingdom. I’ve toiled and planned and sacrificed for this exact moment. Themoment the scales of the universe begin to tip back toward their original balance. A balance systematically destroyed not only by the Aeternalis, but byme.
But as I watch Willa’s power, fueled by her beautiful mind, by her creativity—no hope lights my chest. I’m only filled with ice cold dread.
I’ve worked for so many years to keep the balance of the kingdom, never able to relax my hold for even a second. They say love is a powerful motivator, but I’d argue guilt is a more formidable one. My guilt has driven me to torture myself, over and over, every day for the last century, to make up for what I’ve done. For how I damned a kingdom and an entire world beyond.
I killed the Aeternalis, sliced him through the belly with a sharp, metal hook and watched him bleed out slowly at my feet without a hint of remorse. I didn’t know, then, that the island always needs an anchor. And when Pan had gasped his last breath, it had latched on to the only soul nearby.
Me.
But Pan’s power, even as twisted as it had become, was made of dreams. And in that moment, there had been no dream in my soul, no light in my heart—there had only been death. For everything he’d taken from me, and from so many others.
My power cursed us all, dooming the kingdom, and all who reside in it, to a slow death. A death of dreams, of imagination. And ever since, the island and I alike have been searching for a purer form of magic—to give it life, to return it to its former glory.
Willa moans, and when her eyes finally open, my dread becomes a solid thing, an immovable slab of iron deep in my stomach. The swirls of green and gold are brilliant against the night sky, even more so when her lips quirk into a small smile.
“I told you I could help, you necrotic jackass.”
Sam lets out a hearty laugh, but I remain still, taking in the soft slant of Willa’s nose, the angle of her jaw. Memorizing it all. Her brow creases as she searches my face. “I’m alright, Niko,” she assures me softly. “There wasn’t a cost—I just…” She shrugs, searching for the right words. “I think I just needed to stop being so afraid all the time.”
I nod, helping her to her feet. She curls into my side, and I hate myself a little more for pulling her closer. For reveling in each measure of her breath, in the way her body fits against mine, when I have no right to any of it.
I don’t need my magic to ruin Willa. With each moment of silence—every moment I choose not to tell her thereisa cost to her power, she just doesn’t understand it yet—I’m destroying her a little more.
Because now that her magic has awoken, the island will take notice. I can feel it in my blood.
The transfer of power has begun. Soon, the island will anchor itself to Willa’s heart and finally let go of mine. She’ll be tied to Letum forever, unable to leave without feeling the pain of the binding.
It’s everything I’ve hoped for, but as I stare down at Willa, skin flushed with happiness and power, I feel no victory. Only an acute sense of grief and the notion that in liberating my kingdom, it isn’t only her I’ve shattered—I’ve destroyed myself.
Chapter thirty-one
Hours later, magic still floods my veins in radiant waves.
I’d felt it in those desperate moments in the atrium with Niko at my feet, peeling back my skin to lay all my secrets bare. Shimmering, wild. An infinite palette of color waiting for me to dip my fingers into. And when I arrived at the Grove to Niko entirely drained, death wrapped so tightly around him, I thought his bones would crumble with the pressure, I hadn’t even had to search for it.
My fear for him sliced through the vessel that held my magic in place and it spilled through me, an inexorable wave. I hadn’t stopped to consider what the cost might be—I’d simply acted on the same instinct that’s kept me free for so long, an instinct that somehow now extends to Niko. A feeling that if he hurts, I will hurt, too.
There’d been no thought, no strategy. I saw Niko surrounded by the Strayed and imagined—no,commanded—him safe. And so, he was.
I hadn’t kept us safe by running; I’d done it by standing my ground. Not fighting because I was cornered or forced or trapped—but because Ichoseto.
It was liberating. The numb hollow I’ve existed in for over a century has been chased away by Letum, by Niko—by my own power. My blood runs faster, the rhythm of my heartbeat steadier against my chest. My skin no longer feels too tight for my bones, the shattered pieces of my heart no longer so sharp. I feel both settled in my body, and like I’ll vibrate right out of it.
Even Niko’s foul mood isn’t enough to smother the light blooming in my chest.
He’s hardly looked at me since I woke in the Grove to his face hovering above mine. His terror had been a visceral thing, one that dug into my lungs and made me want to reach for him. I’ve never seen Niko afraid—never seen his usual arrogant swagger fall away to reveal anything so vulnerable. It had been unnerving to see such a powerful man undone, but a part of me hoarded it away like a spoil of battle.
The King of Carrion doesn’t kneel before anyone, but for me, he’s been brought to his knees twice.
Niko’s fear still radiates off him now, as he stares out the carriage window. Sour and pointed, like weapons dug into the space around him to gore anyone who comes too close. Even his death feels wrong, shivering with unnatural tremors in the air between us.
When the wheels roll to a stop before the towering façade of the Lunaedon, he moves arduously down the carriage stairs and onto the gravel drive, like each step is painful. His skin has somehow gone even paler than its usual snow-white, and as he stalks away from me, I notice the unmistakable spasm of his hands.
Sam, Tiernan, and Marina had all stayed behind at the Grove to assist Adira in sorting out my mess. Trapping a few hundredStrayed beneath the earth in a kingdom where one cannot die has presented its own problems, the first being Adira’s worry for the soil around the roots of the Nyawa.
With the extent of the wreckage, I doubt they’ll be returning any time soon, which means there will be no one to help me with Niko if he collapses in the entrance hall. Anxiety wrenches my stomach as I follow him into the palace.
Candlelight flickers softly in the iron sconces, casting shadows over the ornate details of the hall. My boots sink into the plush carpet, and for a moment, I pause on the threshold to breathe in the dark warmth of the castle.
