Sam considers me for a moment. “The Aeternalis has always been intentional with his words. He’s a born storyteller. He revels in double meanings and clever trickery. It’s another method of control to him. Another means of amusement.”
“I don’t know that there’s a double meaning to this, Sam. He seemed confident that Niko isn’t coming back. And he—he had his pistol.”
Sam’s power unspools from him, brushing over me in a soft wave. “I know stories were rare growing up on the mainland. Have you heard Dante’s Inferno?”
“Not in its entirety.”
A flush heats my cheeks, because the truth is everything I know of the ancient story comes from Niko’s skin. How many times had I traced the delicate words flowing along his left ribs with my fingers? How many times had I traced them with my tongue, not watching the words at all, but the way the poised king came untethered at my every touch?
The corner of Sam’s mouth lifts in a knowing smile, but thankfully, he leaves it alone. “The Divine Comedy says the ninth circle of hell is a lake of ice where all the worst betrayers and mutineers are trapped for eternity. Perhaps Niko is just as trapped, somewhere among the stars and wards.”
The sentiment is not as comforting as it should be. Niko already spent so long trapped in Letum, shouldering the burden of the universe. That he would end up trapped again after everything is nearly as unbearable as his death.
“And what if he’s not, Sam?” I bite out, hating that even now, I cannot find softness. “What if he’s truly gone?”
When Sam faces me, there is none of the grief or regret I expect. His strong jaw is set, his eyes filled with unwavering determination.
“Then we be the people Niko knew us to be, and we protect what mattered enough for him to give his life for. There will be no one coming to save us from the Aeternalis, Willa. It is up to us, and us alone.”
Chapter four
The wind is stale, as all winds are in this world. Edged with pollution and swollen with despair, the breeze sweeps up my coat and cools the blood staining my hands as I stare down at the man sobbing at my feet with vague distaste.
For a brief moment, I consider leaving him alive. He’s already given me the information I need—the information I’ve scoured the blasted mainland in search of for over nine months. But as I watch his crimson blood leak from his wounds onto the dirty sidewalk, I decide I’d like to see more of it.
Leaning down, I inhale the sharp iron scent. It settles something of the jagged ache inside me, but the satiation is fleeting as I’ve found most things to be in the wake of my banishment.
The man gulps air like the breaths will be his last. Snot bubbles at his nose. His thinning hair is sweat-slicked to his forehead, his clothes rumpled and torn. In contrast, my own dark suit is crisp, his blood contained only to my hands.
“Please,please…” he begs.
I nearly smile. Nearly, because nothing in this world gives me pleasure enough toactuallysmile. But the scent of his fear and the sight of his blood gives me something—and something is better than the nothingness I’ve lived with since I left Letum. Even now, when I’ve finally found what I need, there is no victory. There’s only the same ruthless determination that’s driven me for months, beating in time with my heart.
“Mmm,” I hum, drinking in his fear. I may not have my outward magic in this world, but death still pools in my heart and seethes through my veins, its wants no less ravening here than they were as the King of Carrion.
I was born what I am. It is only less obvious in a world as mundane as this one. Worlds without magic have always been easier to blend into; to bury the dark hungers beneath a bland façade. It is no wonder no one ever saw Willa for what she truly is when everyone is so eager to believe in normalcy; to cling to their safe ideals.
“Please let me go…Please,”the man sobs.
I frown, disgust roiling up my throat at his disarray. “Where were those manners a few minutes ago? I was kind enough to inform you I am not a patient man, but because you had a gun, you decided to waste my time. Tell me,” I muse with patient curiosity. “Why do guns give you mainlanders such a false sense of security?”
The man gapes at me like a codfish, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly as I lean in close enough to see the sweat beading along his hairline. “Have none of you learned the pleasure of someone’s blood spilling over your hands?”
Before he can stop sobbing long enough to form a response, I slice my knife deftly across his throat. More blood spills, the deep scarlet pooling in the pockmarked concrete. I watch it for a few prolonged moments, the man’s gasps becoming more desperate before finally falling silent. Removing a handkerchieffrom my breast pocket, I wipe my hands as best as I can, tossing the soiled rag atop his chest before ducking out of the alley without a backward glance.
Elevenfuckingmonths. That’s how long I’ve been stranded here. Free from the pain of my magic and the burden of the anchor, but still just as trapped as ever. Unable to move between worlds, nor to move beyond the ghosts of my mistakes.
They surround me in this world.
And though my body has filled out, my strength rivaling what it was all those centuries ago when Sam and I chased horizon after horizon, I find no comfort in it. My eyes are a clear cerulean, and yet, I avoid them in every mirror and reflection.
For all of it is a reminder that while I am here, the Aeternalis is in Letum.
No one on the street pays me any mind as I emerge from the alley to join the meandering crowd on the sidewalk. I pull leather gloves over my stained fingers, a force of both habit and the chilled winter air. It is nearly midnight, the silver light of the moon hidden behind towering buildings of brick and stone, blanketing the streets in thick shadows.
If I was king of this world, I would have designed it so the moon was visible from every window, but even before the plague, most places on the mainland were built for efficiency rather than beauty. I was born in one of them.
Though in the year since my banishment, I have traveled to almost every corner of this world and found signs of new life in each one to give me hope that someday, art will return. The resurgence of the connection between Letum and the mainland has been slow but steady, reminiscent of the regrowth of a forest after a wildfire. New sprouts rising through the wreckage; pockets of life speckled throughout a barren wasteland.
