Niko grins. “She’s here to see you, actually.”
My mouth parts in shock, and I motion hurriedly to the comforter still piled on the floor. “Star above, Niko, you could have warned me! It’s bad enough I’ve had you and Adira tromping in here without a moment’s notice. I don’t need the queen seeing me naked on top of everything else.”
Niko obliges with a light shrug, chucking the crumpled blanket back at me. “Who am I to deny my queen the sight of such beauty when she’s spent her life starved of it?”
I scoff at his ridiculousness, tucking the blanket up to my chin as he rises to fetch Willa. I try to remind myself of Niko’s words—my heart has not changed with the loss of my magic—though the sentiment slips as soon the moment Willa appears in the doorway, her face blanched white at the sight of me.
If I had my magic, I could reach for her guilt. I could lighten her sorrow and her horror. I could wrap it around her like this comforter, warm and thick, and keep her from shattering beneath it all.
But as it is, I can only watch as she drinks in the marred state of my face. The leaking wounds, and discolored bruises spreading across skin like a grotesque painting.
Your heart. Your heart,I remind myself. I don’t need magic to comfort someone—I never have.
But Willa is already gone, a soft sob echoing in the air behind her.
Chapter forty-two
Ithought I was done running, but the instinct is buried in my muscles, dormant until my body senses a threat. My body doesn’t understand—Iam the threat.
I am the one who ruins everything I touch; the one who destroyed something as beautiful as Sam’s magic. Adira told me he’s struggled with the loss of his magic, but seeing it was something different. A light has gone out in Sam’s eyes. A light I extinguished.
And worse—the shadow awoke in the presence of what it stole. Ravenous for more, more, more.
It doesn’t matter whether the shadow belongs to me or to the island. It only matters that I keep it from hurting anyone else. So, I run.
I tear through the Grove, past the tinkling laughter of children and the curious stares of the Silva Lucai. Past the Lunaedon carriage we traveled in, and into the shade of the forest beyond the tree-city. Will-o-wisps scatter in alarm at the sight of me, too loud, too untethered for their calming presence. Beasts ofall sorts slink into the darkness, as if they know I am a greater threat than even their fangs.
I don’t have a direction in mind. I just run—run until my legs cramp up and my back aches. Until my feet are sore and sweat dampens my hair. I push myself further, faster, relishing in the discomfort. I deserve to feel it. All of it.
My breath saws in my lungs as I reach a small clearing, my legs giving out beneath me. I tumble gracelessly to the ground, scraping my palms and knees on the sharp rock. Flipping over onto my back, I stare up at the sun and scream, as blood runs freely from the new wounds. Because even in this, my body will betray me. After a few moments, it will heal and the pain will be gone. And it is never enough to soothe the ragged edge of my regret.
I scream up at the sky until my throat goes hoarse; blind myself with the sun until every blink is painful; until I can no longer see anything but a blurred myriad of colors that no longer make sense.
I don’t know how much time passes before I realize where I am—Niko’s hidden spring.
Steam rises from the calm water, and I focus on the soft hissing sound of it instead of the ragged tenor of my breathing. A few will-o-wisps trickle down from the tree boughs above, and I resist the urge to scream again and scare them off.
They drift over my skin and tangle in my hair, their low hum easing the unbearable tightness in my chest. And after a few minutes, the pressure of the shadow’s hunger abates enough that I can breathe around it.
I sense Niko before I see him, as the moment he steps into the clearing, the will-o-wisps scatter, darting back into the haven of the leaves.
“How’d you find me?”
His movements are near silent as he sits beside me, but for the soft slither of his death over the rock. Curling his long legs beneath him, he shrugs with a low chuckle. “Didn’t have to. I’ve been following you since the Grove. I had no idea you were so inconveniently fast.”
“Stalking women in the woods, huh? You’re such a creep.”
The words are snide and sarcastic, even as my throat grows thick with gratitude. No matter how far I run, Niko will chase me, and there is comfort in that. There is no escaping death, no deciding you will not yield to it when it decides you belong to it—and I will always belong to him.
“What can I say? You’ve brought out my inner animal since the moment you straddled me in my own dining room with a blade to the throat.”
“I didnotstraddle you,” I huff, finally daring to look at him.
He is as smug and beautiful as ever, his skin somehow even paler in the sunlight than it is in the starlight. “Hmm,” he hums, “I’m pretty sure you did.” He raises a suggestive brow. “Enthusiastically,as I recall.”
In spite of myself, a laugh trickles from me. “Your memory is going in your old age, Corpsey. Some might even call you senile.”
Niko grins, but the humor in his gaze quickly gives way to that sharp obsession I’ve come to know so well. I should brace myself against it—against its fervent determination—but instead, I let it crash against me. And indeed, his next words pierce deep, like he’s sent an arrow between my ribs.
