Niko goes perfectly still. Even his ribbons stall in the air, and though I know I haven’t frozen time, it feels like I have—like one movement will shatter the moment into fragmented pieces. Pieces I may never get back.
His breathless words, soft and measured in the darkness, suggest he feels the same. “Anchor the island…” he repeats faintly. Despite the gravity of the circumstances, I nearly smile at the fact I’ve rendered him speechless. “…with you.”
Now the words spill from me like a dam fractured. “You saw to my true heart in this very cave. Its dark needs and selfish wants, and I…I wantyou.You by my side for an eternity. Loving you has torn me apart and rebuilt me as something better. Something stronger. You have showed me that truly beautiful things are only beautiful because of the pain that wrought them. My magic…life, creation, possibility…none of it means anything without death.”
Niko’s lips are parted, like his last breath was stolen and he cannot inhale another. I know the magnitude of what I ask—binding himself to his pain for eternity. Binding himself tome.And though I am terrified of his answer, I push forward anyway. And it might be the bravest thing I’ve ever done.
“You have never been my equal, Corpsey. You’ve always been my counter. My perfect balance. And I think we found each other through time and worlds and dreams for a reason. I think the island—I think the universe—needs us both.”
Niko still doesn’t speak, and as he watches me with an indecipherable look, fear pulses through me. Sticky, viscous. Thesame sort of fear that would have mired me inside it only a few months ago. Fear of not being enough. Of failing those I love.
But now, I raise my chin. Queen of Dreams and Nightmares. Consort of Death and Peace.
Niko clears his throat, his death coming to life like he’s woken from a trance. My muscles tense in anticipation of his answer.
“You have craved power your entire life, Willa,” he begins slowly. “You have fought and scraped and clawed for what you have. Are you—are you saying you would…you would now cede that power to—” His voice cracks with emotion, and for a moment, he appears entirely overcome. “—to me?”
I dare to look at him, the tears shining in his eyes an echo of my own, and thank the star above for pulling me across worlds to him. The King of Carrion, a man who understands me so fully, he understands my request is not a plea to be saved. Niko sees it for what it truly is: an offering of the deepest faith. The most abiding love.
Because he’s right. I have spent my existence fighting to never give another power over me again. But just as I’m offering it to Niko, his acceptance is an offer in return. An equal sacrifice, as it would mean committing to his pain for the rest of eternity.
The price may be too high, and I’ve promised myself to let him go if he decides it is.
Niko’s answer lies in the way he threads his fingers through my hair to drag my mouth to his; in the reverent sound rolling from his tongue to mine. Something electric shoots between us at our touch, a jolt of lightning beginning with the symbiotic beats of our hearts and exploding in a shower of sparks dancing over our skin.
We are the beginning and the end, creation and death. One is nothing without the other.
When Niko pulls back to lower himself to his knees, I think my heart will explode at the sight of him before me. The abidingdark of his eyes against pale skin. The beautiful tattoos crawling up his throat. The sharp angle of his cheekbones, and the luscious curve of his mouth.
The possession of death, the edge of destruction. The relief of silence, the beauty of comfort. My king embodies all of it. He cracked me open and lit up the shadowed recesses I’d been too scared to face. He taught me to love my dark without shame, and to be vulnerable enough to allow the light free.
So, I get on my knees with him. In gratitude. In worship.
When his mouth meets mine, I feel all of it. The pain and messiness of what it took both of us to get here.
I slice my palm and he slices his, onyx blood mingling with scarlet as our fingers intertwine.
Together, we rise to our feet. My magic glows at the surface of my skin, the void of his death slithering over it. And it is the most beautiful sight—the rightness of the antithesis—that another tear runs down my cheek. For I see there is no shame in the darkness. It must exist to define the light.
We step to the edge of the water. And with the Carrion King’s hand in mine, together, we leap into the heart of Letum.
Chapter fifty
Ihave felt fear so many times in my life.
Others’. My own.
I know the sticky, congealed feel of it on my skin, the acrid taste on my tongue. I know the way it pulls time taut, either miring a body in place or propelling it forward. We think of fear as a dark thing, a black thing, but it is an electric green. Unnatural and sickly, a color that burns your eyes as it flashes, disorienting and blinding.
I don’t need my magic to recognize fear; I only need to watch as the Strayed rise up, their decaying bodies careening into one another, climbing over shoulders and heads in a chaotic attempt to scale the Nyawa. They stab swords into the thick bark, the silver sap pouring like blood from the wounds.
The scream that sounds from high in the branches, pierces through me like an electric shock to the heart, for I would recognize it anywhere. It is Addy who screams like she’s the one being stabbed, her agony harrowing and raw. She is connectedto every part of the wild, and as such, she feels each of the Nyawa’s wounds as if they are her own.
I burst into movement, skirting around the edge of the chasm. The Strayed hack more frantically, some scaling the trunk while others race up the stairs. They are met with the spears of the Silva Lucai, but they are not slowed.
The Eternal Children were terrible when they were alive, moving through pain like they could not feel it. But now—now it is like nothing I’ve ever seen. I slice my sword straight through a neck, sending the head rolling beneath the undergrowth, and still the body claws toward the Nyawa.
The Strayed move in an undead mass of decaying flesh and clawing fingers. They scurry up the bark of nearby trees; they race between bridges, their eerie cackles echoing through the night. My heart pounds roughshod against my chest as I hack my way through them—cleaving my sword through sinew and bone alike, gore splashing over my face and dripping into my eyes.
