I refuse to look away from it, even as her hand flies to her throat. I force myself to witness every bit of her hurt, to watch as the miniscule bit of faith she still had in me flickers out for good.
I’ve done this for you,I want to say.Everything horrible thing I’ve done has been for you.
But the words remain trapped in my throat like fragments of broken glass, impossible to swallow and far more impossible to speak.
Willa’s wound yawns opens and blood stains her skin, as her fingers scraped blindly through the air, straining toward me. I’ll never know if it’s comfort or revenge she reaches for, only that when my name laces her rough exhale, I hate this starforsaken kingdom so fiercely, I think it’ll consume me whole.
It has stolen so much. I’ll be damned if I let it drain Willa. Even if it means she’ll hate me forever.
I dig my fingers into my thighs to keep myself from throwing myself at her feet and begging her forgiveness. Willa said herself she has no need of a hero, and I’m willing enough to be her villain, even if it kills me. Or worse—makes me wish I was dead.
Willa’s eyes flicker shut and with a whimper of pain that I feel in my soul, she collapses against my chest. Her blood is warm and sticky between us as I cradle her gently, scooping her up into my arms despite how they tremble. At my touch, her shadow flickers out, absorbing into her skin like it was never there. I find no relief in its temporary absence, only the agony of its return if I fail.
Willa’s head lolls, her mouth going slack, and I feel the agony of that, too. Of hating howsmallshe looks—of being the one who’s made her this way.
Marina filters into view, the blood-stained knife she used to slit Willa’s throat still in her hand. Her delicate features are emotionless and remote, as she returns the blade to a sheath at her thigh.
Let’s go,she signs.We don’t know how much time we have before her body repairs itself.
I nod, swallowing down the bile filling my mouth. My ribbons are frenetic; they skate over Willa like they can somehow give life instead of take it, and I don’t have the energy to keep them from her.
The carriage is outside.Marina’s eyes dart to the corridor beyond my chambers.We need to be careful not to wake Tiernan. He’s grown protective of the queen in your absence, and I don’t think he’d appreciate us seducing and stabbing his chosen sovereign.
“The boy has never had the stomach for mutiny and betrayal,” I reply with weathered affection, as Tiernan’s loyal heart has always been what I admire most in him. It is why he was such a terrible Strayed, and also, such a good friend.
One of the only things he doesn’t have a stomach for,Marina signs before pressing her hand to the door and slipping out into the corridor.
The Lunaedon is quiet, the rasp of our breathing and the faint flutter of Willa’s heartbeat the only sounds of life. The soft light of the lanterns flicker as we pass, their flames winking out and relighting as if in greeting. Despite the horror of the circumstances, as I tread down the thick rugs of the corridor with Willa in my arms—as the sparkle of Letum filters through the windows, illuminating the marble in shades of starlight—something in me releases.
I’d been too quick to give up my home—had been unwilling to even see the Lunaedon as a home at all, no matter how many wonderful times I shared within its walls. Joking with Sam and Tiernan, sparring with Marina; dining beneath the womb of stone branches on nights when laughter had been as plentiful as the liquor.
I never thought I deserved my friends’ loyalty, and so it had been easy to give up. I had only seen what lay in death rather than what bloomed in life.
You are worth more than the pieces of yourself you can tithe.
Willa’s words to me on the balcony have been a constant mantra. I have etched them into the beat of my heart, sung them softly in my most desperate moments. I have taken them into my soul and reshaped myself around them. But even as I have tried to stay true to them, moments like this one make it feel impossible.
Willa never wanted me to die for her. She wanted me to live for her. I know that now.
But how am I to hold on to life, when I would give it all up to save hers?
“What…the fuck…are you doing?”
We’re only a few steps from the doors to the courtyard when Tiernan’s voice echoes from behind us. Our footsteps were near silent, but Tiernan’s penchant for quiet observation is both what kept him alive for so long as a Strayed, and what nearly doomed him on multiple occasions. He’s never quite learned when to let things go.
Slowly, I turn toward him, almost slipping in the small pool of Willa’s blood that’s gathered in our short time standing still.
“Tiernan.” I incline my head in greeting, my heart expanding at the sight of him. Ears slightly too big for his head, floppy auburn hair, and a mouth normally twisted with humor now pressed thin in fury as his eyes rove over Willa’s lifeless form. “I see we’ve abandoned any royal pleasantries in my year away.”
Tiernan’s gaze narrows. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he says, his mutilated tongue stumbling harshly over the words. “What the fuck are you doing,Your Majesty?”
He draws his sword, and star above, I love him for it—for not giving a shit I’m the Lord of Death and could decay him where he stands with less than a thought; for protecting Willa regardless of the consequences, just as I hoped he would in my absence.
“What’d you do to her, Niko?” he demands, striding forward and leveling the longsword at my throat.
My death strains toward him, and a guttural groan escapes me as pain flashes through my nerves. It’s all I can do not to drop Willa as I struggle to wind it back toward me; as I keep it from drinking in everything vibrant that exists in Tiernan.
Tiernan’s sword remains steady as he watches me fight against my own magic, and I don’t know whether to be grateful or furious he still trusts me not to harm him.
