He watches me with a wary gaze, his body tense like he’s waiting for the moment I take the words back. And it breaks my heart a little in the same way Niko always has. After all these years of him being a true friend to me, he still doesn’t believe he’d be worthy of the same.
“A breath,” I remind him.
He dips his head in understanding. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“The plague has been over for a year, Sammie. And yet, you hesitate. Why is that?”
Now, it is my turn to avoid his gaze, as his question teases my own emotions to the surface. A multitude of colors washed together, too many tastes and textures to discern any of them. More than three hundred years alive, and my own heart remains as foreign to me as a stranger’s.
It has always been easier to name another’s—to feel the things I have no claim to. Easier to dissect their pain, their hopes, their love, than pay any mind to my own.
“You make Willa as full as she makes you,” I finally answer, “whereas I have only ever worsened Adira.”
Niko’s eyes widen in fury. “Sam—”
I shake my head, gathering up Niko’s anger and his pain and his love and shoving them into the hole in my heart. He may be a masochist as Adira claimed, but he is far braver than me. He is inundated in his pain every day, while I spend my time hiding from mine within the shroud of others’ agony.
I shoot him a light smile. “The queen will be waiting for me. You should come to the revel.”
“I won’t ruin Willa’s moment with my presence. But…” Niko licks his lips, like he’s gathering his thoughts. “I will take a breath, Sam. Only a breath.”
Chapter twenty-nine
The Hollow City is magnificent.
Silks flows down the obsidian walls, reflecting the light of a thousand lanterns floating merrily throughout the videntis. The carved faces of the temples, and immaculate stone mansions, have all been shined to perfection, music and laughter spilling from their thresholds into the streets. The leaves of the morphellia reach toward the sounds of life, their emerald vines as stunning as any decoration.
I wander slowly through the corridors of the city, skimming my fingers across mural after mural. Revelries beneath ethereal night skies, painted in indigo and amethyst. Adventures beneath the heat of the sun, painted in warm tangerines and sunflower yellows. Sirens with their hair streaming around them in violet waters, their song a winding spiral of froth and foam. Nymphs in the forest, and dryads between the leaves. Will-o-wisps inthe branches and beasts in the shadows. The spears of the Silva Lucia in the Grove, and the wings of pixies in the Hollows.
My heart expands with each step, my own worries slipping from me as they’re replaced with the emotions each painting means to evoke. The pain of the past, the beauty of the future—all of it opens up inside me, spilling through my veins. Effervescent and satiating.
A year ago, I stood atop my apartment building certain I’d never hear music or laughter again—certain I was doomed to an eternal existence devoid of anything beautiful. Now, I am surrounded by it.
And though I’ve never held faith in anything spiritual, I offer a soft prayer of gratitude to the star above for this moment; for the small reminder of why I chose to anchor myself to this island. It had never been only about saving Niko; it had been taking something beautiful for myself as well. Something that can still be mine, so long as I give myself to it.
I meander through the twisting streets, sipping slowly on sweet wine. Past ornately decorated storefronts, and restaurants with tables overladen with delicious looking food. People and pixies and dryads mill around every level of the videntis, while sirens stream past the windows playing their own mischievous games.
I am tipping back the last few drops of spirits a half an hour later, when a painting stops me short. The piece is nearly three stories tall, towering over the edge of the videntis as if keeping watching over the Hollow City. But it isn’t its detailed grandeur, nor its immense size, that tangles my breath in my throat—it’s the subject.
The Carrion King.
Beautiful. Horrible. Kind. Ruthless. The painting captures the dichotomy of Niko exquisitely, encapsulated in such painstaking detail, for a moment, I feel unmoored by his presence. And evenfurther, by the clear feeling evident behind each brush stroke—reverence.Love.
Because despite the repercussions of Niko’s actions—the death, the plague—he will always be the man who saved them all from the Aeternalis.
Just as he will always be the man who savedmefrom a lifetime of numb existence, no matter what he’s done since.
Is that why I cannot seem to dig him from the marrow of my bones? Why I cannot extricate him from the threads of my heart?
Marina flickers into view beside me, her appearance so unexpected, I nearly trip over my own feet. My heart flies up into my throat as I catch the nearest part of the wall, steadying myself before I tumble headfirst into the gaping maw of the videntis.
The few times I’ve seen her in the past year, she’s been dressed for battle in black crafted leathers, her white-gold hair pulled tightly into a bun at the nape of her neck. Tonight, though, I’m struck dumb, as I take in the loose curls flowing down over shoulders left bare by a stunning dress. Made of black silk, it cinches at her tiny waist and flows softly to sweep over her bare toes. She looks ethereal in the light of the Hollows, like she was made to flit between the morphellia vines and dance beside the stars.
And even more beautiful than Marina’s dress, is what the distinct cut of it reveals. The neckline dips below her sternum, and the silk at the back of the dress gathers at the base of her spine, baring her gnarled scars to the world. As long as I’ve known her, she has kept the evidence of her torment hidden. But tonight, she wears them as she would fine jewelry—with pride.
Marina nods to the painting of Niko.He’d be horrified to see himself wearing that color.
