“Go look. It’s in his jacket pocket. Inside. Left breast.”
There’s no limit to how hard I scold myself as I turn and go to Joran and haul him over to his back. At first, when I rummage around inside his jacket, I don’t feel anything. But then, there’s something small and hard.
I withdraw a necklace and pendant with the brightest red stone set into gold. There’s an odd light to it, a sort of pulsing I can feel against my palm.
“A magickal ruby?” I say. “Thamaos gave his bone for the God Knife’s blade, and you gave… a ruby? I’m confused.”
“It is no ruby.” His voice is deep and slightly annoyed. “It’s a piece of my heart.”
I bite back a laugh. “That would require you to actually possess a heart, Neri.”
He gives me an icy look. “I carved it out of my chest myself. My liegemen kept it for centuries. They were tasked with ensuring my resurrection if anything happened to me, and they failed. It’s been in Malgros all this time, in a temple near Village Hill, buried in a trunk beneath the sanctuary. I had Joran’s face and his body, and so I walked him into the temple one night while you all slept and took what I needed. It was far easier than I ever imagined. Humans are so simple.”
I study him, then the pulsating pendant. He’s serious. I’m holding a piece of Neri’s heart.
“If I make any sort of deal with you,” I say, “I am the one who sets the requirements. And there will be many.”
This is stupid. I’m stupid. Unless I play this very smart and use it to our advantage. Neri could be a weapon if I forced him to become one. Deals with gods are binding on both sides. I can bind him with servitude if I want.
His mouth crooks up. “Take the time you need to think up your requirements. We can discuss them when you choose. If I agree, then your king will be set free and on his way to safety within hours.” He holds up a finger. “But, you cannot tell Un Drallag or anyone else for that matter. That is a deal breaker.”
I think of everything he mentioned earlier. All the ways he’s helped us when he could’ve just as easily been much more of a bastard given that Alexus is in our band. He probably could’ve killed him if he caught him off guard. But he didn’t, and I don’t know what to make of that. Gods are vengeful, aren’t they? How has he sat and dined with Alexus? Saw to it he ate? That he lived?
I snatch my dagger from the ground and flick my hand through my construct. It stretches and disintegrates into sticky threads that fall to the ground and vanish, like pulling down a thick spider’s web.
“Get back where you belong,” I say to him, pointing at Joran as Neri steps closer.
He smiles when I slip the pendant over my head and tuck it beneath my jacket, and then he’s gone. I don’t even see the merge happen. Neri is standing before me one second, and the next he isn’t. Just like Joran is unconscious one second and the next he’s getting to his feet, not at all himself, but a vessel for the god spirit of the Northern lands.
“You first.” I sweep my hand in the direction of the street that leads away from Aki-Ra Quarter.
With a bewitching look that’s equal parts pompous and alluring, he starts walking back toward the city, back toward the inn. Back toward the people I love.
When he pauses for me to catch up, I flare a web of magick at him, and, though he laughs at me, he continues up the sandy road, leaving Aki-Ra in his wake.
I stay behind him as we sneak through the city, until we reach the inn. Even until we reach the top of the stairs and check on Raina, Alexus, Rhonin, and Hel. Even until we part and go to our own rooms.
And I watch my door, my hand around that godsdamn pendant, until I can’t hold my eyes open any longer.
Because I might make deals with gods, but I know better than to turn my back on a wolf.
53
RAINA
Rhonin steps into the hall, closing the door to Alexus’s room at the inn.
“He’s all yours,” he says, before taking Hel by the hand and walking her down the narrow corridor to his room.
I can’t help but smile at them, but then my nerves return. I feel differently than I did before all of this, the threat of losing Alexus too real, though I’m still letting the change settle within me. Taking a deep breath, I push through the door.
Alexus sits in a copper soaking tub arranged by Orlena, the room lit by three oil lamps. Most of the blood is gone from him, but the open wounds, bruises, and swelling remain.
It breaks my heart to see him this way, but I remind myself that I’m just here to heal him. Just here to make sure he’s okay.
He looks up from the water, his left eye swollen shut. “Are you all right?”
Me. Am I all right.
