Nothing happens.
I always feel his magick. I taste it. Smell it. But there isn’t even a hint of it in the air.
The prince, still sitting on his heels at Thamaos’s marker, laughs. He holds up his hand, turns it, studies it like it’s an appendage he’s never before had. “Power of the Dread Viper,” he says to Alexus. “I suppose this is a siphon I need to keep on hand. If only he could power me a bit more strongly, I could march down to the City of Ruin and take it with ease.”
Alexus stands so still, so quiet, so stunned. Only his shoulders move as he breathes.
“You bastard,” Neri says. “Prince with no name. I can tell you who you are.”
Every eye turns to Neri, every breath held. Especially the prince and Fleurie. She looks utterly captivated.
Neri stalks out of the grove to the small clearing that looks over the City of Ruin. He moves past Colden and Fleurie, then he gives Vexx—whose torch is still burning—a grim look and peers up at the head on his staff.
He smiles. “You’re in trouble.” Then he turns toward the prince.
The prince doesn’t seem scared at all. More intrigued.
“Do you want your name?” Neri says.
The prince spits in Neri’s face. “Like I would believe you.”
Neri laughs and wipes his hand from his eyes to his chin. “You should. I was there. I didn’t know you well, but I knew of you.”
Thamaos’s bones twitch even more, as though he’s trying to stop Neri from talking.
“You realize that I might be a god spirit,” Neri says, “but I can still bring you much harm. Especially now that you’re out here unprotected.”
“I’m not unprotected,” the prince says. “You see, I think of these things.” He snaps his fingers to his right, where Fleurie sits and says her name.
She blinks at him and hesitates, as though unsure what to do.
“Fleurie, you have one second!” he screams in her face.
A familiar slice of fiery light cleaves the air, then they vanish. Her, the prince, Thamaos’s bones, and the light.
Things change so quickly then.
Alexus’s starlights fill the night, his power returned with the prince gone. I watch as Neri turns for Vexx, and Alexus runs toward Colden. Nephele and I bound out of the grove, and she goes to Colden too.
But I stop. I stop and face Vexx who’s being held by the throat in the air by Neri’s strong hand, so tightly that Vexx’s face is red even in the soft light. His steely stare meets mine, and the chance I wanted so badly finally arrives at my feet.
I stalk toward him and Neri and raise my hand, summoning my fire by the power of fulmanesh. If I had my dagger...
I shove past Neri and unbuckle Vexx’s sheath. I’m strapping it on my thigh when Alexus and Nephele shout my name.
When I turn around, I expect to see Alexus coming for me, but he and my sister sit with Colden, their horrified faces like moons in the darkness beyond them.
“Neri!” Nephele yells. “Protect her from this! Please! I’ll do what you want with this is over! Just… Please!”
Confused, I turn back around, and Alexus’s starlights hovering around me wink out.
I grab Neri’s wrist. I don’t know what Alexus is hiding from me, but Vexx is mine. After all he’s done? He’s mine.
“This is your kill, Raina Bloodgood,” Neri says, “Your revenge. I won’t take it.”
Icy light blooms from his chest. It isn’t much, but it’s enough that I finally glimpse what my love and my sister didn’t want me to see.
Vexx’s walking staff is leaning against the wide trunk of the tree, that head I always had to look away from still miserably intact somehow. But then I sense it.
