"Does it matter?" Ruth steps closer, his boots silent on the bone-scattered floor. "You're already talking to demons and monsters. What's one more ghost?"
My hands curl into fists. "Why are you here?"
"I wanted to see you." His smile is sad. "It's been so long since we spoke, Arescaine. Did you ever think about me?"
Rage slams into me, sudden and violent. "You betrayed me! You put me in that dungeon.”
"I did it for love." Ruth's voice doesn't rise. "The same love that makes you lock pieces of yourself away to protect your wife.”
I take a step toward him. "Don't you dare compare what you did to—"
"To what? Your desperate scrambling to keep Rhianelle safe from yourself?" Ruth tilts his head. "I tried to resurrect Lilith. I failed. But at least I fought for the woman I loved instead of caging myself like a coward."
The memory slams into me.
Morsvyenn's throne room. Centuries after we'd locked Vlad in his casket to stop his rampage. Bas and Han had left to travel the world, to escape the weight of what we'd become. It was just Ruth and me then, trying to hold our kingdom together.
"I need to show you something," Ruth had said, his hand on my shoulder. "In the lower chambers. It's about the enchantress."
I'd followed him down. Down into the dark. And when the cell door slammed shut behind me, when the silver chains wrapped around my wrists, I'd seen the truth in his eyes.
"I'm sorry, brother," he'd whispered. "But I need your blood. Your power. It's the only way to bring her back."
I shake the memory away, focus on the phantom in front of me.
"You loved an enchantress who twisted us into monsters,” I spit the words. “Lilith who sacrificed innocents to create the Rhunhraefn and turned us into weapons."
"She gave us power," Ruth counters. “Lilith gave us immortality. She loved us in the only way she knew how."
“We were just her fucking tools."
"And Rhianelle isn’t using you?” Ruth's eyes gleam in the darkness. "What is she to you? A tool to feel human again? A pretty light to chase away the dark?"
"She's nothing like Lilith.”
"Don't you see, Svenn? You're doing the same thing I did.” Ruth's voice finally rises. “You’re trying to hold onto something that was never meant to be yours. The only difference is you're too afraid to admit what you really want."
“Shut up.”
“I know what you truly want.” Ruth laughs, and it sounds too much like the bond's laughter still echoing from the casket. "You want her consumed and so tangled in you that she can never leave. That's why you cage the parts of yourself that would devour her. Because deep down, you know if she saw all of you, she'd run."
"Stop." I growl.
"I loved Lilith the way you love Rhianelle. I would have burned the world to bring her back. And you, Bas, Vlad, and Han imprisoned her. You took the only thing I ever loved and locked her away in a realm I couldn't reach."
Ruth's face twists with old pain and rage.
"So yes, brother. I betrayed you. I tried to resurrect her with your blood and your power and I failed. But at least I was honest about my obsession. At least I didn't pretend to be noble while hiding a monster in a casket."
The words hit too close and too deep.
"Didn't Lilith deserve her champions' loyalty? Didn't she deserve our love after everything she gave us?"
"She made us into this!" I roar, lunging forward. "She twisted us, broke us, bound demons to our souls—"
My hands close on empty air.
Ruth is gone.
