I was relatively certain the fae prince had been waiting for me outside of the bathhouse, which meant Maura had expected me to escape, as well. And I would never know if I could have bested the prince and his guard, because Garrick had shown up.
Did any of my victories actually belong to me?
Garrick knocked his fist against the wall. “Time is up,” he said.
That was not the sound of his fist, I realized. It was the pounding of footsteps overhead.
I did not need further convincing. I had my familiar. It was time to get out of Balar Shan and put this wretched place firmly in the past. Once we were in the next temple, we’d be safe enough. Even Maura and the fae king would not dare to enter. And if they were waiting for us on the other side of the Peace Gate?
I shook my head hard enough that my neck cracked. A problem for later.
We retraced our steps back to the death-cell at the edge of the spiral-built palace.
Can you fly?I asked Isanara. She’d been in that cell for days, unable to work her wings.
Do not embarrass us both with stupid questions.
I leaned over the edge.
It was at least a hundred feet straight down into the icy depths of the Northern Death. I would not survive the fall. I’d never be able to control my power with enough nuance to master the waves. I’d turn the water that filled my lungs to ice and suffocate just the same.
But the palace was coated in ice, the bright colors of the spires overhead leached of life by the sheen of frost that covered everything. Possibilities called to my power. A staircase of ice formed in my mind. A whip of my hand, and it would be reality. I’d have to climb up to the edge of the cliff. It was a long way… hundreds of feet. But the other option was an upward climb in reverse of how Garrick and I had come down, but much higher and with fae guards in pursuit.
I lifted a hand, looking for steadiness. Garrick was there, but I reached for the wall instead.
For a brief moment, he let me see the disappointment in his eyes. Then he hid it away, the expert at dissembling.
“Go now,” he said. He wiped the blood on his greatsword against his pant leg and turned in the direction of the footsteps, ready to cover our retreat. But he cast a glance over his shoulder—more than a glance. A lingering look, pointed not at my hissing dragon or the howling water beyond, but at me.
There was something in the set of his shoulders, the resigned finality as he turned away…
He was not coming with us.
Good. He belongs here.It was not Isanara’s voice in my head, but my own. The dark, angry, broken parts. The parts that he had broken.
And still, for some reason I could not fathom, I opened my mouth and said, “A gate is always near. A god is always watching. They will not let you stay away from the Gates forever.”
The gods always demanded their due. When Nimra walked away from the Sacrifice Gate, it was only to face her owneventual death. It had been weeks. Surely she was dead already. Garrick had taken the same oath I had upon entering the temple at the Mercy Gate.
Why stay? My traitorous mind asked. Why do I care? My pain argued back
Garrick didn’t turn to look at me, but we were angled enough that I could see his little smirk. It seemed forced.
“Then let’s hope that you can get through the last two before the gods claim their due,” he said. “My mother is here. She is the reason I made the bargain. If I leave, he will punish her.”
He. The fae king. Garrick’s father. And his mother, the one who’d been raped by the king. She was the reason he’d made the bargain.Thebargain. The one that had made him betray me.
I’d betrayed my coven to save Kyrelle, my sister’s last living descendant in Velora. How was that different?
Because it fucking was. And if it wasn’t… this was not the time to sort that out. I had to get out of Balar Shan. Everything else could wait. Garrick could stay here and rot, groveling on his knees before his father and Maura. I was going back to the Seven Gates with my familiar. I shivered at the cold that swept in from the open cell-wall, reminding me where my path lay.
“Or you could stay.”
His voice held whispers of silk and screams of pain. It should have repulsed me, but instead I recognized it. Something inside of me sprang to life at its sound. My anger ate thatsomethingalive.
“You,” I snarled. “I told you to get out of my mind.”
The Dark God laughed easily, as if I was not standing with an icy precipice on one side and my halfling ex-lover on the other. He stepped out of a pocket of shadow over Garrick’s shoulder, dressed in all black finery, every angle of his tailored vest sharp, and the leather of his boots shiny. Darkness given shape.
