Lux’s knees weakened when Artemis stepped to Corvin’s side. The healer’s hand rose, the needled point poised over the soft corner of his overlord’s eye.Wrong, wrong, wrong,beat her heart.
The needle plunged.
Corvin hissed a pained breath, but he did not move.
And Lux wondered how often he’d done this. How many pilfered souls resided within his rotted body.
Half of the syringe was injected before the needle was removed. Corvin exhaled, long and slow. “To harvest from the living is where true power lies.” He laughed this time when his opposite eye was punctured. “He didn’t want me to have his dreams? Now I will own his verysoul.”
The needle pulled free. Corvin sat up. Twin trails of scarlet trickled down his face. His eyes found hers, welling red.
Lux wished she could tear him apart. “You aredestroyingpeople. You have no right.”
But Corvin transformed before her. Gone was the grey cast and sloughing skin. In its place, Mothlock’s Overlord was again pale, frost-like, and made perfect.
Devil take me.
Around her, every collector lowered their hoods.
“I haveeveryright,” he bit out, and his voice was his own again. “We are brilliant. We are power. We arechosen. How can’t you comprehend it is only for humanity’s betterment that we do what we do? And I feel it!Finally.I have never been more whole than I am now. The curse is lifted, and I am made perfect, Necromancer. I am aSaint.” He swept nearer to her, his eyes bloodied but eager. “I wish you’d look around you. To realize what a travesty it is to watch brilliances be squandered or used for harm. To see books in the hands of those who cannot begin to understand them. This is my purpose, Lux.” His fingers gripped her chin. “I told you so that day on the cliffs.”
With the blood still fresh and wet against his skin, he pressed his cheek to hers. Into her ear, he said, “And now you may bear witness to the real extent of my brilliance.” When he pulled away, he left behind the scent of iron. Lux swallowed against the rising nausea, swiping at her skin with the back of her hand.
Corvin swept upward and onto the dais, pushing Shaw’s head aside before sitting. He eased into the seat. His eyes no longer bled fresh, and the cheek he’d pressed against hers was smeared. He looked maniacal and monstrous, his back pressed against a devilish throne.
“Behold your overlord now! Collectors. Lords.Doubters. Have I described enough the perfection that awaits you? I required the soul of my brother, a half stolen from me in the womb. But for you—you need only his blood. Alixsander.” Corvin gestured for his twin, and he came dutifully, sliding from the table. The wounds of Alix’s eyes were a mirror of his brother’s, though the blood on his cheeks was unmarred. When he drew within reach, Corvin gripped his wrist. With the opposite hand, the overlord removed a dagger from his cloak. A black handle—made from a devouring wood.
Lux’s teeth clenched.
Corvin drew the dagger’s tip shallowly over Alix’s palm. Red bloomed and dripped. He didn’t flinch.
Lux wanted to lunge at Corvin—to make ribbons of his skin—but all she could focus on was the welling of Alix’s hand. Her heart squeezed when Corvin’s mouth drifted nearer, and her attention riveted on the horror of it.
His lips pressed over his brother’s wound, his eyes on her. Until they weren’t.
They rolled back. For a brief moment, white was all she could see, and then his frost-like gaze returned.
And it was gleeful.
Corvin raised his voice and said, “Embrace perfection with me, Lords.” He nodded at Alix. “Go to them, Alixsander. Give up your blood. Wipe your blemish from their cursed souls.”
When that first collector dropped to his knees and drank, Lux thought this was surely the time she would be sick. Herskin flushed terribly hot. Her mouth filled again. She whipped around so she’d see no more.
She stared instead at the man upon the throne. At his blood-red mouth. He grinned at her and even his teeth were stained. And it was as she sought to look at anything else that she looked at Shaw. To his eyes, heavy-lidded. His breaths, not shallow but deep. Clearly drugged.
And to the syringe, poised as though forgotten beside his head.
Her own snapped up.
“It’s time you were mended, Lux. Which is it to be? The artist?” The syringe shifted closer. “Or have you got your eye on another brilliance?”
Everything inside her felt shriveled, cold and dark.Alone,beat her heart.
“Except we’re not alone. Will never be again. Carve me out or keep me. Either way, I am yours.”
Her nightmare sat draped over Corvin, its cracked nails trailing along his features in a horrid caress. Its face—herface—ruined as it was, nuzzled into him, inhaling deeply. Lux’s stomach turned further at the sight.
“This is the ritual you spoke of?” she said. “This is my cure?”
