A wave of fuckingrage.
“Don’t you dare talk about him,” I growl, wondering just how quickly I can bury my nails in the sorcerer’s abdomen and heave out his guts. I’ll kill him. Right here and now. I’ll figure out a fucking way, so help me.
The sorcerer grins with maddening glee. “He was an experiment. A hypothesis I formed that, indeed, proved itself true. You would do anything for love, andof courseyou would. It’s your nature, my beloved wife. You have never been able to escape it.”
“You’re… you’re full of shit. Jacin saved me from being impaled by the debris of a shipwreck almost nine years ago. I didn’t evenknow youyet.”
“Oh yes. He was pure and good, and you sacrificed everything for him. My mistake wasn’t in your rescue; it was in killing him afterward. That’s why he had to stay alive when I brought him back. I knew my true power would lie in having his life inmyhands.” The sorcerer grins, and that day in Lucia—on the shore—returns to me with a sickeningcrack.
Jacin dying. The sorcerer appearing. Selling my soul to save the boy I loved.
Then, the sorcerer resurrecting him as amerman. The sorcerer wrenching us both away to his fucking castle where I would live in the tower and Jacin would—
Jacin would guard it.
Guardme.
For eight fucking years, I saw Jacin in the walls and the floors and the ceiling. Every day. Every hour. He was right there, but he couldn’t speak to me. I wasn’t allowed to see him unless the sorcerer was present. And I knew—Iknewthe sorcerer was torturing us both. Forcing Jacin to watch my torment. Forcing him to remain still and silent. My hands clench into fists. My shackles clang as I tremble now.
“It hurt you, didn’t it?” the sorcerer purrs. “When I told you that you could race to your freedom if—and only if—you killed the boy yourself? Part of me thought you might kill yourself instead, but you have always been too selfish for that. Haven’t you? No matter how much you love someone, you always love yourself more.”
I shake all over. I can’tstopshaking. Nausea rises up my throat, burns my tongue, but I can’t open my mouth to puke.
“You carved out Jacin’s heart, and you didn’t even stop to mourn him.”
The temple spins around me. I almost wish the floor would open up and swallow me whole, but I can’t bear to let the sorcerer live. “Stop,” I whisper—gasp. “It—it was a mercy.”
“No. It wasn’t.” The sorcerer crouches before me, gently cupping my cheek until my head tips back, and I’m staring into those horrible bronze eyes. “It was your choice, Zephyra. All of this hasalwaysbeen your choice.Youpicked up that knife.Youpressed it into his chest.Youtore through his flesh, andyoucarved out his heart. Because youwanted to. And what did you do after that? Did you weep? Did you hesitate?” He shakes my head for me. “No. You ran.”
My muscles seize, and I try to force the sorcerer away. But my shackles tighten. They tighten, and I… I’ve spent six months repressing this. I can’t… I can’t remember it now.
Blood on my hands. A chasm in Jacin’s chest. His eyes are wide with anger, with sadness, with betrayal. My betrayal. The barnacles on Jacin’s flesh vanish when he dies, and his tail returns to legs. He looks exactly as he did that day he died on the isle’s beach. I drop the knife. My shackles unlatch. They open and fall to the floor.
Jacin is dead.
Jacin is dead, and—I have to run. Away. Now.
Without turning back, without glancing at him for another second, I flee for the door of the castle. The sorcerer counts slowly behind me before calling, “Do not worry, Zephyra. I will find you. And once I find you, we shall finally be wed.”
My heart aches and aches and aches. I picture Jacin’s pearl-white hair. His easy smile. His roguish laugh. I remember his viscera on my hands. I killed him. I didn’t stop to mourn. I refused to allow myself to ever think about it again. Some part of the sorcerer is right—I wanted to kill Jacin because it meant my freedom.
I murdered the boy I loved to save myself.
And I would’ve done it whether he was a prisoner… or not.
“You are a wretched, wretched girl,” the sorcerer says. “And that is why I love you.” His magic curls withering ivy around my feet until I can’t move. Can’t blink or open my mouth or even cry. “Jacin’s death taught me something very valuable. It will always be love with you. Love for a stranger.” The sorcerer tilts my head toward Gavriall, who holds his shattered knee and rocks back and forth in agony. “Love for a kingdom you have never even seen.” He moves my head toward Amaya next. She searches the floor for her eyeball, her unseeing gaze still weeping blood. “Love for a friend.” Vesper now, who claws desperately at the cage around her face, her tail nailed to the floor. The sight of each carves into my bones. Ithurts.
And I know where he’ll force me to look next. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to think about what I’m losing.
I have no choice, however. The sorcerer forces me to look right at the dying warlock. “Love for asoulmate.”
Arion’s breath is feeble. He hunches against the wall, folded in on himself, straining for one of the weapons discarded on the floor. We both know it won’t help. We’re all as good as dead. Hopelessness pricks my chest with sharp claws. But I don’t want to succumb.
I ran away. I fought for so much.
I have nothing.
The sorcerer’s magic releases me, releases its hold on my limbs and mouth, and I taste the hatred on my tongue. The panic and agony and terror I’ve felt for eight fucking years. “Jacin is dead. Is that what you want me to say? I loved him, and I killed him. Ikilled himto get away fromyou.” My voice cracks with shame. Guilt. I hate myself. I have hated myself for so long. But I still hate the sorcerer more. “So what does any of this have to do with Mortem’s heart?” I rasp, refusing to cry as the sorcerer ruthlessly squeezes my cheeks. “Get it yourself. Take it. Kill us. End the fucking dramatics before you bore us to the Fathoms. I know what I did. Ilivedit. I don’t need a fucking history lesson about your stupid games.”
