Elder Branche summons the flames higher still. “Your father cannot save you, Arion. He is dead. He has been burned with the rest of the rot. Save yourself. Banish your emotions, embrace the pain, anduse your magic. You do not need emotions. You are more than your impulse. Be great, Arion, and save yourself.”
I am Warlock Arion Stone, more legend than man, and I sold my emotions for power long ago. But—I stare at the black veins twining down my arms—I still cannot escape mortality. I’m dying.
I’m dying, I don’t know the way forward, and the mermaid,Zephyra, is destroying my life.
Thinking her name ignites the blood in my veins, the cord between us stretching an impossible distance as I fly far above the sea. She has become the bane of my existence. Her foul mouth and pink cheeks, her dazed eyes and feral moans—it’s a curse. The image of her writhing against the magical thrusts of my phantom fingers, whispering my name over and over and over as if in prayer, plagues me. I can’t forget it. Can’t stop thinking about her, about lastnight, about talking, sharing that bottle of wine, whispering our secrets, and then…
Fuck.
I wanted her. So badly it hurt like a knife carving through my ribs. Even the gentle hitch of her breath shot straight through me. I wanted to drag her forward, to drive into her with careless abandon, to make her scream my name again and again. I wanted to never stop.
That’s the fucking problem.
I keepwanting. Warlocks do not want. We are not even meant to feel. She’s undoing me. This bond—it’sdestroying me. I will not be beholden to anything, not even this fucking life debt.
I cannot touch her again. I cannot fuck her.
I will not throw my life away for a mermaid.
I am Warlock Arion Stone, and I do not want for anything. I only need—the heart, my life, immortality. I need to stay alive. I need power. Everything else cannot, and does not, matter.
So I return my attention to the wall of Tempest. Tornados dance and weave between one another, seemingly at random. Lightning strikes brick. Wind continues churning the surrounding seas. The cult will be waiting—weather won’t frighten them away. They’ll have taken to the wall, or perhaps to the shore just ahead of it, which means we cannot move on land. We have to cross the skies, over the wall, and then we’ll swim to the ruins.
Zephyra will be pissed when I tell her we’re going to fly. She’ll stomp her feet and try to fight me, but I don’t care. She’s not in charge here. And Gavriall—I growl just thinking of the criminal. He’s an idiot for joining us, and I don’t trust his motivations for a second. Rot is rot, and a criminal remains a criminal until the day they cease to exist. I won’t protect him just so he can betray me at the end of this and take the heart for himself. If he has to die, so be it. I roll my shoulders back and lift my chin to the stormy horizon. If either of them have to die so that I can survive,I don’t care.
I am a warlock. Gavriall is a criminal. And Zephyra is a mermaid.
There is no other way.
I’ll give them the morning to prepare for an intense few days oftravel. Zephyra will need to chart us a path through the Sol and tell us everything she knows about the monsters that dwell within it. And then, we leave. We find that fucking heart. I crack my knuckles and relish the sting of pain.
“Your father cannot save you, Arion. He is dead. He has been burned with the rest of the rot. Save yourself. Banish your emotions, embrace the pain, anduse your magic. You do not need emotions. You are more than your impulse. Be great, Arion, and save yourself.”
The boy’s skin blisters and bubbles. Flesh begins to melt in congealed puddles on the cold, damp floor. But his crying does not stop the flames or the elder warlock; it only encourages them. He sucks in a breath and squeezes his eyes shut tight. He burns. It hurts. He’s going to die. Just like his father. Broken skull. Brains. Blood, blood, blood.
No.
No, he won’t let himself die. He cannot become his father.
Pain curls hot claws around his thighs now, and hefeelsit—only the agony. Not the sadness or the fear. He immerses himself in the flames until he has no choice but to scream. To erupt. With a wild roar, magic explodes outward and douses the fire. It shatters the windows of the highest tower. It quakes underfoot. It snaps the rafters in two. The boy’s skin heals almost instantly as he tumbles to the floor and catches himself. Elder Branche nearly careens off the broken rafter, but the boy catches him too.
His chest heaves with pain and exhaustion, but the boy palms the floor. It is cold now. Covered in a layer of frost. But the boy is safe. The boy is safe, and so is the elder warlock, and the fire is gone. He is not his father. He is better. So much better.
The pain leaves too, drains out of him with each new breath. He did it. The boy did it.
“Great, indeed, Arion,” Elder Branche says, moving to stand over him once more. “Very impressive.”
He should banish the pride the moment it sparks inside him—but he doesn’t. For a moment, a secret second, he cherishes it. All he wants is to do good, to help this city, to please the elders who took him in. And finally, he has. This new warmth in his chest does not feel like fire; it does not hurt. So he embraces it, and he smiles.
I did not endure all those months of torture for nothing. I willhave Mortem’s heart. I will restore my place in the kingdom, and I will become a god among men. And in years, Zephyra will become nothing but a memory. Distant. Hazy. Forgettable as everything else.
Satisfied, I begin a gentle descent toward the sea, but—
Someone screams. The cord tightens, flashes ice-cold, and my heart plunges to my stomach with an explosion of pain.Fuck.I stop breathing. Stop thinking. It can only mean one thing.
She is in danger.
Immediately, I dive down, back into the sea, and follow the leash of our bond. Blood colors the waters red. My chest begins to ooze. And I know—
