“No.”
In response to my denial, a new tone enters his voice that makes me shiver. “The power you control… you haven’t even asked about it…”
He’s mentioned it twice without explaining it, except to make it clear that it’s dangerous and unwanted and connected to the metal in my mother’s heart.
Maybe I should have asked.
Or maybe, like so many dark things about my life, I should not. Because power, of itself, is not important.
It is the choices of the wielder that matter.
Another protest rests on my lips, but that’s when it dawns on me that the echo has stopped. But why would it stop unless…
Unless…
He is already dead.
“You can’t die here,” I snarl at him, my teeth sharpening, my fear making me angry. “That’s a rule. No death.”
How dare he?Doesn’t he realize that if he dies, I can’t take my vengeance against him? I can’t punish him for hiding his wounds from me, or for keeping his true thoughts from me, or for trying to manipulate me into becoming something other than what I am?
Even as those furious thoughts rage through my mind, there is another that takes over.
I can’t lose him.
I may not have the full picture of what happened between him and my mother, but his story is far more complex than I ever could have imagined.
“No,” I say to him, a command. “You will not die. Not until I’m finished with you.”
I slide forward, wrapping my arms around his bloody torso, inhaling the dark scent of his skin, tasting the copper scent of blood in the air.
He doesn’t fight me, leaning into my embrace, his head lowering to my shoulder.
His left hand presses to my chest, the crown-shaped ring cold against my skin.
So is he.Freezing cold.
His lips are turning blue and his breath is frosting in the air.
“Take the crown,” he whispers. “Take it before it’s too late.”
Again, I prepare to rebuke him, but the room’s echo bursts into life, such a sudden influx of noise that I flinch.
“Take the crown,”it commands me. “Make it yours. Mold the living to match your will. Fight the old and find the new. Take control of the light and the?—”
I scream back at the room. “Fuck you! I’ll take the crown when I’m good and ready. Not when you want me to take it.Fuck you, you fucking fucker!”
Then I lower my head to Emil, whispering, “Fuck you, too, whoever you really are. Whatever your name really is. Fuck you for breaking my heart and keeping secrets from me and thinking you can die on me before I’m finished with you.” I gasp for breath as tears threaten to choke me. “Fuck you.”
He nods against my neck.
His skin is so cold where he touches me that I’m shivering and trying to produce enough body heat to stay warm.
“Temptation,” he whispers, his voice trailing off. “What will you do now, Darkness?”
A growl leaves my lips. “I’ll fuck with temptation, too.”
My declaration falls into silence.
