“You wouldn’t understand.” She coughs, then looks bewildered and a little bit scared. I wonder what sort of rearrangements have happened inside of her, organs and bones, muscle and fascia. “I made a promise lifetimes ago.”
“Some promises are not meant to be kept.”
“You would know about that, wouldn’t you.” She snarls as she says that. “Behold the queen of the hundred-year king who will not take her crown. Who are you to talk about vows?”
“Actually, asshole,” I retort, “that’s what I have planned for after this. After I take you, and that wormy, disgusting death goddess bitch, and stomp you out of existence. Crowns all around, Briar. I wish you could see it.”
“You should worry about what you’re going to see,” Briar shoots back. “The darkness will come alive. Death will sing.”
“But I’m the one with the pretty voice,” I say. “Didn’t you hear me howl?”
I don’t wait for Vinca to come back, to flicker into control of this body. I don’t have to consult with anyone to know that what she’s trying to do here is take over Briar so she can have a corporeal form at last. Vessels are temporary, Ariel said. What little I know about them is that a being like Vinca can make hers near invincible. If she wants.
Long enough to channel all her rage and fury into a world she wants to cast into darkness, anyway.
The presence of all the priests in this crater suggests to me that they all want exactly this.
The moon is high above us. We are situated in the center of the crater. I doubt very much that they put this altar here by chance.
This is the moment. It’s now or never.
No one else is close enough to do this. It’s on me.
I see every moment I had with Briar since I met her at the end of September. It all flashes through my head. Surly mornings in the kitchen. Her strange, halting invitations. That moment earlier tonight when she looked almost as if I’d actually shown her how to free herself when she took that beanie off her head.
I think about all the things I don’t know about her. The story of hers I wanted to learn. I want to know it even more now. How did she end up promising anything to a death goddess? Why would any fae—who live suchlong lives and can move in and out of worlds so easily—bother to give a promise when they’re far better at extracting them?
The moon beams down on us. I see the dislocated, discordant body in front of me ripple, nauseatingly. Then stretch in directions that should be impossible, especially all at once.
Time’s up.
I’ll tell the story of Briar, the dark fae who I should have gotten to know better, the way I want to, I suppose. I have to live to do it, however, and there’s only one way that’s going to happen.
I shift as I lunge, and I don’t go for the throat. Instead, I take one clawed paw and punch it into her chest. I go deep. I follow it with my snout, digging deep.
Things are jumbled around and not where they should be, but I know what I’m looking for, and I find it. I sniff. I open my mouth.
Then I rip her heart straight out of her chest.
I know it’s not right by taste alone, clear to me though I’m doing nothing but holding it in my snout. I can see it from Winter’s oracle perspective in my head. Smoking black. A piece of charred meat.
For a moment, everything seems to shake with indecision. Briar is Vinca again, and the goddess opens her mouth to scream, or maybe devour the world—
But then she drops, like a puppet with its strings cut, straight onto the ground.
And everything stops.
27.
Everything is quiet.
Too quiet.
The moon above us is the only thing that moves, something I can feel in increments inside of me more than see. Still, she reminds me the way she always does. Not just of who I am, but that my work isn’t done here.
This needs to be the end. I’m the one who will end it.
That’s the full Wolf Moon up there. I have a claim to honor tonight.
