“Proud?”She charges toward the bars, slinging her fist through a wide slit, landing a blow to Triche’s aquiline nose. It crunches. Her hand comes away hot with his blood. He stumbles back, dropping his torch and throwing light into the dark corridor. There are arched doors there that look like the entrance to the white detention room. She’s somewhere in the basement of Cygnus.
Triche gathers himself and picks up his torch. The light dances in the fresh blood dripping down his face. In an instant, he reaches through the bars and takes her by the throat, squeezing hard.
“See? You like vengeance more than you’re willing to admit. Enjoy it, Starling. Together, we are destroying the god of stars and nightmares. We are killing the god who stole our fates from us.” He tosses her neck out of his grip.
She coughs and spits and heaves. “I don’t want to be a killer.”
“You already are. I saw your every sin when I tasted your soul. This is your punishment. Take it with dignity.”
He turns to leave but looks back. There’s a softness in his eyes.
“If it means anything to you, he tried to save you.”
“Cassius?”
Triche blinks. “No.”
She freezes. “Sidarphion.”
“He begged. The god of stars and nightmares got on his knees and begged for me to let you go.” He leans in and laughs. “But trust me, it’s not you. He needs you to live in order to save himself. You are not special. You’re a pawn, and I have no choice but to trade you for godhood. You are the final key in my quest to abandon my mortality and conquer the self.”
“That’s what you think you’re doing?”
He nods. “A human body is a tomb in which the soul rots. The body is plagued with vices, disturbed by mortal desire. ButI have mastered my passions. I am ascending mortality in its entirety.”
“You are a fool and a master of nothing. You are a slave to your own appetite. A prisoner within yourself.”
“Says the dying girl who’s locked in a cage.” He laughs. “Goodbye, Claudia.”
He leaves her there to rest, and to rot.
POISON
The weaker the soul, the weaker the magic. The stronger the soul, the closer to godhood.
The Book of Cygnus: Ascension 4:33–34
Hours, or maybe days later—Claudia can’t be sure—Triche has not returned for her.
Why would he? His work is done. The only thing separating him from godhood is the time it takes for Claudia to die.
She’s stubborn, though. Too stubborn to let the poison take her quickly. She’s forcing herself to fight the spell and stay alive if only to spite him.
It’s hard to take deep breaths. Her throat strains to open for the air. The bruises from where the High Sage choked her are bone-deep. Her back feels like it’s on fire. The blood has dried andthe spell along her spine burns like venom. Deep within her body, somewhere between her heart and her stomach, she can feel her soul hardening into stone. She feels the hollow bite marks resonating with energy, like caverns echoing every little sound.
She wishes she’d studied harder, gotten smarter, given herself a fighting chance. But all this time, she’s been focusing on the wrong enemies, building an arsenal of weapons against the wrong threats.
There’s this strange, sharp tug at her heart. It started as a pinch when she found out the truth about what really happened to Sidarphion. Feeling empathy for the god who bit her soul is the last thing she expected, but now, captured and cursed by the same man, she understands how he feels. She knows why he did what he did.
If she were trapped in this place for one hundred years, she would do the same.
She would lie. She would kill.
This doesn’t mean she forgives him. It doesn’t change the fact that Sidarphion lied to her, tricked her, and fated her to murder the man she loves.
But her hatred wanes.
Maybe that’s a side effect of dying—all that fury and fire and murderousness starts to freeze and fall away like snow.
