If winning involved killing Cruelty and Violence, all the fucking better.
I pulled the clunky, heavy limbs from the floor and slumped the dead girl onto the white square. The robed figure just vanished. There one minute, gone the next. How the fuck did Pain manage to stab one of these things…?
Questions for later. I pulled myself back into my own body and shuddered at the residue of dead things clinging to me. I was fine with death and gore and blood but beinginsidea corpse was straight up nasty.
While I was trying to avoid throwing up, our opponent advanced a black knight, and before Death could finish speaking his plan for the next move, Wil walked across the board.
“That works, I guess,” I muttered, straightening and relieved when the contents of my stomach didn’t spatter across the board. Although, it would have served the psychotic siblings right. “Can we all take a moment to fucking think before the next move?” I complained when the black bishop slid into the square two above Cat. So close that my skin itched, but it could only move diagonally so she was safe.
“We need to move this damn pawn,” Miz said tightly, glaring at the student in front of him. “Then I can move freely—”
I threw my hands up in exasperation when Wil madeanothermove. “Sure, kid, just fuck up everyth—”
A shout swallowed the rest of my words when he grabbed Cat by her shoulder and while she was still distant, fighting the chess board’s torturous magic, he shoved her onto a different square.
Right in the path of that black fucking bishop.
“Oh, you’re dead,” I snarled, tensing, but Madde was already blurring across the board, uncaring of how chess pieces moved.The square Cat fell onto was already occupied by a dead pawn; the sight made my stomach knot. I moved at the same time the others did, only Duncan remaining on his square with the pawns, staring sightlessly ahead.
Madde grabbed Wil’s head and snapped it, dropping him to the board, but it wasn’t enough. I pumped so much torment and magic into him that it hit his spirit and made himscreaminside the dying cage of his body.
I saw flickers of scenes, but I refused to feel sympathy. He wasn’t evil, but he was desperate, and it made him ruthless. Cruelty promised him a cure for his gambling addiction, and he would have doneanythingto get it. Even though she was clearly lying and using him. He threatened Phil, locked Cat inside Ford, terrorising her in secret. Then he lied to her fucking face.
I bared my teeth and forced his spirit to endure the same pain I felt ravaging my wife’s soul, but Wil’s suffering was tenfold. I wove torment into the spirit itself, bound it into the death that now was the only thing animating his soul, until every undying moment of his afterlife would be agony.
“Cat,” Madde said with a tremor of panic. “Lioness, open your eyes and look at me.”
I kicked Wil’s body away and took a step forward to reach my wife, but the moment my feet connected with the empty square, a vision rose up around me. And I couldn’t fuckingbreathewhen my mother walked towards me, an unfamiliar wariness in her eyes.
“You’ve disappointed me, Andres,” she said with a strain of aching emotion in her voice. It hit me like a slap and stung my own eyes with tears.
“Lo siento,” I rasped, dropping my eyes to the rich amber path underfoot. I didn’t need to look behind me to know our home was there. “I tried to save him,” I breathed, darting a glance up at my mother. “I tried.”
“Not hard enough,” she snapped.
She was right. If I’d been better, faster, stronger, my brother would still be alive. I wouldn’t have died trying to save him, and the memory of finding him bled out wouldn’t torment me even hundreds of years in the future.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. But it didn’t stop the pain expanding in my chest, breaking ground on a bigger home, until there was no room in me for anything else.
CHAPTER 38
DEATH
One moment I was crossing the board, reaching for Cat, the next I was stepping onto an unoccupied square and the high hedge and people around us wavered, replaced by another vision. I caught sight of a black pawn moving, opening up the path for the bishop to claim me unless I moved, then I collided with a solid wall.
It was only when I was hit by punches on every side, my body ice cold, that I realised I’d fallen into an ocean. Water attacked me, soaking my clothes. The weight of them dragged at me, the ocean eager to pull me into its depths and suffocate the life from me.
I carved my arms into the thrashing water, hissing through gritted teeth when the water fought me. It battered me until I lost balance, and had to scramble, panic dizzying my thoughts.
I kicked my legs frantically to keep my head above water. It was raining, it took me a moment to realise, water dropletshitting the ocean with so much force they bounced, the sea rippling with rage. Rage orhunger.
This wasn’t real. I knew it, but it was hard to remember that when my head dipped and my mouth filled with the taste of salt, overriding my last taste of Cat’s kiss. I threw a desperate look around, searching for land within reach, but there was nothing but thrashing sea and gunmetal skies full of swirling clouds. The wind hit me a moment later, determined to make me drown.
I got out of Exile; I could get out of this endless ocean, too. I pumped my arms, dragging myself through the water, scanning the horizon.
But no matter how much I swam, the water was endless. And weakness began to weigh at my arms, making my strokes lethargic.
I faltered once—only once—but the storm surged, the ocean crashed into me, and my head went under. One mistake, and the water dragged me down.
