His breastplate hits the floor, then his shoulder plates, his vambraces. A linen shirt waits underneath, and he tugs at that, too, pulling at the ties before shucking the fabric. He waits, bare from the waist up, his fingers resting on his knees.
“Hurt me,” he begs, as much with his voice as with his eyes. “Carve your forgiveness into my skin.”
I trail a glance over his naked torso. The same violet patterns that curl down his cheeks crawl over his chest, shifting with every tense of his muscles. Scars crisscross him already—one across his left pectoral, another down his right biceps. Maybe from the war, maybe from some other fight like this one.
My eyes return to his, my fingers slippery around the dagger’s hilt. I’ve never cut anyone on purpose. I’ve never hurt anyone at all.
Then again, I’ve never invited a fae brute to stick his hand up my dress, either. Or gorged myself on food while in the middle of a forest.
Calen coughs softly, somewhere to my left. The whole hall holds its breath.
I tell myself to drop the knife. Just cast it onto the floor and walk away.
But my whole life has gone topsy-turvy in the last twenty-four hours. I’ve been stolen from my home. Forced to make an impossible choice. I’ve been laughed at, abandoned, ridiculed.
I’ve almost died. Twice.
What’s more, for the first time in my life, I’ve indulged. Lusted. I’vesinned.
And maybe a touch of that corruption still festers, because something compels me to raise the blade. The Shadow tracks its approach with naked hunger.
Goddess help me, I shouldn’t do this. And yet, in begging for mymercy, this goblin has granted me control for the first time since I set foot in Velindra. For the first time in as long as I can remember.
In this moment, I’m no longer Sariah the magicless, the outcast.
No, I’m Sariah, mate to the king. To the Shadow, too. He kneels before me, the immensity of his power contained, and I hold in my hand the means to condemn him or absolve him, as I see fit.
“Make it hurt,” he whispers. “Please.”
His plea dances along my skin, driving shivers into my marrow. I don’t relish the thought of inflicting pain, and yet I know, with sudden surety, that the princess who emerged from the Wildwood is not the same as the one who first stepped in.
The tip of the dagger comes to rest against the Shadow’s shoulder. He shivers, so forcefully the metal pricks his skin. Glowing blue blood wells just below his collarbone, and a single drop slides downward, hugging the curve of his chest.
“Hold still,” I say. “Until I finish.”
He swallows noisily. “Of course. I’ll hold still forever, if that’s what you want.”
A hard smile bends my mouth. “No, you won’t. Only until sunrise. Then you’ll lose yourself again.”
Desolation claims his features. “That’s…true. But only because?—”
I dig in the knife, silencing him. Shallow gasps echo in the hall, but I ignore them.
It’s hard, cutting him. Harder than I anticipated. Not only does it feel fundamentally wrong to disfigure someone, but the blade meets with resistance. The Shadow’s flesh fights my efforts, parting with reluctance against the sharpened blade.
But I don’t relent. I just dig deeper, one hand laid against his shoulder for leverage. The Shadow stays motionless, allowing me to carve my mark.
But my touch awakens the bond. Of course it does. This time, it comes on slowly, a crescendo of feeling that swells and swells and swells.
My knees wobble as I bear myself up beneath the onslaught. The Shadow’s emotions pour into me, a torrent of regret and self-recrimination, of the need to atone. And beneath that lies something bottomless—desire, almost, but so deep and wide that I can’t actually call it that. It’s as boundless as the space between stars. As eternal as the moon.
The more I let myself feel it, the easier the carving becomes. My knife charts a blazing path, pain flowing from the Shadow to me and back again, an endless circuit thrumming between us. But I don’t fight it. It feels…right.
His lips part, as do mine. His breath is my breath is his again. Our hearts beat a singular rhythm, but unlike with Amriel, fear leaves no footprints across my soul.
This feels too pure. Enough that the knife seems to guide itself, and when I peer down into yellow eyes, I glimpse the furthest corners of the universe.
My work concludes with a twirl of the blade. Blue blood slicks the Shadow’s chest, dribbling down his abdomen and staining his waistband. Sticky warmth coats my fingers.
