“Oh,” I whisper, gazing up at her, a wolf in the brambles. I don’t think I’m supposed to want revenge. I think with Vitalia’s avatar beating inside my chest, all downy wing and blossoming meadow, I’m supposed to only seek life. Light and shadow, me and Nyatrix, meant to balance each other. One cannot, as my mother told me, exist without the other.
And yet.
“I think,” I begin, “I’d rather enjoy revenge.”
She kisses me, rough and desperate and impossibly lovely. Then Nyatrix steps away, just slightly. With a soft rustle of feathers, she’s gone. Renault whirls, his hand flying to his sword just as a massive shadow devours the moonlight that had been shining down on him.
And then, all at once, Nyatrix is before him—wings spread wide, held aloft on a current of sheer power and nothing more, her smile promising terror. Renault stumbles back, raising his free hand to motion at the Hexen.
It pounces toward me. I know that, much like its master, all it sees is a little white bird—a plaything, nothing more. I unfurl my wings with a smile, taking to the skies. The great beast lumbers into a tight turn in an attempt to follow my movement, its head raised skyward, beady black eyes searching for me.
But I’m already upon it, tucking my wings and falling onto its back, right where its scales fuse with the rough coat of an equus. I place my palm there, fingers outstretched, hovering above the creature, and close my eyes. The power of the Votum—of Vitalia—surges through me, bright and unyielding. There’s a roar, a whoosh, and when I open my eyes, I find only the graying ash of something long since laid to rest.
I return to the ground, catching myself on my cane, and turn toward Nyatrix and Renault. He tries to parry one of her blows and then duck beneath her guard, but she’s faster than him. So much faster. She knocks him off his feet, dragging himonto the crushed seashell path. He tries to resist her, but it’s useless. I know that all too well myself. Nyatrix grips Renault by the throat, hovering in the air, her wings moving in slow, silent downstrokes.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me,” Renault chokes out, his eyes glassy. “He’ll have you. His Divine Body will be restored. Kill me, if it pleases you. It changes nothing.”
Nyatrix cocks her head, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Oh, but itwouldplease me,” she murmurs, her gaze straying to me.
I shouldn’t want this. My stomach should twist, my skin should go clammy with horror. My mind should tell me Renault might be a victim, too, that he only did what he had to.
But my rage spent too many anni caged, and it is very, very hungry. I stride forward, for the first time not ashamed of the way my cane thuds on the dry, parched earth. Nyatrix descends, her feet meeting the ground, though she still holds Renault aloft.
His face reddens and tears streak down his face. “Ophelia,” he protests, his voice cloying. “I know you. You are good and kind and sweet. You’re better than this.”
I take another step forward, until the three of us are ringed in moonlight. Anyone might see us. I find I do not care.
“I am better than this,” I agree, letting my wings spread as I lean on my cane. His eyes go as wide as my wingspan. “But you, Renault Amadeus, third son of your House, are not.”
Nyatrix grins, a dagger of a smile, and leans in close to Renault’s face. “And neither am I,” she whispers. Then, in the gardens I’ve walked so many times, in the heart of the place that almost broke me, the Lupa Nox pulls a dagger from her belt and guts Renault.
Just like she promised back in the Sundered Lands.
She shoves her gloved hand in his mouth to stifle the scream. I wait for nausea, for horror, for regret. It never comes. I watchhis entrails tumble from his body, slick vermillion rope on the white path. Nyatrix reaches for a length of intestine and replaces her fist with the curl of pink-red ribbon, gagging the man who flogged me with his own entrails.
She lets him crumble to the ground, but he’s not dead yet. Not quite. I close the meager distance between us just as Nyatrix straddles him, gathering up more of the shimmering rope that pours from his torn cavity. I lean over him, look down into his face of silent, tortured agony. His eyes meet mine.
“What you love most, Renault, about your god,” I tell him, my wings spread wide, my body humming with all that unleashed power, “is that you can be utterly horrible your entire life and still be forgiven in the end. But you should know,” I continue, leaning over into his face, “thatIdon’t forgive you.”
Chapter 46
Nyatrix wraps Renault Amadeus’s entrails around his neck, a dripping, jeweled collar befitting a man of his status. Then she looks at me, brow arched, an entire question in that single movement.
“Oh, my mistress of oblivion,” I murmur, reaching out to cup her chin in my hand. “He’s all yours.”
She is death and ruin as she nods, leaning low over Renault in a way that makes me throb with absurd jealousy. The thick muscles of her thighs flex beneath her leather armor. Perhaps he doesn’t deserve this death. Perhaps we should’ve done worse.
Then I watch as Nyatrix brings her face to his, almost as if they’re to share a kiss. Instead, she grips his entrails and pulls, choking him. An impossible thrill races through me as I watch her beautiful, powerful hands wrap that wet, red ribbon around her fingers, tightening the noose.
“Call me master,” she whispers to him.
I startle, not having realized she’d heard him back in Old Lumendei. Renault chokes, his limbs thrashing, and then I watch the light go out behind his eyes.
My gaze slips to Nyatrix as she peels off his dead body, covered in Renault’s blood. She wears it like a garnet-encrustedcape, and I marvel at her. I reach for her as she approaches, our fingers entwining, hers slick with blood and viscera.
“Thank you,” I murmur, knowing I would’ve never been able to wreak vengeance on Renault—not like that.
“The pleasure,” Nyatrix replies with a dangerous smile, “was all mine.”
