He is … not well, Iisak said.
That’s very clear.
For weeks, I’ve been dreading the moment I would face him again. Dreading the thought of killing a man I once swore to protect, dreading the idea of falling to his blade if I couldn’t go through with it.
I didn’t expect to find him like this.
I should have. I remember Lilith’s torments. I remember how much Rhen endured on my behalf.
I see how much he’s endured this time.
Rhen hasn’t let go of Harper’s hand. They’re sitting together on the chaise by the hearth, and he keeps looking at her as if he expects her to vanish from the room if he glances away.
“It’s all right,” she whispers, and her breath hitches. “I’m here.”
“I would have come after you,” he says. “She told me she killed you.”
“She tried.”
“You must go.” He looks at me. “Take her out of here. Lilith will do worse. You know, Grey. You remember.”
“I came here to defeat her, not to run.” I’ve been pacing between the door, where Tycho stands guard, to the window, where I’ve whistled for Iisak, though he hasn’t appeared. I hear him shriek in the distance. I wonder if soldiers have begun to close on the castle.
“Grey?” Harper says softly. “Can you heal him?”
I stop in my pacing and turn.
Rhen freezes. His gaze meets mine, and he seems to recoil involuntarily.
I’ve seen this a dozen times in the people of Syhl Shallow, but it’s different to see it in Rhen. “Once healing has set in, I cannot undo that.” I pause. “But I can fix the rest of it. Are you in pain?”
Rhen shakes his head quickly, but it’s a lie, it has to be a lie. The start of infection is obvious, the places where his skin is swollen and furiously red.
Tycho looks over from the door. “It doesn’t hurt,” he says easily, and something about that is generous in a way only Tycho can be. Rhen hurt Tycho once, too.
But Rhen has the long, horrible history with magic. So many of the actions Rhen has taken have been in an effort to protect his people, but underneath, they’ve been a shield for his fear, his uncertainty, his pain.
After a long moment, Rhen unwinds his hands from Harper’s and he straightens, shifting to sit on his own. A shadow of his usual defiant independence slides across his face. “Do as you say.”
He might as well be saying Do your worst.
I cross the room and drag a low stool to sit in front of him. “I am not Lilith,” I say, and my tone isn’t gentle. If anything, a bit of anger slides into my words. “I won’t harm you.”
He says nothing, just looks straight back at me like he’s bracing himself. But when I reach out to touch his face, Rhen catches my wrist. His grip is tight against my bracer, the tendons on the back of his hand standing out.
“I’m not afraid,” he says, and there’s a breathless quality to his voice that makes me think that’s another lie. But then he adds, “I do not deserve it, Grey.”
That pulls at a chord in my chest, and I frown. “You took her torments for me,” I say quietly. “Season after season. What you did to me cannot undo that.”
“You stayed with me,” he says. “Season after season. Long after you should have fled. What I did—” His voice breaks. “What I did to you—”
“It is over,” I say. “It is done.” Because it is. “One poor choice shouldn’t undo a thousand good ones.”
He’s staring at me so intently, his breathing almost shaking.
I glance at his hand, still gripped tight on my wrist. “Rhen. Let go.”
He blinks, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever truly told him what to do.
What’s more shocking, possibly to both of us, is that he obeys.
I touch my fingers to the shredded ruin of his face, and he flinches before he catches himself. He’s so tense, his hands in fists, his knuckles white. No matter what he says, he is clearly afraid of the magic. But I can sense the moment my power begins to work, because his jaw loosens. His shoulders drop. The pain eases. The swelling recedes, the infection melting away. I saved a man’s eye once, but the damage to Rhen’s face has gone too far, too long. His eye is sealed shut. The scarring will be profound; I can already tell.
This is not the worst state I’ve ever seen Rhen in, not by a long shot, so I can easily keep any pity out of my gaze.
“Had I known you were my brother,” he says, his voice rough and trembling, “I would have forced you to leave on the very first day of her curse.”
I shake my head. “Had I known you were my brother, I would have stayed by your side just the same.” I feel the moment the healing finishes, and I withdraw my hand, giving him a narrow look. “Though admittedly, I wouldn’t have put up with half your nonsense.”
He startles, then almost smiles. He touches a hand to his cheek as if he’s expecting the damage to be gone, but he must feel the scarring, because the smile vanishes, leaving only a bleak look in his remaining eye.
Harper takes his free hand again. “It’s okay,” she says softly. “Scars mean you survived something terrible.”
“Ah, yes, Princess,” whispers a voice from across the room. Lilith, her voice slithering into the silence. “He has indeed survived something terrible. But haven’t we all?”
I whirl to my feet, weapons in hand, only reaching for my magic secondarily. But I’m a second too late, and her power drives me back, knocking away the furniture, sending Harper and Rhen scrambling.
“Don’t you see?” she calls to me. “You are weak, Grey. I’ve had a lifetime to learn this power. You’ve had a few months.”
“I don’t just have magic,” I snap, and I pull throwing blades from my bracer. They drive into her midsection, and she stumbles back. Tycho has a bow in his hands, and just as quickly, an arrow appears in her chest.
I go after her. “I’ll make sure you’re truly dead this time.” Then I pull my dagger, the one weapon I’ve saved for this moment, the one weapon I know will make a difference.
I aim right for her heart.
She screams and thrusts a hand at me, driving me back. It’s like a blast of cold wind, and I stagger, trying to stay on my feet. I call for my own magic, but it’s like standing against a hurricane with a piece of silk. I can feel the edges of my power fraying. The bones of my fingers begin to snap, and my grip on the dagger weakens. My magic flares to heal the injury, but as soon as I heal one bone, another fractures. The wind is intense, freezing cold, and I wish for Iisak, for mastery of my power, for anything.
Another bone snaps, and I cry out. I’m going to lose the weapon.
“You are too weak,” she says again.
“To me!” calls Tycho, and I toss the weapon in his direction, but the wind is stinging my eyes, overturning furniture, and I cannot tell if he’s caught it. Harper surges forward, but the wind catches her too, sending her flying back against the stone wall.
Lilith stands in the middle of the maelstrom, her hair lifting in the wind, blood streaming from her wounds. She laughs. “You thought you could stop me?” she demands. “All I have done to you, and you thought you could stop me?”
Tycho gets low to the floor, crawling with the dagger in his hand, his teeth gritted, his eyes clenched against the wind.
Lilith sees him. She smiles. It’s terrifying.
“Tycho!” I snap. “Tycho, hold!”
“Ah, Grey,” she croons. “You’ve found a little lapdog.”
Then she pulls the daggers out of her chest, draws back her hand, and throws.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
RHEN
I don’t think. I leap. The boy is wearing armor, but I know Lilith’s talents, and those blades will go right into his neck. I slam into him and we roll. A knife hits my armor and bounces away, but fate never goes easy on me, so the other slices across my neck and jaw. I cry out. Tycho’s dagger goes skittering across the marble floor.
But he’s alive. He’s pan
ting underneath me, staring up at me in surprise.
“Are you all right?” I say.
He nods quickly. “You’re bleeding.”
I slap a hand to my face, and it comes away slick with blood.
Somewhere outside the window, a creature screams in the darkness. Lilith picks up the dagger. She drags the blade across her fingertip, and blood wells up. “I know what this is.” She looks at Grey and some of the wind quiets, but the force still pushes against us. “Where did you find it?”
He seems to be having more luck than the rest of us, because he’s still on his feet, facing her, bracing against her power. His eyes are dark and furious, his hands gripped tight on his weapons—but he can’t move forward. “I know where I’m going to put it.”
She laughs. “Look at you. You can’t even touch me,” she says. Her gaze shifts to me. “Rhen, would you like to watch me carve her heart out of her chest this time?”
“Go ahead and try,” says Harper, and her voice is fierce—but weak. I saw her hit the wall. Blood glistens in her hair.
“As always, you are all too weak. Rhen, I have offered you many chances. Your people destroyed my people. You used me and turned me away. Your kingdom will fall.”
“Grey brought an army,” I snap. “My kingdom was going to fall anyway. And so will you, when they come for him. You can kill us, but you can’t kill them all.”
“An army?” She laughs again. “Grey brought a handful of soldiers.”
My eyes snap to his, but Grey hasn’t looked away from her. “You brought no army?” I say.
“I came to kill her,” he says. “Not to take your throne.”
Lilith claps her hands in delight. “You’re such a fool, Rhen! This is why you are always destined to fall. You yielded to a man who didn’t even arrive with a battalion of soldiers. You yielded to a man who came with a broken girl and a boy who was likely weaned from his mother’s breast a week ago.”
She takes a step forward, toward Grey, completely unaffected by the wind. It’s beginning to flay the skin from Grey’s cheeks, but it barely ruffles her skirts. “And you. Your loyalty was once a point of pride, and now you sit up and beg for scraps from your enemy. I was once friendly with Karis Luran. I imagine I can be so with her daughter.”
Grey speaks through clenched teeth. His hands have turned red and raw from the wind, his knuckles bleeding. “You will—stay away—from—Lia Mara.”
“No,” she says. “I won’t.”
The window shatters inward, exploding with glass and a large black shape that lands and rolls. Wings unfurl, and I suck in a breath, swearing, shoving myself backward, dragging Tycho with me.
But the boy doesn’t seem panicked. His eyes light up. “Iisak!” he says in surprise.
The creature doesn’t even acknowledge him. It launches itself at Lilith with outstretched claws, just as freezing wind blasts through the open window and ice crystals form on the walls. The room is suddenly bitter cold, and it’s harder to move, as if my limbs have begun to freeze in place.
For the first time, I see Lilith falter and fall back. Her eyes no longer appear victorious, they are instead wide with shock. “Nakiis?” she says, and I don’t know the word, I don’t know what it means.
“Not Nakiis,” the creature hisses. “His father.” And then those claws slice into her, shredding the dress, shredding her flesh. Blood blooms along the satin fabric. The creature growls, and there’s enough menace in the sound that I shiver. Lilith makes a choked sound. For an instant, I think this will be it, that she’ll finally meet her end right here in front of me.
But Lilith still has that dagger in her hand.
I know what this is, she said.
She drives it right into the side of the creature’s rib cage. Then she pulls it free and does it again.
And again.
Again.
The wind in the room dies. The ice melts from the walls.
“No!” Tycho is screaming. He’s scrambling away from me, trying to get to the creature. Grey is able to stride forward, a blade in his hand, aiming for Lilith. The creature begins to fall away from the enchantress, and she makes a gurgling, choked sound, but she lifts that blade one more time.
Instead of aiming for the creature, she’s aiming for Grey.
There’s no wind, no resistance. I move without thought. I tackle Lilith around the midsection. There’s so much blood. She was already injured, so she all but collapses under my weight.
I don’t realize she still has a dagger in her hand until it stabs down into my shoulder, right where my armor ends. It’s like an iron poker. Pain ricochets through my body without end. Someone is shouting. Someone is screaming. Someone is sobbing.
Lilith is panting, her face, blood-speckled, above mine.
“You’re such a fool,” she hisses.
I don’t think anything can hurt more, but she yanks that dagger free of my shoulder, and puts the point right against my chin, pressing upward until I feel the skin split and I can barely breathe.
I can’t see anything. Just Lilith’s terrible face.
“Let him go,” says Grey. His sword point appears at Lilith’s neck.
“I can kill him before you kill me,” she says. “Grey, you were once willing to swear an oath to me. Are you still?”
“No.” My breath is shaking. “Let her kill me. Just let her kill me.”
“No,” says Harper. “No. Grey. Please. Grey.”
Lilith’s eyes bore into mine. “She always begs for you, Rhen.”
“Do it!” I snap at Grey, then choke on a gasp as she presses with the dagger. “Do it, Grey. Now it’s my turn to bleed so you do not.”
That blade at her neck doesn’t move. I can hear Grey’s breathing, quick and panicked.
“Do it,” I choke out. “Don’t make the mistake I once made.”
“Do something!” Harper cries. “Grey, use your magic!”
Lilith grins down at me, and her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you realize that he’s just as afraid as you are?”
“Use your magic,” says Tycho, and his voice is thick, and it’s then that I realize he is the one who was sobbing. “You’re stronger than she is.”
“He’s not,” snaps Lilith. “And he’ll yield right now, or I will kill Prince Rhen.”
“Curse me,” says Harper. Her voice is thick with tears, too. “Or change me. Make me the monster, Grey. Make me the monster.”
“No,” I whisper.
Something flickers in Lilith’s eyes. The wind in the room picks up. “I will not wait for your oath, Prince Grey.”
“Do it!” shouts Harper. “Grey, do it! Let me kill her!”
“No,” I say again. Dread is choking me. I know what my monster did. “Grey. No.”
Lilith leans down. “Remember when you tried to kill me?” she says to Grey. “Let me show you how to make a death last.”
The dagger pierces my skin. “Curse me!” I cry, and my voice is nearly lost in the wind. I dig my nails into the floor, trying to lift my head. “Grey, curse me. Whatever I have, it’s yours. Bind me with magic, make me something that will—”
My voice is swallowed up. The room gets smaller. The wind dies. Lilith shrieks.
And then I lose all sense of myself and become the monster once more.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
HARPER
I’ve seen Rhen like this before, but it’s still terrifying and beautiful all at once. This time, his eye is missing in this form, too, the scars mottled streaks of blue and purple that make him seem both more monstrous and more radiant.
His transformation has thrown Lilith and Grey back. Rhen roars, and my heart skips in terror.
Somewhere in the room, Tycho chokes on a breath and cries, “Silver hell.”
For a heartbeat of time, I’m terrified that he’ll turn on us. The monster was always indiscriminate, and I know Rhen caused a lot of damage in this form—damage he couldn’t control.
Wind blasts thro
ugh the room, overturning the rest of the furniture, knocking the rest of us into the walls. But Rhen-the-monster is unmoved. He growls again, ending in a shriek that makes every piece of glass in the room shatter.
Lilith screams in rage. Her fist closes on that dagger, and she struggles to her knees. Rhen’s scales glitter in the light, and he rears up—leaving his chest a wide-open target.
For a stunning, terrifying fraction of a second, I feel as though we’ve found this moment before: Lilith with a blade in her hand, threatening to kill Rhen in his monster form.
Me, shoving my feet against the ground, running to save him.
“No!” I scream, and I leap, just like I did once before.
Rhen’s growl shakes the room. I hear Grey shout, and then I feel myself slam into the marble floor, nowhere near Lilith. Rhen’s monster has recoiled from the blade, and he hisses at Lilith. Grey’s face is in front of me. “He’d never forgive me,” he gasps.
Lilith’s blade is swinging forward again, and I cry out. I’ll never forgive him. I’ll never forgive her. I’ll never forgive anyone.
But Grey has turned away from me, and he’s grabbed hold of Lilith’s dress, and he pulls hard. It grants Rhen an inch of space, but it’s not going to be enough.
Then her skirts erupt in flame, a sudden burst of heat from where Grey has grabbed the hem. Lilith shrieks, and the wind in the room swirls as she summons her magic to douse the flames and heal herself.
It’s only a moment of distraction, but it’s enough.
One moment, Lilith is there, surrounded by smoke and flames that have already begun eating away at her skin.
The next moment, the monster rips her apart.
The sound is terrifying. The sight is terrifying. I’m wheezing. Blinking. Staring. His talons are coated in gore. His beautiful glistening scales are spattered with blood.
Everything is spattered with blood.
Suddenly the room is so silent that I can’t hear anything but my breathing. The fire drifts away in a cloud of smoke. Grey is on his knees. He’s bleeding, his skin raw in spots. I stumble to my feet, which takes too long, and my feet don’t want to work right. The monster growls, turning. Tycho is crouched over Iisak, who isn’t moving, but Rhen pays them no attention. When he sees Grey, he shrieks, and the sound makes me want to cower.
A Vow So Bold and Deadly Page 30
