I pressed the dagger I’d filched against his throat. “I told you I’m leaving, and I meant it. I will not go back to the tower.”
I needed to sever my link with him, needed to syphon from someone else, anyone else, and use an illusion to move through the crowd and exit through a mirror. For too long I’d let my desire to spend time with him overrule my common sense. But no longer.
Do it! Sever.
Still I hesitated, hating myself.
“I will never put you in the tower again,” he said. “You have my word.”
“Liar!” I spat, pressing the dagger more forcefully. A bead of crimson welled, the sight almost my undoing. I’d injured him. I’d injured the boy I’d just kissed.
Monster! Tears gathered and fell unchecked.
He collected one of those tears, threw back his head and roared, as if he, too, had reached his limit. My chest tightened, wrenched.
We locked gazes, his eyes like wounds. “You had an opportunity to harm Farrah. You didn’t take it. You’ve earned your freedom, Everly. I won’t put you back in the tower,” he reiterated, “but I won’t part from you, either. Right now, you need me. The danger...”
“I—” Screamed. Agonizing pain sliced through my shoulder, a river of blood gushing down my torso. Someone had stabbed me from behind, the metal tip coming out the front. My knees quivered, threatening to buckle.
The incarnation of rage, Roth shoved me out of the way, taking the next blow himself. A slice from elbow to wrist.
As I panted, seeing stars, determined to defend myself against another attack, the King of Sevón ripped the sword from Stabby’s grip, and tossed the male to the floor.
The guy tried to rise, but my spidorpions leaped onto him. Phobia bit. Webster stung. Between one blink and the next, Stabby died, white foam seeping from his mouth.
My pets returned to my ears. I gulped back bile and tried to make sense of what just happened. Roth had risked his life to save mine. On purpose! But why?
The answer doesn’t—can’t—matter.
Roth was distracted. No better time to do my disappearing act. World spinning faster, faster still, I stumbled forward, heading for the mirror. Hurry! One wrong move, and I would fall and be stampeded.
Lava ants swarmed me, creating a barrier between me and the party goers. Anyone who touched me got zapped. Other insects, animals and rodents cleared a path for me, mowing down the guards. Spinning...
As soon as I reached the wall of mirrors, my knees gave out, no longer able to carry me, and I tumbled through the glass, uncertain where I would end up...
39
My wish, your command.
Your heart, my quicksand.
My wound screamed in protest as I breached the surface of the water and sucked in a ragged breath. I blinked cool droplets out of my eyes and took stock. The forest. I had emerged in the pond where Ophelia and the birds once doctored me. Familiar sounds—crickets, bees, locusts. Familiar scents—pine and honeysuckle.
Phobia and Webster made twittering noises, letting me know they were alive and well.
Relief left me dizzy. Well, dizzier. Or maybe blood loss was responsible. Whatever. I had done it! I had escaped Sevón.
I had come home.
When something tugged on my ankle, I kicked and performed a one-armed breaststroke, going nowhere fast. The shore seemed miles away, fatigue setting in quick. I began to sink, my dress weighing me down.
A stalk of ivy slithered over the water to wind around my wrist and pull me toward the shore. Allura?
Problem: the more the ivy tugged, the more the wound in my shoulder throbbed and burned. New rivers of blood spurted, and I screamed. The ivy retracted. Too weak to swim...sinking again...
Behind me, water splashed and someone else sucked in a breath. I’d been trailed through the mirror? I fought to stay afloat. Frantic, I glanced over my shoulder...
Half of me shouted, No! The other half of me purred with approval. Roth was here, bathed in a soft azure glow as he swam in a circle, his wild gaze scanning...
Spotting me, he heaved a relieved breath. The wildness dulled to concern.
“Go back, or I’ll kill you,” I said, panting. Only he had the power to ruin something and make it better.
“You are injured. I will help you recover.”
“I’ll recover just fine on my own, thanks.”
—He help friend.— Phobia’s voice pleaded with me. The darling worried. —Let him. Please!—
“You say you’ll recover, yet your blood currently paints the water red.” Roth swam closer. “Use me. Let me do the work and get you to shore.” He unsheathed a dagger, cut the ivy from me, then snaked an arm around my waist. His entire body convulsed.
The mystical venom! My blood had touched his skin. “Let me go,” I demanded. “My blood is poison to you.” To everyone. “Every drop contains spidorpion venom.”
He blinked, astonished. “I’m not letting go. What is a little pain when your life hangs the balance?” Still convulsing, he guided me to shore.
After gently lifting me and settling my limp body atop a carpet of dewy moss, he climbed out beside me, then stripped out of his soaked jacket and tunic and reached for me.
I regained my sanity long enough to slap his hands away, and realized there was something different about my arm...
What, what? No cuts. No bruises. But...
Realization. My ants had washed off. Which meant they were stuck in the water...drowning...
“We have to save them,” I said, trying to sit up. “They can’t swim. They’ll die.”
He frowned and skidded his gaze over the pond. “No one is in the water, sweetling.”
“My ants,” I said. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare. “My ants are in the water. They kept me warm. I owe them. Please, Roth!”
“Ants?”
“You have to help them.” Desperate, I added, “I’ll pay whatever tax you demand.” I just wanted my babies saved, whatever the cost.
“Ants?” he repeated, glancing at my spidorpions as they walked down my arm to rest on my wrist. He shook his head. “Never mind. I will do this, free of charge.”
“Hurry!”
He raced to gather twigs and logs, then anchored the pieces to the edge of the pond, stretched out over the surface of water. “Come to me, ants,” he said, the magic in his voice eliciting chills. “Surface, exit and live.”
I watched, jubilant, as hundreds of lava ants crawled over the wood to reach the shore.
Roth returned to my side. “Now, let me help you. Please.” He attempted to remove my sodden dress.
Again, I slapped his hands away. “In your dreams. We are enemies. I would be a fool to trust you to help me.” But I was growing weaker by the minute. Hate weakness! Especially in front of this particular boy. “Again and again, you have hurt me.”
Familiar growls rumbled from his chest. “I didn’t stab you, and I didn’t command the soldier to stab you. In fact, I commanded every citizen of Sevón to leave you alone if ever you escaped. I’d made the consequences of such an action abundantly clear.”
But that made no sense. “He had to stab me. I had a knife at his king’s throat.”
“You don’t understand, so I will rephrase. The soldier disobeyed a direct order not to harm you if ever you escaped, no matter what you said or did. Upon my return, he will be imprisoned.”
He’d planned for my escape, not to recapture me but to ensure I remained unscathed? I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”
“I have never lied to you, Everly. I planned for everything.” Mouth a thin line, he said, “Almost everything. How could I prepare for constantly wanting you? How could I guess you would—you do—come to mean more than the prophecy? That you would be the treasure I needed to grab or lose?”
No. More lies! Had to be lies.
Me, an exception? A treasure to him? Please! But what if he’d actually fallen for me?
Inside, I soared... Until I crashed. Fury bubbled over and I snapped, “You want me, and I’m a treasure, yet you left me rotting in a tower. Gee, Roth. I’d hate to see what you do to people you don’t like. And if you cared for me so much, why did you cave and agree to host the ball, letting fair maidens try to win your hand in marriage?”
He winced. “A mistake on my part. I desperately wanted to pick someone else. I thought the torment would end. But I couldn’t do it. And tonight, when I realized you were the only one I wished to hold, I knew I was done fighting my feelings for you.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t not want his words to be true. He isn’t for me.
“Whether you agree or not, I’m patching you up.” He confiscated the dagger I’d stolen from him and very carefully, very gently cut away the top portion of my fancy dress, revealing my bra. Despite his best efforts, I was racked by searing pain.
“Sure. I’ll let you patch me up.” I brought out old faithful—my maniacal smile. “For a price. Your heart on a silver platter.”
His expression softened. Softened! “I only own gold platters.” He grazed his knuckles along my jawline. “Let me patch you up without complaint, and I’ll forfeit the healer tax you’ll owe.” Grim, he added, “Your blood is venomous, and I cannot sew the torn flesh together while conscious. I have to cauterize the gash to stop the bleeding.”
He wanted to press a white-hot blade against my precious skin? “No! Absolutely not.”
He ignored me, stacking rocks in a circle, then gathering twigs and kindling, his every movement hurried. “I have a confession. Before you showed up at the ball, I’d already decided to remain alone if I couldn’t have you.”
He. Is. Not. For. Me. “You could have had me. Instead, you left me in the tower,” I snapped.
“I left you in a safe place. What if your predicted death is literal, as you first assumed? If something were to happen to you...” He scoured a hand over his face. “I expected to panic when you escaped, but I felt such profound relief. Such remorse. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you sooner. And I’m sorry I treated you like the sorcerer responsible for the death of my mother and brother...sorry I treated you as my father’s killer. I’m sorry for so many things.”
If he meant these things, I was in trouble. But he didn’t, so I wasn’t. “You’re sorry I escaped and you’re backpedaling. You hate me. I’m a parasite!”
He paused for a moment, his head bowed. “I do not hate you, and you are not a parasite. I was wrong to say such a terrible thing.” Spurred back into motion, he dumped the twigs inside the stone circle and started a fire. Ribbons of smoke spiraled up, carried away by a warm breeze.
“Of course I’m a parasite.” I needed King Stubborn back. No more Mr. Nice Guy. “I steal power from others. I just stole from you. Remember?”
“You take what you need to survive, just as I take food from the earth.”
Gah! “I could drain and kill you in a matter of minutes.”
“Nourishing you will be my privilege.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I banged my head into moss. “You would grow to resent me, and we both know it.”
“Resent you? Never again.” Looking at me with stars in his eyes, he said, “I think...I love you.”
Love. One word, four letters—together, they created a shiv and rammed it through my heart. “You don’t love me. You can’t. You’re thinking with your...your penis, that’s all.” My cheeks heated white-hot, but I hurried on. “You don’t hurt the people you love. And you hurt me worse than anyone ever has.” Hadn’t he? In my pained state, everything I should feel, did feel and wanted to feel was beginning to jumble together.
The regret in his eyes staggered me. “What I feel for you is like nothing I’ve felt before. Stronger. Deeper. Sharper.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“You got inside my heart and set up camp. Now I can’t breathe without thinking about you or wanting you close.”
The shiv got me again. Ram. Ram. Stay strong. “I might have believed you if you’d let me go. But you didn’t, proving you will only ever think of me as a dirty sorceress, unworthy of—”
“No! No.” He shook his head. “What I did speaks of my faults, not yours. You are...you... Every day I feel as if pieces of me have been dipped in fire and hammered into a sword, and you are the blacksmith. You are the best person I know. A fighter. Fear and pain do not slow you down. You take your hardships, and you create diamonds. I am unworthy of you. Because you’re right. We protect our loved ones, no matter the cost to ourselves. I didn’t protect you. But I will. From now on, I will.”
Flayed alive, I shook my head harder. His words were potent and powerful; they destroyed me, but they remade me, too.
After he stoked the fire, he propped a dagger hilt on one of the rocks, the flames licking the blade. Forget his declarations for a moment. Or forever. Yeah, I liked forever better. The fire...the blade... I gagged, my vision winking in and out, my airways constricting.
“There has to be another way. You can compel me,” I said, desperate. “This one time. Please, Roth. Please. You have to try.”
“If I compel you now, after vowing never to compel you again, I will be without honor, and unworthy of your love.”
“Extenuating circumstances,” I insisted.
“That is another way of saying ‘excuse,’ and no excuse is ever good enough.” He cut away the rest of my dress, pulling the sodden skirt away from me, leaving me in a bra and panties, with a sliver of glass anchored to my thigh. He sucked in a breath. “You are the one who watched me, even though you wore the torque.”
“I had enchanted glass. Then you paid Ophelia to block me and ruined everything.”
“I told myself it couldn’t be you, even when I missed the mystery gaze.”
Okay, he needed to shut up. Like, now. His confessions were messing with my already screwed-up mind.
I needed to think and figure out how to stop the bleeding.
—Are you dying?—Phobia demanded.
“No way. I’m not dying, baby. Promise.” I smiled at him. “I’ll fight, I’ll survive.”
Roth glared at the spidorpion as if jealous before beseeching me with his gaze. “I need you to heal, sweetling. My world is better with you in it.”
Pretty words. Mean nothing. “Then compel me,” I said. “Use your ability on me, the way you expect me to use my ability on you.”
He jolted. Though guilt and shame darkened his expression, he didn’t hesitate to say, “Everly Morrow, you will heal. Muscles and flesh and vessels will weave back together. Lost blood will replenish.”
Magic caressed my skin. Beautiful, powerful...painful. My back arched, the regeneration of tissues sending javelins of fire through every inch of me.
As I healed, his shame and guilt melted away, awe taking their place, as if he finally had a reason to celebrate his gift. Roth clasped my hand, and smoothed hair from my damp brow.
“D-distract me,” I begged. “Tell me more about your magic.”
I expected refusal or hesitation. Willingly discuss his weaknesses with a sorceress? Never. But he confessed, “I cannot supersede another person’s magic, or stop a poisoning after it has occurred. I cannot raise the dead or reverse time. I cannot compel multiple people at once. I cannot control the emotions others feel, and I cannot manipulate memory. The more black-and-white the command, the stronger the compulsion. Some people are naturally resistant, others more susceptible.”
I listened, rapt.
“If you need more power,” he said, his gaze blazing desperation at me, “I want you to take from me.”
Had he sustained a knock to the head? “I will never take power from you again.” I grudgingly added, “Unless I’m an
gry and need to make a point. Or I feel threatened. Or I’m dying.”
His lips performed an almost-smile, the corners lifting and falling quickly. “I meant what I said. I’ve missed our link. And the thought of being what you need... It satisfies me in a way I’ve never before known.”
I didn’t... I wouldn’t...argh! I couldn’t deal with him, or the changes in him, or what they meant. Couldn’t dare to hope we had a future with the prophecy hanging over our heads.
When my pain subsided to a dull ache, I tested my range of motion. Newly healed skin pulled taut and the muscle ached, but I had no doubt I would make a full recovery.
“Look,” I said and sighed. “You don’t need to worry about me. We’re going to part ways. Instead of fighting each other, we’ll fight fate. Hasn’t the little bitch played with our lives long enough?”
Every time I’d annoyed, hurt or angered him, a muscle had ticked beneath his eye or in his jaw. Now was no different. Tick, tick, tick. Like the metronome I’d once found so pleasing. So what had I done this time? Annoyed, hurt or angered him? Perhaps a combination of all three?
“I deserve to be kicked out of your life,” he said. Angered, definitely angered, though I suspected it was self-directed. “I am unworthy of your trust and your companionship. But I would like a chance to do—to be—better. Give me a chance to prove I can be good for you.”
My heart tripped over my ribs, leaving me annoyed.
“If you will not,” he said, “I will understand. But I will never stop trying to earn your forgiveness.”
Stubborn to my core, I replied, “You should have proven yourself long before now.”
“Yes.” He bowed his head again, the shame back. “You are right.”
Do not soften. Softness had another name—weakness. “As soon as I’m strong enough, I’m going to ditch you. Good luck finding me. This girl finally has the home court advantage.”
Tick, tick, tick. Silent, he peeled off his clothes—everything but linen underwear—and hung our garments to dry in front of the fire.
The Evil Queen Page 42
