Chapter 34

Dravyn

Later that evening, Karys surprised me when she appeared in the library, interrupting the tense conversation I'd been having with the rest of our court; I'd been too distracted to sense her coming.

Zachar had only just left my territory.

The Death God had arrived shortly after my last visit to Karys's room. He'd sensed her waking, her magic rising, and had arrived with the intention of speaking to her—another spy sent by the God of the Shade, I assumed; if any of the Shade Court could be trusted to do our upper-god's bidding without question, it would be Zachar.

But whatever this bidding was—whatever he intended to speak to Karys about—he refused to tell me.

I might have lost my temper with him over this.

The resulting surge of my fiery energy is likely what had roused Karys from her sleep and drawn her down into the library.

I regretted interrupting her rest, but I would be lying if I claimed I wasn't glad to see her step through the doorway looking far more lively than she had when I left her hours ago. The ends of her hair were damp, and her skin shimmered faintly from the various floral powders and oils Rieta often added into her bathwater.

Seeing her standing there was like coming up for air. Like surfacing from what I thought might kill me, finding myself miraculously alive, yet still dizzy from holding my breath.

I'm alive.

She's alive.

We haven't drowned.

Mairu reached her first, wrapping her in a crushing hug that lasted for at least a full minute, letting go only because the God of Winter stole her away for himself.

Valas said something in a low voice reserved for the two of them—something that made Karys laugh. Despite the irritation I'd felt toward him throughout the past five tension-filled days, I'd never been more grateful for him than I was in that moment; the sound of her laughter was another breath injected into my half-drowned lungs.

Our gazes locked as Valas let her go. She stilled. Her mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts, but I could read her silence; her slightly clenched hands; her eyes, shining with the same emotions I felt; and the soft, relieved sigh that barely passed through her lips…

Dizzy.

Still breathless.

But alive.

She crossed the room to me, studying my face as she came. "You look terrible," she informed me, cheerfully. "Like you haven't closed your eyes in days."

"He hasn't," Valas confirmed.

Moth, who had draped himself like a weighted blanket on the back of my chair, agreed with a chirp.

Karys's teasing smile fell a bit in the corners.

"I'm fine," I said hastily.

Moth rolled from the chair with all the grace of a newborn baby deer, hitting the floor with a loud thud . He righted himself and scampered to meet Karys, leaping into her arms, distracting her momentarily. But she continued to study me out of the corner of her vision even as she smoothed his ruffled feathers.

All the things I needed to tell her slammed into me all at once, like taking a sledgehammer to the stomach.

"But I could use some air," I continued, calmly getting to my feet. "Step outside with me?"

She agreed, settling Moth into the empty space I'd left behind and giving him a few more loving pats before following me.

We walked together to the gardens that had become one of our favorite haunts over the past months. She picked fallen flower petals from the stone path while I studied our surroundings, all my senses on edge. I didn't perceive any threatening presence nearby, nor any eavesdroppers, yet the uneasy twisting in my gut didn't subside.

"The God of Death has been here recently, hasn't he?" Karys straightened, a pile of petals cupped in her hands. Her gaze drifted toward a distant spot on the other side of the low garden walls—the very spot I'd last confronted Zachar before he fled. "I can feel his lingering energy."

"Yes. He wanted to speak to you." I unsuccessfully attempted to roll away some of the tension tightening my neck. "I'm sure he'll be back."

"You two fought, didn't you?"

As suspected, she'd felt that energy, too.

"He was being foolish. And I was not in the mood for his games."

She considered this for a long moment, a frown pulling at the corners of her lips, but didn't ask for details.

"I've actually been meaning to speak with the Death Marr again," she said.

I worked to keep the protective snarl from my tone. "Have you?"

"He gave me some advice a few weeks ago. Advice I rejected at the time, but now…" She trailed off, her focus shifting to the petals she held.

She transferred them all to a clenched fist and let them slip through her fingers one by one, using her other hand to direct little bursts of fire at them as they fell. I'd seen her practice her precision and control using similar methods in the past. Even now, as tired as she must have been, she continued her pursuit of perfection.

A slight smile curled my lips at this last thought—though it was short-lived. "Whatever advice he gave you, I would be wary of taking it. You know he speaks in riddles."

"Do the Marr speak in riddles?" she deadpanned.

"Oh, you hadn't noticed?"

She snorted. "You really think I haven't realized by now that the gods do not always speak the whole truth?" She angled her face toward me and raised a brow. "For example, the God of Fire is known to keep his true thoughts and feelings and fears to himself, despite how it concerns the ones who love him. Did you know that?"

"I've heard it's a bad habit of his," I said, continuing onward down the winding path through the garden. "But then again, you can't believe everything you hear."

Though my back was to her, I suspected she rolled her eyes at this, which brought another slight smile to my face.

"I thought I would allow you a little more time to rest and recover before I dropped all of those thoughts and feelings and fears upon you," I told her as she caught up to me.

She chewed her bottom lip for a few paces before nodding, seeming to understand even if she didn't agree.

We came to the end of the path. An elaborate fountain stood here, its trio of trickling waterfalls the only sound disrupting the heavy air. I watched the water rippling over the basin lined with colorful, decorative chips of glass while Karys continued to turn bits of flowers into piles of ash.

Finally, she spoke again, in a voice still distant and lost in thought: "I wasn't resting particularly well."

The weight in my stomach grew heavier. "More nightmares?"

"I keep going back to the fields outside my old home. The ones you set fire to."

I waited for her to elaborate, but she said nothing else.

"…You're angry about those fires?"

She considered this for another long moment. "Worried, more like. About the mortal world going up in flames. About you choosing between me and that world, and..." She trailed off, regarding me from underneath her lashes, eyes dark and troubled over questions she couldn't seem to force through her lips.

There were no easy answers to these questions—there was only what I felt, foolish as it was. A feeling I would have buried months ago for the sake of simplicity.

There was no chance of burying it now.

"There is no other choice for me, anymore," I said. "There is only you. You're the only thing I could think of these past five days, no matter how hard I tried to focus on anything else."

Her reply came slowly. Quietly. Guarded, even now—even in spite of all the walls we'd already torn down to get to one another. "Maybe I'm just not used to people choosing me. So it feels strange."

She lifted one shoulder and let it drop, as though she could really shrug off a lifetime of being pushed aside, lied to, manipulated by her family and allies.

I stared at her, a familiar irritation heating my blood. Not at her, but at every single being who had ever wronged her and put her second to anything. The irritation simmered into anger, and then into a flare of passion that had me reaching for her, pulling her into a kiss.

A hundred other things needed to be said and done in that moment—yet all I could think about was kissing her, finding some way to prove I would choose her above everything, over and over again, for as long as I existed.

Her guarded posture slowly collapsed, her arms lifting, wrapping around my neck. The petals in her hands fell against my back as she unclenched her fists and held more tightly to me, deepening the kiss.

We were both breathless when I finally drew my lips from hers.

"I love you." I dropped my forehead against hers, framing her face between my hands. "And I thought I'd lost you. It was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced, but it made me realize something."

She lifted her gaze to mine, questioning.

"That I would have burned down a thousand worlds to find my way back to you."

She trembled beneath my touch, her breathing uneven as she struggled to keep the tears in her eyes from falling. She eventually gave up on this effort, merely letting them fall as she leaned her head against my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly to me.

We stayed this way for several minutes.

She moved first, pulling away, walking over and settling onto the edge of the fountain. The occasional tear still escaped, winding a shining trail down her cheek, but her brow was furrowed in thought. She braced her arms against the stone beneath her, steadying herself, her demeanor shifting—as it so often did—to that of someone determined to push through the pain and make sense of things.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

And so we had arrived at the part I was dreading.

Every muscle in my body clenched with reluctance as I sat down beside her. But I couldn't put it off any longer; she deserved to know what had happened while she was being held prisoner.

So I told her about Cillian.

It was cruel. Unfair. Had she not suffered enough? Lost enough? I hated the world and everything in it a little more with every word I uttered, but somehow, I got the words out.

Her face became a wall as I spoke, hardening further with each detail I fumbled through. The tears continued, but they fell without sound or movement. She didn't even bother wiping them away.

When I'd finished speaking, she stayed silent. A statue at first; an extension of the fountain edge she sat upon.

Then it seemed to hit her all at once.

She crumpled slowly, tucking her head toward her chest, drawing into herself like a withering bloom.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty, thirty, forty…I lost count. She paced. Flung stones into the fountain. Burned away flowers and vines with precise, angry flourishes of her hands.

All the while, I stayed close, giving her space when she needed it, holding her close when she looked as though she might collapse.

It was excruciating to not be able to do anything more than this.

We were sitting atop one of the garden walls, her head resting against my chest and her body wrapped tightly in my arms, when she finally spoke again.

"Cillian must have told my sister I was in Mindoth. That's how she knew to look for me. To target me." Her voice was perfectly even. Emotionless. The practiced tone of one who had far too much experience speaking of betrayals.

"Yes. That's what I suspected as well."

"Savna poisoned me with…something. Something more powerful than anything we've encountered yet."

I fought the urge to reach for my shoulder, where I carried my own scars from what I assumed was the same poison. I hadn't noticed any similar scars on her; maybe her sister had quickly given her an antidote, at least.

"My sister…she believed she was saving me by stealing me away."

"Poison and cages are unusual tools for saviors," I muttered.

"I thought so, too."

"…Thought?" A muscle in my jaw twitched. "In past tense?"

She didn't reply.

Still protecting her sister, even now.

I held my tongue. I knew it wouldn't do any good to argue the matter just then. Not after the day we'd had. I didn't need to voice my concerns, anyway; she could read me easily enough.

"I am not a fool, Dravyn," she said, standing, but not pulling away completely. "I know what she's done. But she ultimately protected me and helped me escape this time. And in the days before that, we actually spoke. On several occasions. And she seemed—at times—like the sister I knew and loved. I know you haven't spoken to your brother in years, but if you had a chance to go back, to talk like you used to..."

My brother's latest words to me slid through my thoughts, stinging just as badly as they had while I stood before him.

You are not welcome here any longer.

Without looking at Karys, I said, "I recently spoke with him, actually. Not as prolonged a conversation or visit as you had to endure with your sister, but it was…enough."

I could feel the weight of her shocked stare. I kept my eyes on the ground, on one of the scorch marks she'd left while setting fires earlier.

"He was their true target that night in Mindoth," I said. "They were trying to kill him—and they very nearly managed it. I dug him out of the rubble myself."

"Is he…okay?"

"He'll live."

She hesitated a moment before settling back on the wall beside me, tucking her hands beneath her, forcing herself to be still in spite of the storm of questions I could sense roaring through her head.

"I went to his palace to ask for help finding you," I said. "That's how I encountered Cillian. He was being held in the dungeon, and I convinced Fallon to let me speak with him. I haven't been back to Altis since, though, and I don't intend to change that."

Her gaze flew toward mine. "What? Why not? You've finally started talking again, isn't that—"

"It's simpler to leave some things in the past."

"He's not a thing , he's your brother."

"A brother who still wants nothing to do with me. We're even now; I dragged him from a collapsing building, he helped me find you. And then he ordered me not to return to the royal city."

Her nostrils flared. "Do gods take orders from kings?"

"No, not usually. But this is a special case."

She started to argue before seeming to think better of it—though keeping silent and still remained an obvious effort for her.

I kept talking, partly because it seemed to make her less restless. "He has yet to forgive me for the way things happened on the night of our siblings' murders, and in the aftermath."

She was quiet for a few more beats, considering.

Then she asked, "Have you forgiven yourself ?"

My stomach dropped.

What a foolish question , I thought, bitterly.

"It's a fair, important question," she countered, as if I'd said it out loud.

"You're getting very good at hearing my thoughts," I muttered.

A corner of her mouth lifted a touch. "Nothing is safe from me, now."

I huffed out a laugh, though I was far from amused. I returned my attention to the burned ground. "Fallon needs somebody to hate. Someone to blame for all the things that have gone wrong in our lives. I can give him that, at least, even though I've abandoned him."

She still didn't argue, but when I glanced her way a minute later, her eyes were glazed over, clearly plagued by troubled thoughts.

Giving her head a little shake, she said, "You're more than that, you know. More than a target for other people's grief and anger and hatred. And you are worthy of forgiveness, whether you believe that or not."

My throat was suddenly too thick to swallow, much less to reply, so I merely gave a noncommittal shrug.

She sighed and leaned her head on my shoulder. "You know I'm right."

"Maybe. But things were easier for you when you hated me yourself, now weren't they?"

"… Easier might be a stretch," she said, wrapping her arm around mine and leaning closer. "But simpler, I suppose. I do miss those days, sometimes."

I gave another humorless chuckle. "Yes, you've said that before."

"Several times."

"Should I be concerned?"

"No. Because I don't hate you, you fool." She hesitated. Took a deep breath. "I love you so much it terrifies me. Sometimes it feels like we're one of those glass figures you created…like I'm holding us so tightly we're going to shatter and the shards are going to cut deeper than I can stand. But I can't let go. I don't want to let go. Even if it means broken and bloody hands."

She squeezed my arm, burrowing her face more fully into my shoulder.

"Wildfire," I murmured, kissing the top of her head, "we are made of something much stronger than glass."

She breathed out a content, soft little sound, some of the tension slipping from her hold on me.

"If I do go back to Fallon," I said after a moment, "it won't be for a family reunion."

She lifted her head, curiosity sparking in her eyes.

"Something he said right before we parted has been eating away at me," I explained.

"What was it?"

"He told me to find you and bring you back to this realm. To leave him to his plans and not look back or interfere in mortal affairs. Tempting, but…"

"But we can't ignore what's happening below. Andrel spoke as though he was preparing to unleash another part of their plans, too…a grand ending , he called it."

"You spoke with him over these past days?"

A tremble went through her—an answer in itself.

Of course she spoke with him .

"He was partly responsible for trapping you, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

The way the mere mention of him caused her body to tremble and her pulse to race faster—a reaction of fear, however short-lived it was—made me physically ill.

"What else did he do?" I demanded.

How else did he hurt you because I failed to kill him in Mindoth?

The fingers she had around my arm dug deeper.

Gently, I brushed a hand across her cheek and turned her face toward me.

"I don't want to talk about him." She looked me directly in the eyes, her gaze full of fire and fierceness. "I only want to talk about what we're going to do about all these threats we're facing."

I blinked away the fire blurring my own vision. Forced the rage in my blood to settle.

"I don't know what plans Fallon has," I said, once I could manage a calm, rational voice, "but I worry he's underestimating the forces he's up against."

She untangled herself from me and hopped down from the wall. "I'm worried about my sister, too. About the cost of her helping me escape and…" She trailed off with a frustrated sound and returned to her pacing, her forehead creased in thought and her lips moving with silent calculations.

Eventually, she stopped and lifted her gaze to the cream-colored sky. Her lips stilled, but her hands continued to absently draw the occasional path through the air, the way they often did when she was mapping out plans.

"I know that look," I said.

"What look?"

"You're plotting something."

She glanced at me, a slightly rueful curve to her lips, and shrugged.

"Are you going to let me in on those plans, this time?"

"I think we should go to Altis," she said without hesitation. "To your brother. Together, we can find out what he's planning, and maybe while we're in that realm…" Her voice grew quieter toward the end, a telling, pained expression in her eyes.

"You want to see your sister again."

She didn't deny it. "Do you think the king will be able to arrange an audience with her? Somewhere in his city, perhaps—someplace that's neutral ground between my sister and me, unlike Ederis or our old house."

"Possibly," I replied, somewhat reluctantly. "He has no shortage of capable spies and messengers he could use to track her down. But what, then?"

"I want to talk with her as a diplomat and speaker for the gods, this time, rather than as a sister."

"An attempt at ceasefire negotiations?"

She nodded. "She started to listen to me before. And if she holds as much sway over the other rebels as Andrel, then maybe we can stop all their attacks—against us, the humans, and anyone else—before they escalate into something catastrophic. I believe I could bring balance back to the races and realms. I think…I think maybe that's what I'm meant to do. What I've been meant to do all along."

I considered the possibility, as much as I didn't want to—as much as it frightened me. It made some sense. Maybe this was the plan the Moraki had in mind when they assisted with her ascension.

Karys was watching me closely, her body tense but her gaze hopeful.

I was still reluctant to agree, unable to shake my concerns about what such a task might require of her, knowing that the upper-gods cared little for feelings or fairness when they made plans and required a sacrifice for them.

But there would be no outrunning the things chasing us, I knew.

So I said, "Wherever you go, I'm going too."

She gave me a grateful little smile.

I did my best to return it.

I'd meant what I said before—that we were made of something stronger than glass. Something more like iron and steel, forged in flame, twisted and bent into painful shapes, yet still in one piece.

I couldn't say the same about the path stretching before us. It felt uneven. Uncertain. Ready to crumble at the first misstep.

And I couldn't help but wonder how much longer it was all going to hold together.