22. ROTTEN TO THE CORE

22

ROTTEN TO THE CORE

I spun to see Sven sitting on the black throne. Next to him stood a wolf I knew all too well.

Kieran.

"Kill her." Sven waved his hand in my direction and Kieran took no time in racing toward me.

I shifted, pulling on both my golden and my wolf without thinking, and they merged with ease. I needed them both and they combined as I landed on all fours. Kieran slammed into me, and I spun, diverting his larger weight so that we danced around one another.

"You should have died years ago," he snapped. The darkness in his eyes, the demon, or spell, or whatever it was that had a hold of him had enveloped the brother I'd once known.

I didn't answer him. I didn't need to. He would die here.

The strand that had been his life in the Norn's tree had shown me his death and it was now.

Teeth and claws, we tackled and bit one another. I kept my chin tight to my chest, protecting my neck where I could.

Bebe tried darting in, but I snapped at her to stay out of the way. Not because she wasn't amazing, but I couldn't be distracted. And if she got hurt, I wasn't sure I could focus on what I had to do.

This was the moment that had been coming for so many years.

He'd hurt me.

A hundred times he'd hurt me, beating me until I was unconscious.

He had been Juniper's weapon. The sword she'd held at my neck for so fucking long.

And I'd cowered under his rage.

The golden retriever and the wolf in me were in agreement.

I lowered myself to the black marble and whimpered. Cowering before him. I was a far better actor than Havoc.

Never again. But he didn't know that—he didn't know that I wasn't that woman anymore. That wolf. That I wouldn't run from him.

That I wouldn't let him beat me.

He stalked toward me, panting for air. "Bitch. You know you can't win. You've never been strong enough. Didn't you learn that when I stuck you with that spear? When we threw you in the river? When I beat you bloody?"

His words struck a hard chord. Pain from the past reared its head, demanding that I see the darkest of my moments—all of them at his hands.

"You should have protected me," I whispered.

"You were never one of us," he growled. "You were never going to be one of us."

"I loved you as my brother, you betrayed that trust." I was speaking not to slow him down, but because this was our reckoning. There would be nothing after this.

Because one of us would be dead. And it would not be me.

I kept my eyes lowered, watched his feet step closer. I rolled to my side.

"I never loved you," he growled.

"I would have saved you too," I whispered. And I would have. I would have forgiven him if he'd turned from the darkness.

Forgive me, Mars. I am going to kill your son.

"Don't let her fool you!" Sven snapped.

"You don't know her like I do! She's weak!" Kieran turned his head as he stood over me, exposing his neck. Because he thought I was done. He thought I was weak, just like he said .

How very wrong was he.

There was no moment that would be handed to me like this again.

I leapt up, and latched my jaws onto him like I was one of the scaley-dilly's from the swamp. My teeth cut and crunched through cartilage, crushing his windpipe.

He thrashed, the tips of his claws reaching hard for my belly, but the angle was off. I stood to the side as he fought for his life. I could have killed him, but I held off, something in me telling me to wait. Not a mercy, no…a necessity?

It was as if there were a voice in my head, telling me to wait. It sounded suspiciously like Proferia.

I threw Kieran to the side and stared up at Sven as my brother's body tumbled to a stop.

Sven sighed and stood up, his gangly legs and arms reminding me of the trees I'd run from through the forest of the Norns. At his side a pouch hung, deep green and it…moved. He tracked my eyes.

"Ah, you like it? It's the last bit of my mother."

He opened the pouch and pulled out a shard of a tree. The tree of life. Suvenia. "No."

"The last piece," Sven rolled it in his hands. "I will be the center of all the realms now. I will recreate them in my image. Make them better."

I could do nothing but stare at him. "No, you can't do this! So many people will die. Sven. You showed me kindness, you can't be this evil. You put cream and sugar in my coffee."

Even as I spoke, I slid from golden wolf back to two legs, crouched on the black marble. The air around me was cold and I had no clothes but as I stood, a long golden gown slid over my body, the material like silk. A belt slid around my waist, a warm band holding me tight.

"I did that because I had no idea who or what you would become." He sighed. "Everything was going as planned. We had Soleil in our sights. I had to get her the night of the dead moon, and I almost did. But then you showed up and stuck your nose in my business."

The marble erupted around me, shards flying every direction.

Bebe cried out and I spun. My legs were caught in my skirts. No, not the skirts, roots.

Roots had ripped through the marble and were wrapping around me, binding my arms and legs together, pinning me in place.

Sven strolled toward me. His face wasn't tight with anger, more resignation. "You see, the realms were always my mother's children. Far more than I was."

Bebe scoffed. "Wait, stop, this is all because you have mommy issues? You're shitting me."

Sven didn't stop walking toward me. He held up the splinter of the tree that had belonged to the tree of life. "But I think you, Cinniúint, daughter of destiny, have perhaps offered me an even better option. You see if Ragnar?k had come to pass, then I would have had to still contend with the same players. But with the tree of life gone…there is nothing to be reborn. So I have a true clean slate from which to build a world as I see fit, in my image. I will be the greatest of all the gods. I will raise up those I see fit, and cast down those who cause harm."

He was right in front of me now. "And you…you are the final piece. Juniper foolishly tied her life to my mother…of course, I gave her the key of how to do it."

His words sunk into me, and I could only stare at him.

Sven smiled. "I had no idea she'd actually done it, when she carried you in her belly no less! Juniper's death assured my own mother's. And I knew you would do it. You had the makings of a great alpha shifter." He lifted a gnarled hand and cupped one side of my face. "And then to carry the sun too? Ah, two blows in one. You killed Juniper, setting us on this path. And now I will kill you, extinguishing the last light of the last sun. Perfection."

I stared up at him, my thoughts racing. "You don't know that the world will end with my death."

"No. But you've caused me grief. And that is enough to end you at this point. A bonus to take out the last of the powers that once were. The clean slate that I wish for."

The pain was sudden and sharp beyond anything I'd ever felt before. I hadn't even seen him move until he stepped back from me.

I looked down at my chest. Blood bloomed over my left side, spilling down the gown as if it wouldn't sink into the material.

"No!" Bebe screamed. "NO, take me instead! Please! Don't…don't let her die!"

I blinked, my vision going fuzzy, rapidly. "Don't stop fighting, Bebe," I whispered, reaching for her. If I could give her the sun, we might still have a chance. But she was bound as tightly as me and we couldn't touch. "I'll…see you on the other side, my friend."

Her scream was guttural, as if torn from her very chest, and I knew from the depth and volume of it she'd shifted back to two legs. The roots slid from around my body, and I went to the ground. Or I would have if not for Bebe.

She caught me first. Someone else had their hands on my body, helping to lower me down.

"Take it," I whispered.

"Then she will die too," Sven laughed. "It is over."

I stared up into Bebe's eyes that streamed with tears. "Please don't leave me," she whispered.

But I couldn't see her anymore. My vision was dark and though I knew she was shaking me, it was no good.

I slipped into the darkness of the beyond. I floated there, no pain, no thoughts, just nothing.

"So, my son thought stabbing you with the last cutting off my tree was smart? What a fool."