Chapter 23 Devils Overgrown, and Ghosts of Family Past

23

Devils Overgrown, and Ghosts of Family Past

I landed directly in front of the blizzard-stone palace—only this time, its glittering fa?ade held a tremendous set of double doors. They were flung wide open, as if waiting for me, a maw of impenetrable darkness gaping beyond.

And Chernobog was there, too, standing in front of them. His divine form sized down to match mine like last time, his flawless face as intoxicating and deathly as a draught of some hemlock-touched wine, those green eyes bright like emeralds. A smile curling the corners of his lips, one hand outstretched to me like a cavalier's.

"Welcome, child of dark, with a star upon your brow," he crooned, tilting his head. His glossy black curls stirred as if in a breeze, though the air here was dead as ever. That consuming rage had fallen away from him like a discarded cloak, as if it had never been; now he was performing entirely for me. "She would not come, my faithless lover. But you did—and I am glad for your bright company. Will you walk with me? Will you let me show you what delights may yet be found by my cold hearth?"

Through the immediate, blazing onset of euphoria pounding through my veins, I struggled to think clearly. I'd need time to acclimate before I could even begin to try to best him. And what better way to get his guard down than to let him think I was here out of curiosity or attraction? After all, he hadn't heard any of what had passed between me and Belisama, including my pledge to her. If I had to begin this with a performance of my own, then I could do that for the Lady.

"Show me," I said, lifting my chin like a queen and setting my hand in his.

The touch of his palm against mine felt like mainlining the other side straight to the chambers of my heart.

Icy fire bloomed inside me, vast, frost-furred petals unfurling in my lungs. I stumbled, nearly moaned aloud, before gathering myself enough to fall into step with him as he turned toward the castle doors. I should have been afraid—maybe somewhere down deep, I was, beneath the vast roar of that enchanting inferno—but it didn't feel like I had any room left for fear. Not while I was touching him.

As soon as we stepped across the threshold, the dim space beyond the doors resolved into a dark, shimmering mirage made real. Everything that met the eye was crafted from blizzard stone and smoked crystal flowing seamlessly into each other, from the tiled floor in a whirlpool pattern that evoked maelstroms and black holes to the double staircase that swept away and then met itself on the far-flung second floor. Enormous chandeliers hung high above us, some dripping intricate waterfalls of smoky quartz teardrops, obelisks, and arrowheads, others like massive orreries, with crystal spheres arranged in orders I'd never seen before, as if they spoke of foreign solar systems.

It was breathtaking, the strangest and most beautiful place I'd ever seen, and I'd grown up in Thistle Grove.

"You like it," he noted, lips quirking with delight, in that voice like wildflower honey dripped over coals. "I thought you would. Let me show you more."

Together, we drifted up the staircase, each step and inhale bringing with it a fresh bout of ecstasy. I followed him into a banquet hall furnished only with a table so long it seemed to stretch out into an endless distance, laden with crystal platters of that strange orchard fruit, cleaved in half. Their insides were a winking mess of jagged edges, edible geodes studded with seeds like black pearls. It didn't look like something any human could eat—nor had it ever occurred to me that I even could eat on this side—but somehow I knew that in his presence, it would taste divine. Resurrect every memory I'd ever had of anything heartrendingly beautiful.

"Will you take some?" He motioned to it, one thick eyebrow cocking. "There can be wine as well, if you like."

I shook my head. If nothing else, I knew better than to pick the most obvious Persephone path here. "I'm not hungry. But thank you anyway."

His brow furrowed, but he didn't push. "Perhaps later, then. Come see what else I have for you."

Somehow, only three more steps brought us past that infinite banquet table, and into a chamber like a crystal's heart—its walls rising around us in carved quartz facets, entwined swirls of black and green trapped within. In the middle was a well carved from jet, the water inside it gleaming like black satin.

And it sang , a haunting melody like a sylph's song that stole into my ears and nestled into the whorls of my brain as if it were alive.

"Sit with me on the edge," he ordered, and when I hesitated, "and do not fret, it's perfectly safe. The well of worlds would not allow you in, not without me as your escort."

"The well of worlds," I repeated, incredulous, perching gingerly on its freezing edge. "Why do you call it that?"

With a whisper of a smile, he trailed a fingertip over the water, drawing a spiral like a nautilus shell into its surface until it began to ripple. At his touch, colors began blooming far beneath, and I braced myself on one hand to peer inside. There were stars in there—and not only stars, but entire milky galaxies, complete with streaking comets and spirals of nebulae. An infinity of tiny, multicolored planets suspended in their gravity wells like marbles.

"More worlds than you can imagine," he said, smiling at my breathless awe. "Worlds upon worlds upon worlds, on every plane and every realm in this mille-feuille universe. You can visit them all, on my arm. We would certainly not be satisfied with this one alone."

"But why does it sing like that?" I whispered, captivated by the jewel-box glow of the water, curiosity blazing inside me like a pyre.

"Have you not heard about the music of the spheres?" he asked, reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. I felt even that light touch echo through me like a tremor, had to bite the inside of my lip hard to keep from leaning into it. "It is no metaphor, but simple truth. Life sings, child of dark. It sings incessantly , clamoring of itself, until only I can silence it."

"Why would you ever want to silence it? It's so beautiful."

He shrugged a powerful shoulder, folded wings twitching behind him, something like sadness grazing over his face. "Because it is what I am, the purpose woven into me. I am a darkness made to cover light. A silence that snuffs out lifesong and echoes in the void."

"And that's all you do?" I asked softly, meeting his eyes. "Destroy?"

"No," he replied, his eyes dragging over my features with such avid intensity I could feel heat surge into my cheeks, especially when his gaze landed on my mouth. "Not only that. There are many other things I crave. She knows. That is why she still yearns for and dreams of me, even as she chooses to flee the love we were born to share."

He rose in a fluid motion, wings rippling behind him, offering me his hand again. "There is something else I would show you," he said. "A final gift. My last offering."

He led me through winding hallway after hallway, ceilings soaring so high above us they nearly disappeared into darkness, the sconces set into the crystal walls flickering with green fire. On either side, rune-embellished doorways opened into decadent bedrooms, with massive canopied beds carved of blizzard stone and crystal, draped with sheets that looked more like swirling mist than anything material.

I could feel his eyes stray to me each time I glimpsed into one, knew exactly what occupied his mind. He'd fuck me in all these beds if I stayed with him. And for as long as I survived being here, it would be a pleasure unlike anything I'd know in mortal life.

"You could find happiness here with me, you know. Be my dread queen, and never leave my side. Perhaps you would be even better than her," he mused, as we walked the long corridors. "Her light has fed your bloodline for these centuries, and yet you are also like me—darkness driving through the branching forest of your veins. You know death. You know the night, as she never did. You would grow to understand me."

And that was the worst of it—maybe I would . I could imagine all of it, like a diorama of temptation erecting itself in my mind, what it would be to give in to the indulgence of staying here, with him. Never having to fight the craving for the other side again, but living in it, swimming in it, fucking him in it. Every sensation amplified to excruciating keenness, as I lost myself forever in that churning sea of euphoria.

But beneath that temptation, love for Ivy beat reassuringly inside me like a second heart, human and warm. My grounding anchor, an infallible truth. My reminder of the promise I'd made to her that I'd be back, even as I pledged my help to Belisama.

"Perhaps I would" was all I said, and it seemed to appease him. He smiled and squeezed my hand, drawing me to a stop in front of the chamber at the end of the hall.

"Go on," he urged, gesturing me inside. "I will follow after."

I stepped in, expecting more uncanny wonders. Captive stars, more impossible foods, maybe even clichéd fairy-tale offerings like dresses sewn from the fabric of some overly specific time of day. Instead, I froze as if I'd crashed headlong into a wall—because my parents stood in front of me.

Not flesh and blood, but some swirled-quartz replicas, so uncannily lifelike that I could barely bring myself to suck in another breath. My mother's hair unraveled from a messy braid as it so often had in life, the expression on her face the one of joyfully animated curiosity I'd seen a thousand times. The way she lived in my mind whenever I remembered her. And my father with his crooked grin, his hair curling so familiarly over his brow, arms spread as if inviting me in for one of his crushing hugs.

Grief and fury pounded through me, merciless and intractable, cutting through even the liquid heaven in my veins.

"What is this?" I whispered, tears trembling in my voice as I wheeled around to face him, infuriated by the expectant delight in his face—as if he'd thought I'd like this travesty. "Why would you show me this? My parents are dead, you must know that. So why would you taunt me with their likenesses?"

"Because you could have them back," he said, gaze heavy and magnetic on mine, too cumbersome to let me look away. "If you chose to stay with me. I could summon their departed spirits with a single word. I could call their true names and enliven them for you. And then they could stay here, too, with us. With you."

The sheer gut punch of want took me by complete surprise. I'd been grieving them for years; I thought I'd finally let them go. But clearly I hadn't, not all the way, if the idea of having them back in whatever form was offered could feel like such a powerful enticement. Just the notion of refusing made me want to fall to my knees, like losing them all over again.

I turned to Chernobog, tears streaming down my face. "You could really do it?" I demanded, stepping so close to him we were nearly nose to nose. "Bring them back?"

"I am lord of darkness and chaos, and the master of the void," he replied, still in that silky voice but with an edge beneath it, a blade concealed within a satin sheath. "Of course I could do that, and more."

I set a trembling hand against his chest, my heart thrumming from the enormity of the choice I was about to make, how desperately torn I was between extremes—life here with him and the parents I thought I'd lost. Life on my side of the veil with the love I'd only just gotten back. Could I go through with this, after everything? Was I strong enough to choose the right thing for myself?

Then the certainty slammed into place, tumblers falling as if a key had turned in a lock. I knew exactly what I wanted. The only door that I could bear to open.

"Then, yes," I said, low and hoarse, looking up at him through my eyelashes. "Yes, I'll stay."

The joy that suffused his beautiful face was immense enough that guilt stirred inside me for the first time. For all his sins against her, I couldn't imagine the loneliness of being denied Belisama's light, of being innately incapable of loving her in a way that she'd accept.

"Truly?" he exhaled, his eyes flitting ardently between mine, his palm sliding to cover my hand on his chest. "You will take her place?"

"I will." I tipped my face up to his, cupped his cheek with my free hand. "And let us seal my promise with a kiss."

My lips parted as he covered them with his own, his mouth lush and cold and deliciously sweet beyond anything I'd ever imagined.

For a moment, I was utterly lost in it, the flood of desire and elation like a wave closing over my head, sealing me under, threatening to wash away all reason. But that hunger inside me still knew what it was for, remembered what it was here to do even if I forgot. It surged inside me at the press of his lips, the sweep of his tongue against mine, hissing, " Take him for usssss ," in my ears.

And then my onslaught began.

"Oh, what are you doing?" he managed against my mouth, agony like a thorny wreath wound around his voice. "You treacherous child, what are you doing to me?"

"I'm sorry," I whispered back, not letting my will flag even for a moment. "I know it's not entirely your fault, but there's no other way. You wouldn't let her go…and she deserves to be free of you."

He resisted me, hard. I could feel him fighting, bucking and yanking against me with his own colossal will, sprawling and barely conceivable, scales of magnitude larger than my own. It felt like wrestling with a black hole incarnate, trying to shred the fabric of night itself, dissolve an entire elemental force that dwarfed me on every level. But though he was a god, Belisama had been right; he was made of the same stuff as all the devils I had eaten. A devil overgrown. And whatever eldritch talent coursed through me—because I wasn't naive enough to think that what I did was wholly, or even partly, good—it had clearly been intended for this, too.

I could feel his shocked gasp against my mouth, his entire body stiffening as he tried to wrench away from me. But the hunger infused me with strength enough to hold on, and I wrapped a hand around his nape, latching him to me.

And bit by bit by bit, I dissolved a god.

He came apart with such an agonizing slowness, like deconstructing an entire universe into a sea of component molecules. Though he shrieked muffled invective into my mouth, begged me to stop, threatened me with everything he could devise, I was far past the point of being swayed even by the deathbed curses of a god. Instead I pulled and pulled and pulled, with the energy flaring like a starburst from the very bottom of my will, unraveling and undoing him—until there wasn't enough cohesion left in him to allow for incarnate form.

When the deed was done, I fell to my knees and tipped my head back for that final drink.

Foolishly, part of me had been convinced that all my experience had prepared me for this, that I was strong enough to swallow the universe that I had melted down—because what was a god if not a collection of forces, a universe in miniature? But Chernobog's essence had flooded the entire palace from keystone to roof, a vast and roiling sea of darkness with me at its epicenter. I drank and drank—and Mother and Crone, it was so terribly cold. Wormwood stinging in my nose and copper twanging in my mouth, the sound of shedding snake husks rustling in my ears, until I felt sure that this ordeal would never end.

That I'd be here not just until my death but the death of all days, the end of ends. The other side of eternity.

I hadn't even realized that the castle itself was dissolving around me, as though it had been an extension of him—chipping away in broken pixels like puzzle pieces that crumbled into ash. But by the time I'd swallowed the last drop, I was on my knees amid the flowers with the charcoal sky above me, those red clouds scudding in their fitful fast-forward—the only witnesses to my collapse.

I fell forward and rolled feebly to my side, knees curled up to my chest.

That hunger inside me not just quiet and sated, but completely quenched, finally overwhelmed by the consumption of a god.