Chapter 36

My stomach is as hollow as the thin air heaving into my lungs, thighs burning with each frantic step I scale up the crumbling path of Mount Ether’s summit, tracking the scent of vanilla beans and damp soil all the way to this dead and dusty end.

Clinging to sweat-slicked skin, my shirt reeks of my dashed journey, mind racing even faster than my feet. The cold air tangles with hot steam rising from clefts between the stones, another scent riding the tails of the rich, sulfuric taint this place breathes into the atmosphere …

Fuck.

I haven’t stopped since I realized Rai was gone. Haven’t tired. I tire now—sipping the smell of her blood.

A savage sound saws up my throat, and I quicken my pace, moving so fast the craggy, gray stone around me blurs. There’s only more heartbreak to be found here, in this place. More twists of the talon already hilt-deep in a rotting wound.

The sloped path chops into stairs so steep one misplaced step would send me plummeting, but I take them two at a time, powering myself up and up and up—

I spill upon the volcano’s crown, a flat band of rubbled terrain that wraps around the caldera, supporting a clutch of stone monoliths—their piercing tips lost through the swirl of clouds. Stairs curl around the massive shards of gray rock, creating perilous paths that scale the individual spires, giving access to inky words chipped into the surface.

The tap-tap-tap of Maars’s chisel echoes down from above, chipping at my bones as I search my surroundings in desperate sweeps.

Can’t see her.

That wildness inside me roars.

Charging right, I sprint past stone after stone until I come to the one foretelling the elements of Rai’s unraveling—right at the base. One of the first ribbons of script to be plucked from the bowl and carved upon this stone.

I have to crouch to run my hand along the words that are chiseled just as deep through the folds of my brain:

A fresh smear of crimson is swiped across the stone, and I rub it between my fingers, smelling it.

“Fuck.”

The ground shakes, like some beast beneath my feet just took a breath and grumbled.

Like something disturbed its sleep.

I charge toward the edge of the bowl. Sliding to a stop, I look down the slope that plummets to the large crater lake, still ruffled by the echo of Mount Ether’s moan. Ribbons of black scripture frolic beneath the dull-gray surface, flicking at it, as though begging to be snapped up and inspected.

Chipped into the stones by Maars’s gnarly hands.

My gaze snags on the tapered outcrop jutting toward the center. On the woman standing near the end, her black dress blowing about her small, frail form, the torn strips dragged by the handsy wind.

Long, silver tresses swirl around her in tangled scribbles, her right hand smothered in blood that drips from the tip of the talon clenched in her white-knuckled fist.

My heart dives.

Her wrath will spill from a bloody hand.

I leap and slide down the craggy slope with a volley of loose rocks and shards of stone that tumble into the water, disturbing the steam wafting off the surface. Another restless rumble rattles the ground, the entire world seeming to shake. I stagger, taking tentative steps toward the frail outcrop.

“Rai!” I boom, and she spins, striking me with her bold black eyes set within the canvas of her fierce, regal beauty.

Her features are sharp, her cheekbones matching the bladed angles of her shoulders, arms, and legs; her pale complexion a stark contrast to her lips—the deep red of spilled blood.

Even gaunt and half starved, she’s unparalleled.

Everything that’s good in this world, steeped in the sourness ofloss.

I step onto the ledge, swirling, sulfuric steam dampening my skin. She throws her hand toward me, and the clouds ignite with a fork of lightning that carves down from the sky.

“Stop.” Her ripped voice hacks through the empty space between us.

I hold her gaze and take another slow, steady step.

“Don’t you dare.”

She speaks softly now, her tone gentle like the bedtime songs Mother used to sing to us when we were small. My responding snarl is as hard and coarse as Father’s stony regard.

I hunt the unhinged glint in her ebony eyes—the darkness bleeding into the surrounding skin like dusky veins pushed to the surface. I hunt that severed talon hanging from her hand like the lingering threat it is, chewing on my compulsion to lurch forward and rip it from her bony grasp.

Another step. Another.

She shuffles back in silent retreat, and my heart vaults.

I still, hands crunching into fists so tight my knuckles pop.

Silence settles between us, a great beast crouched on its haunches, plotting which of us it’s going to pounce upon.

“You knew,” she scolds, the words the crack of a whip.

Knew the prophecy. Knew that she would find him.

Losehim.

“Yes.”

I knew and never told her. Never warned her of the pain her path was paved in.

Another layer of hurt hatches in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she cries. “I expected that from Mother and Father, but you—” Her voice breaks, and something in my chest feels like it’s twisting, gouging at my insides.“I thought you cared.”

Caringwas watching her find a love that made her glow. It was hearing her speak about dreams of her own family—a family I knew she’d never have.

Caringwas hunting for ways to manipulate the fates while she lived in peaceful oblivion, not knowing that the happiest days of her life were about to come to an abrupt and heart-wrenching end. That she would be forced to watch her mate decompose from the inside out, helpless to fix him.

Savehim.

She pushes her shoulders back and lifts her chin, swatting a tear from her cheek. “Mother and Father—”

“Are coming.” My voice is cut with the promise of something fierce threatening to split through my skin. “I was faster.”

I’d powered across the plains once I’d realized she escaped the castle. The sun tore across the sky five times while I tracked her scent, driven by the knowledge that she was out here—alone—being feasted on by her broken heart.

I look at her bloodied arm as the wind pulls her scent to me, punched with the metallic tang of not just her blood, but also that of a goat.

Fuck.

“You asked Maars a question …”

Her gaze calcifies into a cold, bitter mask. “Yes.”

“And?”

“He told me why I don’t die no matter how many times I stab.”

I flinch from the blow she landed with such precision, visions of her flashing into the forefront of my memory: her lifeless body cast across her blood-soaked bed; the room smelling like the death she craved—the death that didn’t stick the first time … or any of the times that followed.

A loosely tied ribbon falls from her hair, the strip of white swirling through the air before landing atop the lake in a splash of sizzle and steam, the material swiftly disintegrating.

I chance another stolen step forward, hand raised as if to tame the wild, broken beast before me. “What did he say?” I ask, picturing my hand delving between her ribs, gripping hold of her hurt.

Crushing it.

“Our father.” Her head rolls back, and a laugh spills from her, manic and twisted. “Our father!” She screams and waves the talon through the air, wobbling.

Stumbling.

Her foot scores the edge, and a wildness swipes at my insides, every muscle in my body poised to leap as a piece of stone breaks off and plops into the water, scattering the scriptures.

I blow out an exhale as she finds her balance and straightens, then half turns to watch the ripples cast across the pallid water. Slowly, her gaze drops to the talon, its severe length curved at the tip, dripping blood. “The only way for me to join him is to impale myself through the heart with this. Covered in his blood.”

His—

Her mate’s.

“And where the fuck am I going to get that? He’s dead.” The words pop out of her with a bubble of soiled laughter. “He’s ash on the wind because the stars refused to answer my plea. Not even a whisper.” I track the tear caressing her cheek. “Because they don’t care, Rhor. Because we’re nothing but a colorful splash of entertainment upon the tapestry of their immortal oblivion.”

Another rumble throws more ripples across the water while I try to remember the girl Rai was before she was cast in this shadow of loss …

All I can see is the ache in her eyes when Heath heaved his last breath, her beautiful face twisting into something I could feel in my chest.

All I can hear are the sharp shrieks that ripped up her throat. Pleas for me to let her go when I caught her trying to leap off the cliff at home—determined to break herself apart on the jagged rocks below.

She drugged herself with sips of a half-death she believed would bring her closer to him.

Seven times I watched her eyes go flat and empty, then sat beside her bed and waited for them to open again—hoping that maybe she’d come back better. That things would go back to the way they were before.

That the words on the stones would be wrong.

“But I think I’ve found a way to get their attention,” she whispers, glancing out across the lake, and a shiver climbs my spine. Rakes across my skin. “After all, that stupid book I found said all of creation poured from … here.”

Realization almost clefts me down the middle, my gaze darting to her bloody hand.

The talon clenched in her fist.

Her wrath will spill from a bloody hand. Her wrath will spill from a bloody hand. Her wrath will spill from a bloody hand—

She’s going to toss the talon in the water …

“Rai, no—”

“Why not?” she screams, face contorted with a mix of heartache and rage. “They watched him rotfrom the inside out.” With a shrug, she takes a step toward the perilous drop so that her toes are nudging the edge. “Their precious world can do the same.”

“You’re not thinking straight,” I growl. “You throw that talon into the pool and you yield to the words. You fucking yield.”

She tips her head and laughs, the sound poison to my ears.

For a moment, I’m happy Mother and Father were slower than me. That they’re not here to witness this.

It would kill them.

“Anything could spill out,” I continue. “And it won’t be the Gods that suffer. Not truly.”

It will be the people.

The innocents.

“Can you wear the weight of that?” Her laughter tapers as I take another step forward and hold her narrowing stare. “Because the Rai I knew cried when I had to put a foal out of his misery after he got crushed against that tree and snapped his spine.”

“Your Rai is gone,” she snarls, upper lip peeled back to reveal her piercing canines. She lifts her chin and looks down her nose at me, like she despises me—truly despises me. “But I don’t expect you to understand, Rhordyn. You’ve lost nothing.”

“I’m losing you,” I rasp, and her eyes flare, shoulders bowing as if an arrow just struck her chest.

I hold her gaze, unblinking, a swirl of ashy wind whipping her silver mane into a deeper state of disarray.

She drops her head, breaking my stare, her shoulders folding further.

“Rai—”

“You can’t fix me, big brother. You can’t erase my hurt.”

Another step, and I could almost reach out and touch her. Grab her. Rip her from the edge and pull her to my chest. Instead, I bend my knee and kneel, dropping into her line of sight.

Her breath catches as she’s forced to look straight into me. To see the raw desperation in my eyes as I say, “Not if you don’t let me try.”

Her lids sweep shut, chin wobbling, and for a moment, I think she’s going to step over the edge.

To jump.

Instead, the talon clatters to the stone, and relief punches me in the gut as she crumples into a pile of sharp limbs and filthy flesh.

I resist the urge to reach for her, knowing the moment is fragile.

“It’s tiring, you know,” she opens her eyes and looks at me with a deflated expression, “having you as a brother.”

I lift a brow.

“I’m kidding.” Her lips slant into a tired smile. “I love you, even though I’m so mad I could shred holes in the world.”

I grunt, letting my shoulders buckle as I rub my eyes.

Maars and his fucking chisel.

“Do you remember that old fort you dug for me in the sprite warren after I begged for a castle of my own?”

I glance up at her.

“It took me three moon cycles,” I mumble, tipping back onto my ass and scrubbing at my scratchy face. “A swarm of sprites would nip me all over every time I brought out a bucket of soil.”

Her smile grows, her features beginning to soften, the darkness sinking from the skin around her eyes, pupils tightening until the gray has returned for the first time in weeks.

Months.

Relief slathers my insides.

“That’s how I learned my first curse word, you know.” I frown as she continues. “I saw you emerge from behind the mail tree swatting at them like bees, and you had this look on your face like you wanted to stomp them but wouldn’t.”

I thought she was oblivious—that her dug-out castle was a complete surprise.

“You … knew I was making it?”

She nods sheepishly, tucking a lock of knotted hair back off her face. “You looked ridiculous dragging that trolley packed full of my dolls and teddy bears and lacy pillows across the grass. I was so excited because I knew that meant it was almost done. That I was about to see.” She pauses, swallowing, looking down at her hands. “Then you showed me …”

I remember that day clearly. Remember the way her eyes lit up as she dashed from room to room, squealing, almost tripping over her feet with excitement. I remember the silence that swept through the warren when Father crunched himself down and prowled through to her fort every night for a full moon cycle—Rai insisting she had to sleep in there, determined a princess should never leave her castle unattended.

Of course that meant us, too.

Our parents fawned over Rai like she was their entire world, and I never begrudged them for it. Not when they knew her time was limited.

Besides, she’s my favorite person, too.

“It was the happiest day of my life,” she whispers, and this weird feeling claws at the back of my throat, making it feel tight and choked.

Clearing it, I rest my arms on my knees and stare at the stone beneath us, wishing I could speak the words inside my head. Knowing they would come out wrong.

Jumbled and too sharp. Or too blunt.

How do I articulate how much she means to me? Perhaps I should just tell her that I love her, too.

I open my mouth—

The volcano rumbles with a burst of fury that makes the ground jolt in tandem with my heart, and a strident crack splits the silence as a fracture weaves through the stone between us.

My head whips up.

The ground gives way.

She plummets.

A burst of undiluted fear widens Rai’s eyes and electrifies me from within. I lurch forward, arm whipping out, snatching thin air.

Time seems to slow, her hair a storm around her face, bloody hand reaching for me—a desperate, hopeless plea. Her terrified gaze never leaves mine as her mouth opens in a tortured scream.

Her body folds, arms outstretched.

There’s a splash, and for a split second, her tragic stare spears through me, resigned to her fate …

Then she’s gone.

* * *

Iopen my eyes to find myself reaching through the grass, muscles bunched like I’m preparing to jump through the ages and fail all over again, that mournful ache in my gut just as gnashing as it’s ever been.

Groaning, I roll, squinting at the shafts of light piercing the dense canopy, the air warmer.

Thicker.

How long has it been this time?

I paw at my chest, feeling around the edges of the sore, sticky wound that’s not healing fast enough, then snatch the soft bladder hanging from the string around my neck. Easing onto my knees, I lean back as I pop the cork and tip my head like I’m exposing my throat to the very contents of this fucking thing. I suspend the nozzle over my mouth and wait for her to drip.

I killed my mother …

Orlaith’s words attack me as she hits my tongue in a cold splat, and I let her confession spoil every other inch of my body that’s not weeping rot.

She passed me those words like they were a bloody weapon she’d first used to stab herself. If she’d given me time to speak, I would have told her the truth. Would have given her another reason to plunge that talon through my chest, confessing it was me who stilled her mother’s heart.

Me.

I close my mouth around the crackling ember of her—unable to stop myself from drawing a breath through my nose and savoring her taste …

She’s a swirling prism of color and light tingling my taste buds. She’s amber warmed by a beam of sun, leaking down the side of a pine tree and heaping in the soil, begging me to extinguish her with a heady gulp.

She’s a flower, so fresh and full of life—crushed between my teeth as I swallow. She’s a sun in my throat, sinking low, igniting me from the inside out.

She’s everything I love.

Everything I hate.

The hairs on my arms and legs stand on end as she calms every bristled cell; the sharp edges threatening to gouge through my flesh. She soothes the gnashing teeth and the serrated edges that never dull.

That restless beast beneath my skin rumbles—a deep, satiated sound as my blood begins to boil, making me want to rip out my veins. That same heat pools in the tips of my fingers, electricity crackling through my muscles, making them twitch and tighten.

Making my binds chew.

I tip my head and laugh at the sky.

“You fucked up,” I mutter as my senses hone, and I become terribly aware of every root beneath the soil, the pulse of energy slugging through them. Of the air rushing past me like a blown breath I could choke or feed. Of the water barreling through the chasm below, alive with heaving might I can feel thrashing through my arteries.

And below the earth, beneath the roots and the rocks, beneath the layers of death and decay and bones and long-forgotten secrets …

Obsidian.

“I’ll never let her go,” I growl, then fall forward, digging my hands into the dirt, pouring every single fucking drop of that heat into the ground. Giving her to the soil and the trees and the seeds and the stone, when all I really want is to keep her tucked beneath my ribs.

Safe.

A mighty rumble breaks apart the silence, and a flock of krah scatter as the ground begins to shake. As trees snap and fall, crumbling a hole in the canopy.

The ground splits, the same sensation spurring through the tips of my fingers as a ring of massive obsidian sabers erupts in a burst of soil and stone, spearing upward. The grass takes on a richer shade of green. Silver vines crawl up the black stones, budding, flushing with argent blooms that slant their faces toward the sky.

There is nothing silent about the way I curse the Gods, planting this refuge in the soil. A permanent safety ring for anyone who might be stumbling through the shadows, hunted and hungry.

I will not fall silently into their fate.

Neither will she.

My spine arches, skin itching, fingers threading so deep I lose sight of them entirely. I pour until not a drop of her lustrous warmth is trapped inside my chest. Nothing but the seed—silently pulsing.

And for a single precious moment, I can almost will myself to believe she’s free of me.

Of this.

Just … free.