It can be different than how it was with her.

I pick you up. You’re so tiny and fragile in my arms. Even though you’re terrified of me, you cling to my neck, like some part of you knows exactly who I am.

I’m already more afraid than I ever have been.

Afraid of you and what you could do to me. Afraid of the world that could kill you so easily. Afraid of myself, gifted with another fragile heart that I know I cannot keep.

But, my little serpent, it is the most wonderful fear.

Every minute with you is, even if I already regret all the mistakes I know I will make.

I drew in a gasp. My chest hurt. The air burned.

I was on my knees now.

I forced my eyes open through the noxious smoke. No—not smoke. Magic of some kind, thick and red, shimmering in a million colors at once.

Maybe that was why tears streaked down my cheeks.

Maybe not.

Vincent was kneeling beside me. His hand was on my shoulder, but I couldn’t feel his touch, and for a moment that devastated me.

No matter how real he felt, no matter how real he looked, he was gone.

He smiled sadly at me.

“I tried, Oraya,” he murmured. “I tried.”

I understood the depth of what he was admitting in those two words. Centuries worth of brutality ingrained into him, revered above all else. Millennia worth of generations of bloody ends and bloody beginnings.

I had never seen Vincent admit weakness before. And those words were a concession of so many failures.

And yet, I was still so angry at him.

“It wasn’t enough,” I choked out, fractured with an almost-sob.

His throat bobbed. “I know, little serpent,” he murmured. “I know.”

He tried to stroke my hair, but I felt nothing.

Because Vincent was dead.

All of it was true at once. That he had saved me. That he had crippled me. His selfishness and his selflessness.

That he had tried.

That he had failed.

And that he had loved me, anyway.

And I would carry all of that forever, for the rest of my life.

And he would still be dead.

I forced myself to my feet. I turned to Vincent. His image, once so sharp, was starting to fade.

He looked to the obelisk.

“I think,” he said, “this is what you came here for.”

I followed his gaze. The pillar had opened, revealing a cavity full of rippling crimson light.

And there, at its center, was a little vial, floating, self-contained, in the air. The liquid within contained impossible multitudes of color, shifting and changing with every passing second. Purple and blue and red and gold and green, all at once, like the range of shades in a galaxy.

“The blood of Alarus,” I whispered.

“Your mother and I gave up so much to distill this.” His gaze found mine again. “But we gained so much, too.”

“What do I do with it? Do I drink it or—or wield it—”

“You can drink it. Only a little bit. Or you can put it in your blades. It will find a way to give you its power, however you wield it. Your blood is the catalyst.”

“What will it do to me?”

I thought of Simon, and his bloodshot, empty eyes. Those teeth that had taken more from him than they had given.

“It will make you powerful,” Vincent said.

“What else?”

“I cannot say.”

There was a reason, I knew, why he had never used the blood. It was a power so great it could only be an absolute last resort.

I reached into the compartment and closed my hand around the vial.

It took a moment to realize the scream that sliced the air was mine. Everything disappeared but the pain for several long seconds. I was dripping with sweat when, inch by inch, I withdrew it from the obelisk.

Vincent’s form now flickered. The light that imbued the carvings shuddered and skipped.

“Go,” he said. “You don’t have much time.”

His voice sounded so far away.

He gave me a gentle smile. “Don’t forget those teeth of yours, little serpent.”

And Goddess, despite everything, I hesitated. Despite everything, I was not ready to let him go.

I would never be ready to let him go.

“I love you,” I said.

Because it was still true. After everything, it was still true.

I didn’t wait for him to say it back to me. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and turned away.

The image of Vincent withered away into darkness.

I didn’t look back.

72

RAIHN

Simon didn’t let up. And I matched him.

The two of us locked ourselves in nonstop combat, swords and magic clashing in a blurred cacophonous melody. The blood from the battle in the skies above now rained down over us in a steady rhythm, drenching us in black—covering us in so much blood it was impossible to tell how much of it was our own. I no longer felt the blows. The pain was so constant that I just let it fall into the background, another distraction to be ignored.

I wasn’t sure how I wasn’t dead yet. Felt like I should be. My body threatened to give out with every movement.

I just kept telling myself, One more swing.

One more.

I didn’t expect to come out of this alive. But I sure as fuck wasn’t about to let Simon live, either.

Whenever I could steal precious seconds, I glanced over my shoulder, to the distant doorway in the ruins—an abyss of black, with no sign of Oraya.

With every passing minute, my heart crawled up my throat.

Come on, princess. Where are you?

I was grateful that holding off Simon took all my focus. Otherwise, I’d linger too long on the millions of horrifying scenarios that danced in the back of my head—Oraya’s body broken by traps or crushed by stone or burned up by magic she couldn’t control.

SMACK.

An especially devastating strike from Simon slammed me against a sheet of rock. I felt the impact in my bones. My head lolled. My vision dipped into fuzzy white.

When I forced myself back to consciousness, mere seconds later, the first thing I saw was Simon’s snarling face rushing toward me.

I barely managed to roll out of the way.

Countered, clumsily.

Warmth dotted my face in a fresh spray of blood. I hit something. Wasn’t sure what. Couldn’t count how many blows I’d gotten in by now.

He roared and returned my strike.

Another spatter of red-black over his cheek, now. Another distant throb of pain. Another wound.

Couldn’t count those, either.

I tried to swing my sword and realized my left arm had now completely given up on working. Fuck. I switched hands quickly, drawing back—

Too slow.

I slammed against another column, the broken edge jamming into my spine at just the right angle to knock the breath from my lungs. My body slumped against it and wanted desperately to stay that way.

Don’t you dare, I told it. Get the fuck up.

Simon stalked toward me. He was a pathetic sight, too, limping, blood smearing down his face. One eye was now missing, or at least seemed like it was, beneath the mess of tattered flesh.

Still, that damned magic pulsed at his chest, stubbornly clinging on despite every blow I levied to it. Keeping him going long after any mortal body would give out. Making him stronger than I ever could be.

“You,” he growled, “should not be so much trouble.”

Movement out of the corner of my eye.

I made the mistake of looking.

Oraya.

For a moment, I thought maybe I was hallucinating. She staggered from the darkness. Blood drenched her hands and smeared her face. She was running, though half-stumbling, looking around wildly.

And she was surrounded by magic.

I’d seen her wielding her Nightfire before, but this—it was fucking magnificent. It embraced her now, licks of stunning white-blue cutting through the night, fanning out around her like the wings of the gods themselves.