The Lion & the Deathless Dark — Chapter 50

C HA P T E R F I F T Y

y stomach flipped. My skin burned. A million fragmented sensations rushed by, so many that it felt like my entire physical form wasM being ripped apart. It was much more violent than any other aethergate I had ever passed through, so violent that I thought it would actually kill me, and just when I couldn’t take any more of it— I stumbled out into darkness.

My knees hit cold, moist ground. Sound was dampened, though I could hear unintelligible shouts in the distance, as if underwater.

And then, all at once, everything crashed back into focus.

“—are you doing here?” a woman’s voice snarled. I lifted my head to see the tip of a sword. I followed it up, the harsh features of a blond Bloodborn woman. Ilia, Septimus’s guard, I realized. I almost didn’t recognize her because she looked so different from when I’d last seen her, mere days ago. Her long hair, once sleek and neat, was falling out of its binding. Black smeared her cheeks, and her eyes were bloody.

“What a pleasant surprise. A liar returning to us for punishment.”

I cringed. Septimus had told her, then, what had happened. I was sure she wasn’t the only one.

“How did you get here?” another cold voice demanded. I lifted my gaze to see another familiar face—Sylina, wearing long red robes and a blindfold that was slightly torn. Beside her was Alric, and I noticed with a clench of dread in my heart that his left eye was blown out red.

“The Shadowborn must have sent her.” Ilia’s blade thrust a few inches closer to my face. “Or the Nightborn. She’s a spy.”

“I’m not a spy,” I said quickly, lifting my hands to show that they were empty. “I’m . . . I . . .” But I reached for more words and came up with none. It would have been simpler to talk my way out of being a spy than to explain the truth.

“We’re not interested in what you have to say,” Ilia spat.

“Kyrene.”

That voice. I swallowed, my chest tight.

The name was a little broken, a little choked, like he spoke without meaning to. The emotions within it cut deeper than any weapon could.

I had been prepared for anger. I had been prepared to plead and beg. But I had not been prepared for everything that I heard in those syllables. I’d thought the fury would be simple. Instead, it was pained and complicated, because in Septimus’s voice, I heard in equal measure relief.

Relief.

Slowly, I lifted my eyes.

Septimus stood on the stairs, frozen mid-step, as if he’d forgotten how to move at the sight of me. He was wearing his typical white clothing, though it was askew, the shirt unbuttoned slightly and wrinkled, spattered with a few stray drops of black-red, pushed up to the elbows. His hair was messy and his eyes rimmed with darkness that made their color—stark red —all the more striking.

And yet, at the sight of him, emotion clenched my heart. Too many to untangle. But I found myself catching the sound of his name in my teeth, and if I had let it out, I wondered if it would have sounded just like the way he said mine.

I opened my mouth, but no words came. And I was grateful that

Septimus’s did first.

“Let her stand,” he said brusquely.

“My king—” Ilia protested.

My brows lurched. “King?”

I scraped myself up from the floor and stood. He crossed the room in several swift, unbroken strides, jaw set, eyes burning.

“I—” I started.

But he seized my chin, his grip so tight it almost hurt, and I was so completely prepared to be executed that when his mouth crashed to mine, I let out a wordless oof.

For all our constant, tantalizing revolutions around each other, Septimus and I had never kissed. And this, whatever it was, hardly seemed to qualify.

It seemed more like a natural phenomenon than a kiss, vicious and angry and relieved and hurt. My lips parted in shock and his tongue seized upon that opening, sliding against mine, teeth briefly closing around my lower lip. It was all-consuming—him, the physicality of him, and all the contradictory emotions poured into this one gesture. My fingers dug into his shoulder, fisting the fabric of his shirt, halfway between pulling him closer

and pushing him away.

And then it was over.

He released me and stepped back as if it had not happened at all.

My gaze traced the scabbed-over wounds over his forehead, cheek, and chin, left behind by Nyaxia’s caress. Then drifted lower, to the triangle of skin visible beneath his shirt, faint red streaks reaching toward his throat.

My eyes flicked up to his. “Your parents died,” I murmured, because it was all I could think to say.

A flicker of pain, quickly hidden. “Many people died in the last three days. And many more will die in the next three.”

Three days? I nearly choked at that. To me, it felt like the battle with Nyaxia had been perhaps a day ago at most.

His gaze slipped away, and he ground out, “I thought I watched you die, too.”

Again, that twist of contradictions in his voice. Like even he wasn’t sure how he felt about it—relieved or disappointed that I was alive.

It was suddenly so hard to think. The stakes of everything that we were about to do, the breadth of all the ridiculous things that I had to explain to him, crushed me. Even Zefiah was uncharacteristically silent, as if she knew that there was no help she could offer me here.

I blurted out, “I came back to end Nyaxia.”

Silence. They blinked at me. Septimus’s brow lowered over his eyes, and up close, a terrible chill struck me as I watched just how red they were.

Worse than the night he had fed on me. None of that beautiful silvery amber left at all.

I gave him a faint smile that took far too much effort. “You hired me for a job. I told you I’d fulfill it. And I know how to, now.”

A flicker of hope, so brief I thought maybe, in my desperation, I’d imagined it.

“And how do you expect to do that, Vindica Ultis?” he said. The title was dripping with sarcasm, so biting it slid between my ribs.

Ilia still had not dropped her sword. “Outsiders are not welcome within these halls. Least of all dishonest ones.”

I looked at Sylina, who watched us with a blindfolded stare, her hand on Alric’s shoulder. I wondered how long she had here before she would have to leave, when the vampires would no longer be able to control their impulses around her human blood. I wondered the same for myself.

We had no time. I needed them to believe me. I needed them to do it quickly.

“Acaeja says that eleven years ago, she allowed you to keep your access to her magic,” I said to Sylina. “And she says that it was in preparation for this. This opportunity we have to end Nyaxia.”

Sylina stilled. Septimus’s surprise was visible only in a single blink. Ilia jerked forward, her sword now perilously close.

“Acaeja?” she breathed. “You made a deal with a rival goddess and then had the nerve to come here?” Then, to Septimus, “We must execute her, my king. She is dangerous. We can’t trust her. Not when we’re so vulnerable.”

“Nyaxia is killing you. What more can she do?” I looked only at Septimus. “What does it matter where the information came from? I know I —” My voice wavered, without my permission, and I cursed myself for it.

“I know I failed you once. I know you have no reason to trust me. But have Sylina look into my mind if you want. Your people deserve more than to be used as weapons. Mine deserve more than to become food for them. We have one chance, Septimus. Let’s fucking take it. It ends here.”

It ends here.

Septimus’s gaze turned to Alric, who still stood with Sylina, shrinking into the corner of the stairwell. A child. A child who didn’t deserve to suffer, no matter what color his blood ran. A child who, I knew, Septimus treasured just as fiercely as I had treasured Valentina.

It had never really been a choice at all.

Without another word, he turned away and began striding to the stairs.

The movement was so quick and smooth that I was startled by the cooling air where his body had been.

“If you want to talk,” he said, “then fine. Talk.”

SEPTIMUS BROUGHT us to his chambers. No one spoke as we walked. The halls were eerily empty, though the sounds that echoed through them had goose bumps rising over my skin. Screams and wails. Some cut short in sudden, gurgling silence.

When we arrived at Septimus’s chambers, we arranged in the library.

Septimus’s sister, Calista, met us here. Septimus sent Alric to the bedchamber.

I found my gaze lingering on the balcony where Septimus had told me of his true intentions. The hearth, now cold and empty, where he had showed me his dream of a world beyond the White Pantheon. The sitting room where I’d met Alric, and understood more about Septimus than I’d ever thought I would.

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I saw Septimus’s eyes drift over these places, too, as he closed the door behind us. I wondered if he was thinking of those same moments, when he’d shared so much of his own vulnerable honesty, not knowing how much I was withholding of my own.

The shame seemed suddenly crippling. Insurmountable.

Zefiah said quietly, {The past is over, Kyrene. It does not deserve to end you. Let the future do that, instead, if it must.} She was right. So, in this silent room, I told them everything.

I told them of Acaeja. I told them the story she’d revealed to me, about King Thastias and his plan against Nyaxia—the origins of the curse that had caused so much suffering. I told them of the temple, and the weapon built into it, one specifically created for Nyaxia. I told them that we had our chance, perhaps our only one, to use it, if they would listen, if they would try.

I told them all of it.

Calista, occasionally, interjected with questions. Ilia, with snide comments. Sylina, with thoughtful musing, as if trying to piece together the feasibility of all this. Only Septimus was silent the entire time. From him, there was no yelling, no questioning, no bitter sniping. And yet, that silence felt every bit as vicious, his rage so clear and frigid that I felt frost crawling over my skin.

At last, when I was done, everyone was quiet.

Tick, tick, tick, a clock hummed forebodingly.

Only then did Septimus finally speak. He turned to Sylina and just said,

“Well?”

He meant: Is she right?

Sylina let out a long breath. I found her difficult to read, with her eyes covered—but it was clear now that she was shaken. I knew she had been prodding my mind as I spoke, testing my truthfulness. She touched her blindfold absentmindedly, and I wondered if she was remembering her last encounter with Acaeja. The one all those years ago, which now led us here.

“It’s . . . a shocking story,” she said. “But it is true, or at least true enough that she believes it. And what she describes isn’t impossible.”

Septimus refused to look at me. “So you can find it. This prison.”

“I’ll need the help of the other seers. It could be anywhere in a radius of miles, and if Nyaxia really went through such lengths to hide it, I’m sure

it’s magically protected, as well.”

“But you can find it.”

“It will take time. But yes.”

“We don’t have time,” he said. As if to demonstrate this, another feral wail echoed in the distance.

“A day, maybe.” Sylina was deep in thought. “Twenty hours. If I have enough people to threadwalk. To cover the most ground as possible.”

He shook his head. Once, sharp, definitive. “Too long.”

Because if we made this move, we had to do it quickly. So quickly that Nyaxia wouldn’t have time to see what was happening and stop us.

Sylina stood. Paced. “Twelve hours. We can do it in twelve.”

“I’ll be the one to state the obvious,” Calista said. “We already followed one prophecy and look at where it brought us.”

“Seering is imperfect,” Sylina said. “There are gaps in what it can see.”

Calista thrust her palm toward me. “She was a big gap.”

“The visions were correct,” Sylina said, not hiding her annoyance.

“They were just about the wrong person. There was a version of fate in which those events came to pass. Just not this one. I won’t make the same mistake again. Respectfully, you’re asking me to save our skins, Princess.

Don’t misdirect your anger.”

“You’re right. I apologize.” Calista leveled a cold glare at me. “By the way, can we kill her yet?”

Ilia had risen, circling the room like a panther, face hard in thought. “If we were to do this, we don’t know what we’ll find down there. We will need to gather some warriors.”

“Warriors capable of caging a goddess,” Sylina muttered beneath her breath.

“Lure her,” I said. “Get her into the temple. And if you can draw her blood, you’ll be able to cage her.” I wanted to avoid looking at Septimus.

His cold, deliberate indifference was so much worse than the others’ scathing glares. But at this, I turned to him, though he dutifully ignored me.

“You’re Thastias’s descendant. You can operate the cage.”

“Draw her blood?” Ilia scoffed. “Are you insane? How will that work?”

It was a good question. I’d managed to kill four gods, but hadn’t so much as scratched Nyaxia, even bearing Shiket’s swords. And even if we did draw Nyaxia’s blood, then what? Acaeja hadn’t provided much in the

way of more detail.

“I can,” Septimus said. “I can do it.”

Everyone glanced at him, confused, but he looked past us all, out the window, hands tucked into his pockets. Another wave of gurgling shrieks echoed from below, quickly silenced.

Calista sighed and rubbed her temple. “This is risky.”

“We will do it,” he said again, with harsh finality. “One Bloodborn king already damned us all once. I won’t be the one to do it again. For two thousand years, king after king has failed. The only option we have left is the reckless one.” His eyes slipped to mine, as if unintentionally, seething cold. “Might as well finish what I started, no matter how lacking.”

A pang of hurt. Even though he was right.

Then he turned to Sylina. “Go. Start your work. Get the other seers. Ilia, stay with her and don’t let anyone else near her. And if you can’t control yourself—”

“Don’t insult me, my king,” Ilia grumbled.

“It needed to be said.” He glanced at Sylina. “You’re too important to risk. And besides, Atrius would murder me if I let anything happen to you.”

Sylina chuckled drily. “He’d hunt me down in the underworld if I got myself killed.”

Her thumb rubbed the silver ring on her left hand. Where was Atrius, I wondered? The memory of his face, already close to the edge so long ago, hit me with a wave of unease. Maybe he was already lost to his curse, pushed by Nyaxia’s final slight.

Septimus turned to Calista, whose jaw was set, arms crossed over her chest, as she leaned against the wall.

“You’re going to take Alric out of the city,” he said. “As far away as you can manage. Out of the kingdom, if you can manage it.”

She hesitated, and I thought she might argue, but she just inclined her

chin.

“As far as we can go,” she said.

But there was a hollowness to those words. A hopelessness that none of us acknowledged. The enemies that the child was outrunning were not ones that remained within the boundaries of a single kingdom. They would catch him wherever he was, even an ocean away.

“Go now,” Septimus told her. “Don’t wait.”

She rose, beginning to cross the room, but halfway through she stopped short, turned, and clasped Septimus’s hand. A glimmer of softness passed over her face.

“I have no desire to be a queen, Septimus,” she said. “Make sure you don’t die.”

But it was another hollow request. He didn’t even bother pretending otherwise.

“You would make an acceptable queen,” he said, and released her hand.

Her eyes turned to me. “And what about her?”

“Hand her a pen and have her draw what we saw,” Ilia muttered. “Then we can get rid of her.”

“Enough,” Septimus snapped. “I decide what happens to her.” And finally, finally, he turned to me. My snarky words died in my throat at the look in his eye.

“And you,” he said. “You stay here. Lock this door, and don’t open it for anyone but me.”