“The Leviathan has never been what I’d call a friend.” Dry, but with an undercurrent of apprehension. “And you’re the interesting one, Shadow Queen.”
There was a question in it, harkening back to what the Leviathan said—that she’d chosen the mantle, chosen to stay. But that discussion could wait.
First, Neve had a score to settle.
No tears—they burned in her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall, even if he couldn’t see. “You were going to sacrifice me.” She couldn’t keep the waver from her voice—Neve wanted to be a thing beyond hurting, but he softened all her armor. “Up until a minute before the Heart Tree opened, you were going to let me be a vessel for the Kings. You bastard.” Her voice fully broke then, and she pulled in a deep, shaky breath. “How could you do that?”
“I didn’t.” Barely a whisper, rough and hoarse. “I didn’t do it, Neve. I couldn’t.”
“You want another medal?” Neve wiped at her streaming eyes, her nose. “One for keeping your soul, one for deciding at the last minute not to kill me?”
“We both know I don’t deserve any medals.” Solmir moved to sit beside her, the salt dried on his skin rasping against the sleeve of Neve’s coat. His coat. A sudden urge filled her to rip it off, but she didn’t.
“There’s one thing we can agree on.” She swiped at her eyes with the back of her wrist, streaking his blood across her cheekbone. “I trusted you, Solmir.”
The emphasis on the past tense was intentional. Neve let it hang in the heavy air.
“I know,” Solmir murmured. Paused, and the next question came soft and low as a prayer. “Is it something I can earn back?”
She clamped her lip between her teeth, pulled her knees up to her chest. Yes welled in her throat like a river dammed back, that loneliness tugging at her again, reminding her that he was the only thing in this whole underworld even close to human. He’d intended to betray her, even if he’d changed his mind. Even if he’d kissed her to pass on the magic that would save her, even if that kiss felt real.
I couldn’t kill you, not even to save the fucking world.
“You can try to earn it back.” The dark made it impossible to see anything, but she turned her head in his direction anyway. “It won’t be easy.”
A nod, felt rather than seen. “It shouldn’t be.”
They sat in silence, other than the rasp of their breathing. The heat of their bodies ovened the small space, turning dampness to thick humidity. Neve slipped her hand into the coat’s pocket, closed it around the bone and the key. The bone she stuck in her boot. The key she weighed in her hand for a moment before reaching up and threading the open end through the fine hairs at the nape of her neck, further knotting her tangles to hold it in place.
Then she pulled off Solmir’s coat. Set it next to her. The lack of a barrier between them pressed their shoulders together, skin on skin. The magic curled in her center spiraled lazily, a billow of smoke from a snuffed candle. But there was no pull from him, no tug like he was trying to take it back. He’d given her the power and intended to let her keep it.
That was a comfort, at least.
“Did they ever come?” she asked quietly. “The Kings?”
“No.” Solmir shifted, his salt water–coarsened hair brushing her arm. “Maybe they were on their way. I don’t know how all that works, the way power pulls.”
“Or they figured us out. Knew they couldn’t outsmart us.”
Solmir snorted. “That might be giving ourselves too much credit. Maybe there’s a reason they didn’t come, resisting on purpose.”
“What kind of reason?”
“I have no idea, Neverah.” He sounded weary. She felt the brush of his hair as he tilted his head back against the coral.
But she wasn’t one to wallow. Neve had never let seemingly impossible circumstances leave her languishing before, and she wouldn’t start here. “You said giving the Kings a vessel was the easiest way to kill them. But is there another?”
A pause. “Yes,” Solmir said finally.
She waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. His shoulder was tense against hers, rigid as stone.
Neve gave one nod, decisive, even though he couldn’t see it. “We’ll do that, then.”
Some of the rigidity bled from his muscles, relaxing against her by a fraction. The close quarters made touching inevitable, and both of them accepted it. There was reassurance in the solid shape of another person, giving form to the dark.