Kings. That stung.
“I’m not going to give it to her.”
The thin sheets puddled around Kayu’s waist. She’d sat up while he was reading, probably watched him do it. Even now, though, she didn’t look afraid. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
Kings-damn and all the shadows, he was a fool.
“I only came here to get away from my father.” The words came fast, now that she was finally giving a confession, as if they’d been waiting. “If I became a priestess, he couldn’t compel me to return home. I thought the Rylt was far enough away from the continent to avoid its politics, but when I arrived, the priestesses here had already swapped their loyalties to Kiri’s order, then Kiri arrived right after I did, and when she found out I was distantly in line for the Valleydan throne—”
“She sent you to spy on us.” Raffe stood slowly, the pages of notes clenched in his fist. “To report back on any progress we were making to find Neve.”
“I never sent any of them.” She shook her head, black hair feathering over still-bare shoulders. “Raffe, I never sent any of those notes. I stopped taking them the day I snuck into your bedchamber. I never wanted to do any of this. I’m on your side.”
“The only side you’re on is your own, Kayu. I’m not an idiot.”
“You don’t know him.” Near-panic in her voice, in the way she clutched the sheet to her chest. “You don’t know how awful he is, Raffe. I wouldn’t have lived out the year. I had to do something.”
“Well, you certainly did.” Raffe threw the papers to the ground, grabbing his discarded clothes and pulling them on without checking to make sure they weren’t inside out. If he stayed here, if he listened, he might forgive her. And he’d done enough foolish things for one day.
“I want to help you, Raffe. I…” She trailed off, head dipping lower to obscure her face farther behind all that black hair. When she spoke, it was a whisper. “I have no love for the Kings. I want them dead. I want to help Neve however I can, and I want her to come back. Because you want her back, and you deserve to be happy.”
She could’ve reached in his chest and pulled out his heart, beating and vital, and wrung it out in her hands. It would hurt less.
“I can’t…” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Not when she sat there, naked and gilded in the light of the sun setting in the window, golden skin covered in a white sheet and hair like a black river.
So he didn’t finish. Raffe opened the door and strode aimlessly out into the hallway, wanting to be anywhere other than with the traitor he might’ve been falling for.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Neve
Foolish little queen.
She was only vaguely aware of her body as a physical thing, but still she flinched, trying to get away from this voice that battered her from every direction at once. The same voice she’d heard in the Serpent’s cairn, warning her of Solmir’s deceit, warning her of everything that was to come.
She hadn’t listened then. And though she’d made every decision that led her here—though she’d known, when she didn’t let Red lead her out of the Heart Tree, that the path might lead her here—Neve still wanted to curl up in a fetal ball, to hide away from Valchior’s voice and everything it meant.
Too late for that, Neverah. A chuckle snaked through her skull, friendly and warm and all the more chilling for it. You’re truly in it now.
She flinched.
Take heart, Shadow Queen. She hated how sincere he sounded. The game draws to a close, one way or another.
The power she’d taken from the Leviathan twisted and writhed through her veins, shadow like tentacles. More than anything she’d felt before, more than the power she’d used to open the way to the Heart Tree. It was right at the edge of overwhelming, balanced on the tipping point where she could either hold on to herself—hold on to her soul—or fall into the magic completely.
It had never been like this before. She’d seen Solmir struggle to hang on when shadowed magic threatened to overwhelm him, but she’d never housed enough to feel like she was slipping away, to feel like she had to latch onto herself with clawed fingers. Even when she’d first awoken and fear made her dredge magic up from the Shadowlands themselves, there’d been only pain. Not this… this sense of being lost. Of untethering.
Divinity is a hard thing to hold, Valchior murmured in her head.
“Shut up,” Neve replied, and didn’t realize she’d said it aloud until she felt the dried blood by her lips crack.