He swallowed, the work of it evident down his throat. She hadn’t really had a chance to look at him closely, not since he gave her all the magic, became nothing but a man. His eyes were more brightly blue, the angles of his face less brutal, somehow softened.
“Neve…” Her name came out hoarse. His hand twitched toward her, then away with a conscious flex of his fingers and a rattle of his chain. He didn’t try to say anything else.
“I know what the other way is.” Tension broke in an explosion of movement—Neve turned and hurled the god-bone in her hand as hard as she could. It clattered against one of the massive ribs forming the wall, fell to the floor. When Neve whirled back around to face him, Solmir’s expression hadn’t changed, still drawn and unreadable. “You were going to make me your murderer, Solmir.”
A martyr or a murderer. This could only end with one of them climbing on the altar and the other holding the knife.
“It’s not that simple,” Solmir said, low and nearly pleading.
“Of course it is. You gave me the magic so I couldn’t be the Kings’ vessel. So that you would have to be, even though you’ve been running from that for centuries.” Years upon years of trying to save himself, and he’d given it up for her. Neve’s mind shied away from that. Shied away from the memories of a conversation in a cobweb-strung cabin about something else that was supposed to be simple. “And if you did that, I would have to kill you.”
“Or you could let Redarys and her Wolf do it for you,” Solmir murmured.
“No,” Neve said, sharp and immediate. “I kill my own monsters.”
His eyes darted to her own. She’d called him a monster so many times, but this was the first time she’d called him hers.
Solmir lowered himself to the floor, leaning his head back against a rib, closing his burn-blue eyes. “And that makes you so angry? The thought of me dying?”
Angry. Hurt. Terrified. But Neve just nodded.
The silver ring in his earlobe glinted as he shook his head, lip lifted in half a sneer. “And here I thought you’d be jumping at the chance to get rid of me.”
She stalked across the floor like she might slap him, fingers flattening in readiness. But to touch him would be to unleash something, her skin on his an ember sparking flame, and it scared her enough to stay her hand. Instead, she stood over him, teeth clenched, every muscle in her body held tense and tight.
It was a moment primed for something—her standing like an avenging god, him kneeling like a penitent to her wrath. But neither one of them took whatever volatile thing the moment offered. It would only make this harder.
“You’re an asshole.” Weak words, too brittle to hold up everything Neve needed to say.
He opened his eyes, reflecting firelight. “I’m far worse than that.”
Holding back from him was too hard. She was too tired for it. So Neve sat next to him, head tilted against the bones the same way his was.
“Your eyes are still brown.”
She turned to look at him, brows knit.
Solmir shrugged. “All that magic you’re carrying—all that power—and your eyes are still brown. Your soul is still intact.” He paused. “That means something, Neve. It means you’re good enough to carry it all.”
Too close to Valchior’s words. Neve pressed her chapped lips together. “I’m not,” she murmured. “I’m not, Solmir.”
“Tell me why you think that.”
He sounded almost angry. Neve snorted, mind spinning out spades of things she could tell him, a curated list of sins. But she narrowed it down to one word.
“Arick,” Neve breathed.
That name snagged in her thoughts, a burr she couldn’t pick out. The man next to her—the once-King, the fallen god, the villain of the piece—had caused the death of one of her best friends. And still she sat here and tried to think of ways to save him. Still she knew the distance between their bodies down to the inch.
Solmir’s eyes slid her way, lit with confusion. “What about him?”
Shadows damn her, he was going to make her say it. Neve pulled up her knees and rested her bent arms on them, muffling her mouth. “Even if Red held the knife, you were the cause of his death. And I’m still here, trying to save you.”
He didn’t move, didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, it was quiet. “Isn’t that the mark of goodness? Wanting to help people who don’t deserve it?” A pause. “Compassion for the monsters?”