Steps away from the smoky barrier, a rumble ran beneath her feet, almost knocking her off-balance. Behind her, a cry as the others scrambled to stay upright, sliding in the snow.
One more massive heave, like the earth itself was about to give birth.
The shadow dissipated all at once, smoke feathering away into the air, as if whatever had held it at attention had loosed its grip. Behind it, the Heart Tree, still covered in gold and black, twisted light and shadow.
A moment of relief, the heavy burden on Red’s heart lifting. If the shadow was gone, maybe Neve was close behind—
Then the Heart Tree broke completely apart.
Bark shattered as if a gigantic hand had smashed down from above. Branches fell, crashed to the snowy ground; bits of charred wood raced past Red’s head, past her ivy crown and heavy antlers.
The Heart Tree was gone.
And in the midst of its ruin, a dark shape stood.
Chapter Forty
Neve
She felt the Heart Tree break apart as she closed her eyes, as she directed all that new power she’d absorbed into one unifying thought: the surface. Escape. Her own world.
Valchior’s harsh laughter clattered in her mind, too loud and sharp to fully ignore. The world you are turning over to me.
The deep and star-strewn dark around them turned to blazing gold at the same time that the final threads holding the Shadowlands together snapped. The remains of the prison world created so long ago spun into nothingness, drained of magic, drained of gods. Neve was all the gods now, all the Shadowlands, all the power, and she was both herself and nothing and everything as she moved through the endless expanse between the ended world and the real one.
Neve felt it, the crash and collapse, felt it as if it were her own bones shattering. She cried out, but the sound was lost in the wrap of black space around her, nothingness rushing in to take the place of the underworld that no longer existed.
All its power within her now. She was a woman made a world, and that world was dark and seething.
She couldn’t see Solmir, couldn’t hear him, but she felt when his nails dug into her, trying to keep her close. It was pointless; this strange new atmosphere knew only how to be alone, and it ripped him away from her. Godhood was lonely, lonely, lonely.
All the magic she’d swallowed, mingling with the Kings’ voices in her head: new world make it ours make it dark and shadowed overrun it death and blood and cold—
Neve realized she’d landed somewhere outside all of that emptiness only because she finally could hear herself screaming.
Snow—she felt it seeping through her torn nightgown, the old boots the Seamstress had given her. The scent of chilled air and leaves.
She stood in the center of a ruined tree trunk, formed around her almost like a throne, charred edges sending smoke curling through the cold. She stayed there. It was oddly comforting, and clenching her hands around burning wood helped block out the Kings in her head.
Our world now she’ll live and we’ll live in her Wolves won’t kill her this is all ours she can’t hold out for long—
Solmir lay a few feet away from her. Still, but she could see the rise and fall of his chest. It was so strange to see him in color—the brown-gold of his long hair and close-cropped beard, the slight pink of the puckered scars on his brow. His jaw was bruised a mottled purple, silver rings glinting against reddened knuckles.
Her monster, just a man.
A wall of gray shadow writhed around them, like smoke trapped in glass. Drained of magic, drained of darkness, serving only as a barrier between them and the rest of the world. Her fingers bent on instinct, the claws at their ends carving through the air.
Red was here. She could feel it. And she needed Red in order to end this.
The smoke dissipated at her command. Three people stood too far away for her to see, smudges against the snow. But one of them was closer, and they drew her attention, as well as the attention of the Kings she’d imprisoned within her.
A man, lying limp, sleeping. Black hair, curling where Solmir’s was straight, long but not quite as long. Scarred on his cheek, through his eyebrow, on his hands. Neve stared at him. She’d never seen the man before, but something about him seemed familiar, like she should know who he was.
Other sounds echoed in the dark, other voices, and she could hear shouts from far away. But all Neve’s awareness was trapped in her own body, in navigating a vessel that seemed to barely belong to her anymore.
Crimson dripped into her eye—blood. Neve stretched up her hand to her forehead, wreathed in thorns and black-veined. The tiny spikes of an iron crown speared through her skin.