It was strange, to feel guilt for something done to Solmir. He was a King, a murderer who’d manipulated her with Arick’s stolen face, and he undoubtedly deserved every awful thing that fell upon him.
But still, the guilt snaked around Neve’s gut, knotting and uncomfortable.
She hefted the god-bone in her hand, holding it like a sword. Solmir would be fine. He’d gotten through worse than this.
And she had a god to stab.
Pulling in a deep, aching breath, Neve started running again.
The tug in her veins grew stronger the farther she went, drawing her downward, steady and inexorable. Neve had never liked caves—being underground made her feel jumpy and on edge; human beings were meant for sun and surface—but the beat of her pulse and the pull in her bones didn’t give her time to consider her surroundings.
Not that she had time for fear, anyway. Neve was practiced at doing what she had to do, even when it scared her, even when it hurt.
She felt it when she was close. The tunnel, somewhat narrow up to this point, widened out into a vast, dark space. The air of it crept over her skin, a sense of cavernous emptiness that felt somehow lonely. The darkness here was thicker, too—not like the shadows anchored to Calryes had been, not in a way that felt at all sentient, but just… dark. The deep darkness of something that had never been disturbed by light.
Tentatively, one hand held before her and the other clutching the god-bone, Neve stepped into it.
It swallowed her. No amount of eyes adjusting would make her see; here, there was nothing to brighten the gloom, and never had been. Only blackness, only shadows, sliding over her skin like dark velvet. Her breath seemed too loud, the cavern too silent.
So when she heard the moan, it came through bell-clear and ringing.
Neve froze, hands still before her. No words—what would they do? But she let her breath stay loud, a greeting any beast would understand.
There was no use in hiding, anyway. The Serpent knew she was here.
A fluttering against her temples, the touch of an alien consciousness scrabbling for purchase. It felt different than the Seamstress speaking into her mind, weightier, as if the thoughts trying to connect to hers had to translate themselves before they could be anything she’d understand. The Seamstress had been human once. The Serpent never had.
When the Serpent finally spoke, its words reverberated against her bones like they were woven into her marrow.
Shadow Queen.
“Yes.” It was cold enough that her breath probably clouded, but Neve couldn’t see it. Responding to the title felt natural, and hearing it from the Old One inspired no fear.
A sigh from a huge mouth, displacing the air. She felt her hair flutter.
You smell like stars and brimstone. I could tell you from the other, even miles away. You were the one I wanted.
Neve’s hands flexed by her sides. She thought of Solmir when they reached the tunnels, how he didn’t know where to go. The Serpent had called her here instead. Wanted her to be the instrument of its destruction, the vessel of the power it gave up.
“Why?” she asked quietly.
A shift in the dark, ponderous and cataclysmic movement that she couldn’t see but could feel. There must be two vessels. A vessel for magic, a vessel for souls. They cannot be held simultaneously, not when there is more than one. The Serpent paused, and Neve once again felt that scrabble against her skull, an inhuman mind translating itself for her. Perhaps it is not my place to decide which you will be, Shadow Queen. But I find you worthier of my sympathies than the other.
She didn’t understand, not really, but Neve wasn’t in the habit of admitting such things. She drew herself upright, bone clutched in her fist, and spoke the same words she’d said to Calryes. “You know why I’m here.”
Yes. A huff, blowing the tatters of her nightgown against her legs. I’ve lived this half-life much longer than I wanted to, holding out against the pretenders trying to draw me into their web, tangle my magic into theirs. A pause. But dying is hard business for one of my kind. We almost always need help. I’m glad it’s you.
The enormity of what she was about to do sat heavy on her shoulders. The memories of the pain she’d felt when she first used magic here, pulled from anything other than Solmir, made her want to turn around and run back through all that endless dark, run until she found some sort of light.
“Will it hurt?” she breathed. “Taking your magic?”
Important things often hurt, Shadow Queen. You know that.
She did.
But it will not be forever. Another sigh, stirring the air. The magic in me is not tied into the foundations of this place. It is free. It will not weigh down your soul in the same way pulling it from the Shadowlands itself does.