After what he told me, I should be afraid. But somehow—I think this is different. What passed between the Lord Under and me, that night in the woods at midwinter, it’s left a bond between us. I tried to forget him. I tried not to know him. I walked far from the border of death, and yet something drew him back to me when I came to Lakesedge. I am alive, but I can see him and speak with him.
And I think I can summon him.
I kneel down before the altar.
I take out the knife.
It’s precarious, to cut the pomegranate. The skin is hard. The knife slips before it slices through with a swift, wet sound. The fruit cleaves open. Two neat halves. Inside it glistens red and bright, like a heart filled with seeds. There’s a mark on the floorboards from the blade. I lick my thumb and scrub at it, but it can’t be wiped away.
I set the opened halves of the carved-up fruit on the altar.
And then I put the knife against my palm. My fingers shake. The blade scrapes my skin, but it’s not enough to draw blood. I close my eyes, picturing how easily Rowan cuts himself, without any hesitation. I tighten my grip on the handle, take a breath, and drive the blade deep. The pain sears through me; blood wells in my hand like it’s been poured there.
I turn my hand and press it against the floor.
The air shivers, and the honey-warm haze of the room turns to ice. From far off comes a steady drip drip drip. I look up, my heartbeat spiking, as water beads across the ceiling and begins to trickle over the walls. Slow at first, the droplets fine as mist. Then it changes, becoming swifter, darker. I back away as the oily, ink-black liquid pours down. It covers the floor in an opaque wash that spills across my feet. I flinch. The cold of it runs all through my body.
And then I hear a familiar whisper.
Violeta.
The water begins to ripple. A shape rises from the center of the darkness. I’m frozen in place as the Lord Under steps out of the shadows and comes toward me.
The light goes through him until he shimmers, a pale smear against the gloom. He’s cloaked in a heavy robe that hangs loosely over his dark, close-fitting clothes. His shirt is fastened with silver buckles from his throat to his waist. A crown of driftwood circles his long, pale hair. At the floor, his form dissipates, the robe becoming shapeless mist, another part of the water.
At first his features blur and fracture. His mouth splits as he smiles until there are two sets of sharp teeth, one interlaid with the other. Slashes in the sides of his throat open and close in time with his breath.
I want to look away, but I can’t. I’m pinned by the horror of him. He’s terrible and beautiful and otherworldly. He is something I am not meant to see.
Then—it all settles. The cuts on his throat close over into thin, translucent lines; his mouth becomes one mouth, still curved into a smile.
He is here. Truly here.
“Hello, Violeta.” Even his voice is stronger, more real. He looks at the altar, at the offering, then at the floor, smeared with my blood. “So, you’ve called me.”
He is all I feared. He’s worse, because while I expected the fear, the horror, I didn’t expect his cold, stark beauty. The Lord Under is more than an opposite half to the Lady’s golden brilliance. He’s the silver of a sharp-edged crescent moon.
I am lost in the cold of him.
He looks at me. He sees me. He knows me. His smile widens and turns sharp at the edges. He makes a low sound. A pleased, satisfied hum. “I almost thought you had forgotten me.”
All my apprehension, and all I’d meant to say to him, is washed away. Replaced by a single endless shiver, strong enough that I feel it over my tongue, my teeth, down the sides of my ribs.
“No. I didn’t forget you.”
“My little Violet, lost in the forest.” He holds out his own hands to me, the candlelight dancing across his opalescent claws. Warmth throbs at my palms, like a faint, far-off heartbeat.
“Our bargain changed Arien. You changed Arien.” Memories nettle at me, all we faced after the Vair Woods. “And at the ritual, I asked you to save him, but instead you hurt him.”
“I had to hurt him in order to save him. My help always comes with a price. What is it they say … Once saved from death? It leaves a mark, that brush with death. Even I can’t undo that.” He laughs coldly. “A blackened lake, a poisoned magic, a wound, a curse … a girl who can speak to a god.”
“Is that why I can see you now?”
“Yes,” he says. “We are connected. We always have been, since that midnight in the woods.”