I look at his beautiful, inhuman face, and the wrongness of it fills me with a bitten-back panic. You shouldn’t do this. You shouldn’t be able to do this.
His features are clear to me now, but around the edges of his expression—a blink, a smile, a furrowed brow—is something else. Something decidedly other is still there, beyond the pale gleam of his eyes, the curve of his smile, the sharp glint of his teeth.
He is an eternal, terrible creature. And he is connected to me.
It’s confirmation of what I already guessed. But to hear him speak it leaves me cold. “Why me? Of all those you’ve saved or bargained with, why me?”
“You were so brave when you faced me. You gave up your magic so willingly to save your brother. I suspect if I’d asked your life in exchange for his, you’d have given that, too.” He touches the tips of his claws against his chin, smiling. “It made an impression, your selflessness. Your magic warmed me for a long while.”
“What about all those times when I was hurt and scared and alone? If we’re so connected, where were you then? Why did you only seek me out now?”
The Lord Under narrows the distance between us slightly. His smile is still there, still sharp and hard. For just a beat, I remember the feel of his hand on mine. How he was gentle as he led me through the woods.
“I couldn’t, until now,” he explains. “I’ve a strength here, at Lakesedge. All the lords of this estate have known me. Some have loved me, some have feared me, and every candle they’ve lit at the altar, every observance they’ve made has tended me well. When you arrived here, I was able to reach you in a way I could not before.”
“If that’s true, then why didn’t you help Rowan when he called on you? He’s been just as close to the world Below as I have. Closer. He’s lit the candles and made observance. He’s tended you with his fear.”
“I needed him in a different way than I need you.”
“What do you mean?”
His eyes narrow at me impatiently. “What is it you want, Violeta? Why did you decide to finally summon me?”
“I—You told me once that I could mend the Corruption. I came to ask you how.”
“No.” He moves closer toward me. Another wash of water trickles down from the walls. “No, that’s not what you want.”
Want. It pulls at me, that word. My eyes flutter closed. I picture myself and Arien before the night in the woods, when we had our family, when we were home. I don’t want to go back, but I want to feel that way again. Loved and warm and safe.
“I want the power you showed me.” Each word to him feels like a risk. The truth is a weight in my chest, heavy as stone. “I want enough power to keep everyone safe.”
“You have a soft heart, my Violet in the woods.”
“Better a soft heart than no heart at all.”
He smiles unkindly, not at all wounded by my words. “You want power. So do I. And there has been so much power in the fear and hurt and blood that Rowan Sylvanan has given me.”
I stare at him, numbed by horror. He’s a thing cleaved into halves. The relentless, cold creature who delights in cruelty and pain, who feeds on it. And the creature who held my hand, who cradled Arien tenderly in his arms as he showed us the way out of the dark.
“So if you want to hurt Rowan, then why did you offer to help me mend the Corruption?”
“Because,” he says simply, “I want it gone.”
“But you made it. Why can’t you just unmake it?”
“I made it?” He gives me a hard, searching look. “Has Rowan not told you the truth yet?”
“He told me everything, including what you did to him. But it’s your magic. Your darkness. You could call it back.”
“It was my magic, once. The Corruption began as a mark—the blackened lake—left from when I saved Rowan from the world Below. But he was the one who fed it blood and desperation. It’s changed, gone beyond my control. And his tithes of blood and hurt and fear are the only thing holding it back. For now.”
“You mean if he dies—”
“As things stand, it’s not a case of if, Violeta, but when.”
“When—” My voice catches. I can hardly say these terrible words. “When Rowan dies, the Corruption won’t be gone?”
“No. It will continue to spread, and it will consume your world.”
I put my hand against my mouth. A whole world like the blighted orchard near Greymere, or the grove in the wayside forest. Trees burned, the fields turned to ash, the air laced with wrongness. It’s too immense for me to even comprehend, because at the center of it all lies the horrible fact that Rowan will be gone. That his ruin will only lead to more destruction.