But, my little serpent, it is the most wonderful fear.
Every minute with you is, even if I already regret all the mistakes I know I will make.
I drew in a gasp. My chest hurt. The air burned.
I was on my knees now.
I forced my eyes open through the noxious smoke. No—not smoke. Magic of some kind, thick and red, shimmering in a million colors at once.
Maybe that was why tears streaked down my cheeks.
Maybe not.
Vincent was kneeling beside me. His hand was on my shoulder, but I couldn’t feel his touch, and for a moment that devastated me.
No matter how real he felt, no matter how real he looked, he was gone.
He smiled sadly at me.
“I tried, Oraya,” he murmured. “I tried.”
I understood the depth of what he was admitting in those two words. Centuries worth of brutality ingrained into him, revered above all else. Millennia worth of generations of bloody ends and bloody beginnings.
I had never seen Vincent admit weakness before. And those words were a concession of so many failures.
And yet, I was still so angry at him.
“It wasn’t enough,” I choked out, fractured with an almost-sob.
His throat bobbed. “I know, little serpent,” he murmured. “I know.”
He tried to stroke my hair, but I felt nothing.
Because Vincent was dead.
All of it was true at once. That he had saved me. That he had crippled me. His selfishness and his selflessness.
That he had tried.
That he had failed.
And that he had loved me, anyway.
And I would carry all of that forever, for the rest of my life.
And he would still be dead.
I forced myself to my feet. I turned to Vincent. His image, once so sharp, was starting to fade.
He looked to the obelisk.
“I think,” he said, “this is what you came here for.”
I followed his gaze. The pillar had opened, revealing a cavity full of rippling crimson light.
And there, at its center, was a little vial, floating, self-contained, in the air. The liquid within contained impossible multitudes of color, shifting and changing with every passing second. Purple and blue and red and gold and green, all at once, like the range of shades in a galaxy.
“The blood of Alarus,” I whispered.
“Your mother and I gave up so much to distill this.” His gaze found mine again. “But we gained so much, too.”
“What do I do with it? Do I drink it or—or wield it—”
“You can drink it. Only a little bit. Or you can put it in your blades. It will find a way to give you its power, however you wield it. Your blood is the catalyst.”
“What will it do to me?”
I thought of Simon, and his bloodshot, empty eyes. Those teeth that had taken more from him than they had given.
“It will make you powerful,” Vincent said.
“What else?”
“I cannot say.”
There was a reason, I knew, why he had never used the blood. It was a power so great it could only be an absolute last resort.
I reached into the compartment and closed my hand around the vial.
It took a moment to realize the scream that sliced the air was mine. Everything disappeared but the pain for several long seconds. I was dripping with sweat when, inch by inch, I withdrew it from the obelisk.
Vincent’s form now flickered. The light that imbued the carvings shuddered and skipped.
“Go,” he said. “You don’t have much time.”
His voice sounded so far away.
He gave me a gentle smile. “Don’t forget those teeth of yours, little serpent.”
And Goddess, despite everything, I hesitated. Despite everything, I was not ready to let him go.
I would never be ready to let him go.
“I love you,” I said.
Because it was still true. After everything, it was still true.
I didn’t wait for him to say it back to me. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and turned away.
The image of Vincent withered away into darkness.
I didn’t look back.
72
RAIHN
Simon didn’t let up. And I matched him.
The two of us locked ourselves in nonstop combat, swords and magic clashing in a blurred cacophonous melody. The blood from the battle in the skies above now rained down over us in a steady rhythm, drenching us in black—covering us in so much blood it was impossible to tell how much of it was our own. I no longer felt the blows. The pain was so constant that I just let it fall into the background, another distraction to be ignored.
I wasn’t sure how I wasn’t dead yet. Felt like I should be. My body threatened to give out with every movement.