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“I’m… I’m sorry, Princess. But you must make a choice. You must choose her. Kill me. Please. Save my mother.”
“This isn’t my choice. It’s his. I don’t want any of this.”
The king smashed the woman into the bars again, letting her crumple to the floor in tears. “Please,” she begged. “Don’t let him die for me.”
Andros fell to his knees, crawling across the floor to reach his mother. But when his arms passed through the bars, the king pulled his ax. I screamed, lunging for the guard, intending to pull him away, but then it happened—a swift, merciless swing of the king’s blade, and Andros’s arm fell to the ground with a sickening thud. Time seemed to freeze as the prison filled with the echoes of his agonized screams. Shock washed over me like a tidal wave, freezing me in place as I stared at the gruesome scene before me. Andros’s blood covering his poor mother.
A burning, seething anger rose within me. This was the ruin of our world. This man who had taken Requiem for his own would never be stopped if I didn’t do it myself. I wasn’t going to choose Andros or his weeping mother. I knew now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he would be my next death.
“You win,” I said meekly, leaning on the spear as if I were still severely injured. “I will kill Andros at your request. But I insist you let him die in his mother’s arms. Those are my terms.”
The king smiled. The symphony of wails filling the chamber didn’t stop him from reaching for the key on his belt and unlocking the prison door. So used to being the strongest person in the room, he’d forgotten the monster he’d just set free.
I tucked my arm beneath the guard’s good one, helping him scoot on his stomach beyond the threshold and to his mother. They were a sad, pitiful sight, but Icharius was nothing more than triumphant smiles as I stepped outside and pressed the spear to the back of the guard’s trembling neck.
“No, please,” his mother cried, but the only return she got for her unwavering love was a kick to the stomach from the ruthless king.
I struck hard and fast, lifting the spear to crack it across his smug face. He was strong, though. Too strong. He’d taken the blow like a statue, grabbing the end of the weapon and shoving it toward me to throw me off balance. It worked. I stumbled backward. He leaped over Andros, coming at me with all his might. I waited. Closer and closer he came. A moth to the flame. But the flame would always burn the most. In a practiced move, as he lunged for me, I spun to the side, swiping his blade from its scabbard and jamming it into the back of his right leg.
He fell to one knee, ripping his ax free once more and throwing it at me with such force, it didn’t spin end over end. It simply flew straight for me. I shifted right, but not fast enough to avoid the blade altogether as it sliced across my shoulder.
“Not very smart, throwing your weapons, King.”
“Enou—”
The king’s command was cut off by shouting up the stairs. Starting with a few voices, in just minutes, the entire castle began to quake, followed by the familiar, bellowing tone of my furious husband.
He’d come for me.
Icharius’s shock was short-lived as I hauled back and lunged, nearly driving the king’s own sword into his chest. Instead, he twisted, grabbing the hilt of the blade right on top of my hand, forcing my back to his stomach, twisting and straining until the blade was pressed to my neck. His breath was hot against my ear. I was strong, but he was stronger. And though I didn’t have it in me to stop fighting, I knew I’d lost. I knew that blade to the throat would spur my final descension to Death’s court. A beautiful twist of fate between me and all my victims. I wondered if I’d gasp.
But instead of death, a jolt of power unlike anything I’d ever felt rippled across the realm. Icharius went stiff at my back before falling heavily to the stone floor. I spun around, intending to help Andros and his mother escape. But Orin’s power had already killed them.
Because not only had he come, he’d shattered the world to get to me.
Chapter 51
“Deyanira?” His voice from the top of the stairs was like a balm. And a blade. Comfort and betrayal all at once.
I spun, staring at my entire world filling a door frame as the castle fell to ruin around us. His eyes had turned black. Every vein, the same. Whatever madness, whatever darkness, it had consumed him entirely. Despite the destruction, despite the castle trembling, he walked down those steps, moving before me and lifting my hand to his chest.
Still, I pulled away. “What did you do?”
With eyes like coal staring into mine, he brushed his lips across my knuckles. “I loved you. That was all.”
“No, Orin. What did you do?”
“Nothing less than what it took to free you.” He grazed his fingers over the bleeding wound in my arm, never once looking down at the king behind me or Andros and his mother. His victims. “I killed them all. Every person standing between you and me has fallen.”
The sheer amount of death in the air revolting against every moral code I’ve ever known caused churning in my stomach. It was as if I could feel each petal withering away on my back. As if those deaths were somehow less than because of Orin’s massacre for my freedom.
I needed to decide quickly. To leave with the man I was bonded to or run away from him. In the midst of my anger and heartbreak, I couldn’t deny the truth that gnawed at me. Some part of me loved him, too, despite his deceit. It was a maddening contradiction, a fierce and passionate thing that had grown in the darkest corners of my heart. I knew I shouldn’t feel this way, that I should turn away from him and never look back.
“I will do whatever it takes, Dey. Whatever apology you need, I will deliver it. Whatever my punishment need be, whatever the lesson, I will learn it. I’m sorry for deceiving you.”
I wanted to berate him, to unleash the anger that had been burning inside me, but there was no time, and he seemed so… fragile. But I couldn’t process any of that as the castle walls continued to fall.
“We don’t have time for this. We have to get out of here, and then we’ll talk.” I took a hesitant step toward him, losing my footing as another rumble shook the remains of the castle.
