So I continue into the dark until I come to some sort of obstruction. I clamber over it, the sharp rocks cutting my hands and tearing at my clothes. It must’ve been some sort of cave-in. Then I remember what Whitbine said: the tracks no longer reach the Black Cavern. Gregor didn’t want anyone to have easy access to him. This must be the workaround for it, the only way to get there without meeting daylight.
My foot catches on something, and I tumble forward. I try to catch myself, but I cut myself on a rock, my head knocking against a larger boulder as I slide to a halt. My skin burns, my body aching, but I get up. I must get up.
Again, I call out for Valen. For some sign that he’s alive. I stumble onward, the path slanting downward, the air growing steadily colder. I hear water in the distance, first a dripping and then more. An underground torrent, fresh water in the dark. I want to put my burning hands into it. Wash away the blood, ease the pain. But it’s farther away now, my feet dedicated to my death march.
Is this how it was always going to end? I don’t know. But I can go to my death with the knowledge that I did everything I could to find a cure, to ensure humanity survives despite the plague, despite the war. Now I know it was the only possible wayI could’ve begun to balance the scales. Because I created Death. I created a plague for the vampires, a compound that is 100 percent fatal, and I gave it to the humans. It was the price. It was what I had to pay for a chance to show them thatthey don’t need to use it. Stopping Gregor. I have to try. Even if it’s impossible. Even if it means the end. I stillhave to try. For me. For Valen. For Melody. For Coal and Druin and Evie and Wyatt—for all the ones I love and the ones who could be worthy of love.
“Georgia,” a shape in the dark whispers.
I turn toward the sound, but I can’t stop.
“Take this.” I feel something cold and metallic slide up the sleeve of my jacket. “It’s your only chance.”
“Fatima?”
“Don’t miss,” she hisses. “He’ll let you get close. He isn’t afraid of you. Use it to your advantage.” She’s gone in the same breath, her presence dissipating as I continue my pace on the downward slope.
I clutch the hilt of the blade she slipped me. I’m no fighter. She knows that. But I’ll take whatever help I can get at this point, even if I don’t know why she’s offering it. I don’t even know why she left that note in my room, telling me to go outside. She’s working with Gage, but why? She was always three steps ahead, maybe even more in her current form.
The terrain changes, my foot slipping on loose gravel before I get my balance.
A familiar scent wafts through the chilly air. Rot. I’m closer now. So close that the pull I feel is drawing my gaze upward. Gregor. He’s above me somewhere.
Mechanically, I trudge along, the floor leveling out, the smell of decay growing and overwhelming me. Lights appear along the corridor ahead of me, the same kind that were in my cell of the Black Cavern’s dungeons.
My stomach sinks. I’m here. I’m back where I started.
I turn and climb a staircase hewn into the black stone. It spirals at first, around and around I go for so many steps that my legs and lungs burn as I struggle. The pull is like thorns under my skin, barbed wire embedded in my dermis.
The climb becomes more punishing as the stairs change from a stone spiral to a concrete shaft. Back and forth. Burning and heaving, my muscles pushed to the breaking point.
I reach another landing, barely able to breathe, sweat stinging in my eyes. More. Up and up. Something tears at the back of my thigh, my hamstring. I fall, but still I climb on my hands and knees. Step after step. Fatima’s blade still clutched in my hand such that my knuckles grow bloody from scraping along the concrete.
After I’ve climbed for longer than I can remember, black boots appear on the steps right in front of me.
I’m snatched up, dangling as a vampire snarls in my face.
“You’ve kept him waiting.” He shakes me, my body flailing as I gasp for breath.
With a heave, he throws me to the next landing. I hit hard, my head bouncing against the wall as my open hand catches on the lip of the top stair. Pain rips along my arm, and I know my fingers are broken. The bones in my hand, too.
“Up.” He grabs me again and drags me down a dank corridor, the scent of death pressing on me like a weight, the barbs beneath my skin multiplying until I’m on fire all over. I retch, the small contents of my stomach splashing onto the blood-blackened floor. He doesn’t stop.
When he drops me in a heap, I’m grateful that the motion has stopped. That I can just lie here.
“My lord.” The vampire kicks me so I roll onto my back.
The Black Cavern. The same steps I was brought to when Gregor gave me to Valen. The steps where countless humans have died at the mad vampire’s hands. I stare up at him. He’ssitting on his black throne, the back of it decorated with dozens of heads on pikes.
His face is skeletal now, barely any skin left. Eyes a milky blue-white. A few strands of white hair here and there where he still has flesh on his head. Half of his bottom lip remains, bloody and trapped beneath his long fangs.
His neck is a rotting wreck, the skin gray and falling away. A corpse.
“You are late.” He points his finger, now only bones and sinew, at me. “Up.”
I get to my hands and knees, then to my feet, my body throbbing. I scan the room, looking for any sign of Valen. Nothing. He’s not here. I force myself to look at the heads, searching for his raven hair. Not there.
“What is it about you?” Gregor pulls my attention back to him. He crooks his finger, and I labor up the shallow steps until I’m standing in front of him. Then he points to the floor. I sit, my head leaning to the side, my body forcing me to rest against his bony knee. He strokes my hair, his touch like ice.
