CHAPTER 112: ONE HUNDRED & TWELVE

Valka

My head felt like it was filled with wool. And my lashes fluttered against the sound of new voices in the bedroom.

"I’ve never seen anything like it," a wizened voice muttered. "I can only help soothe the ache that comes with it. If it is a battle of wills, there is not much that can be done, save for the intervention of the gods. You may take Majda with you to keep an eye on her..."

A bit of quiet. The voices grew further out, leaving the room altogether. My lashes fluttered and my vision swam. I was in a cave, an alcove. The ache in the back of my head was unbearable. I tried to push up from the bed and ended on the ground.

"You should not rise. You are unwell..." A soft voice said, but there were many voices.

Around me. Inside me.

Murderer. Liar. Witch. Lycan-whoring cunt. Gritting my teeth, I closed my hands over my ears, whimpering. "Shut up."

"Lyra! Please!" It was Malachy. He was pleading. He was screaming. The sound was a wretched cry, taking half my mind with it. "The goddess curses you to an eternity of damnation, you fucking freak!"

Water swam in my vision and I walked half-hazardly, the room tripling. It took me a moment to find the door. And just as my hand closed around it, the voices returned. The voices from outside the room. It sounded like Lucien. It sounded like a woman. But it all entwined with the voices of the ghosts that have haunted my nightmares for days.

"What will you do with her?" asked the woman, light footsteps dragging against stone.

"End it," Lucien said.

My breath caught. End it.

He’ll kill you. Remember how he looked at you. With hatred. How could anyone love you? You’re a monster.

He loves her. Not you. You will die the worst kind of death. Trapped within the confines of your mind. You will scream but no one will hear you. You will beg, but no one will come to your aid. You will wither slowly. It will take an eternity, and you will watch your body live through eyes that no longer belong to you, until you cease. It is what you deserve. It is the only thing you deserve.

"She’s suffering. If this continues, she’ll destroy herself."

Destroy. Me.

The woman murmured something--maybe "You love her," maybe "You owe her." The words twist in the air.

"That isn’t her anymore," he said, and the words landed like claws dragging through my chest. A pause, heavy, thick with grief. "It’s mercy. She won’t feel a thing."

Mercy. The word rang like a bell in my head. Mercy meant death.

The voices wouldn’t stop. They crawled over the walls, slipped under my skin. He’ll kill you. He’ll do it for her. He’ll put you down like an animal.

My palms pressed to my temples, but I could still hear him. That deep, soothing voice that I had been foolish enough to assume to be safety. I was such a fool. I was right. I never should’ve trusted him with it.

Run. Run before he ends you.

My gaze ran over the room, settling on the black scabbard resting against the bedframe. I went straight for it, the healer in the white shift by the bed steering clear of my path. A wave of dizziness crashed into me, sending me sprawling into a tray of herbs. The scent of crushed sage filled my head, too sweet, too sharp. I couldn’t breathe.

The sword was heavier than I remembered. Or maybe my hands were weaker. The hilt throbbed in my palm like a living thing. My heartbeat slammed against it, out of sync, out of time.

The whispers grew louder. He’ll kill you. He’ll kill you. He’ll kill you.

Urgent footfalls. Someone ran. Something moved in the doorway. His silhouette. Broad shoulders. Familiar stance. "Put that down--"

I swung without hesitation. It was off kilter. Missed him by mere inches. "Get away from me."

He stepped back, hand raised like I was an animal he didn’t want to spook. That made it worse. I bolted out the door, through the hall, bumping into someone. Then the walls. Voices chased me, thousands of them, all speaking at once. His voice was among them. Or behind them.

The corridor bled into the open air. Cold. Wet. Rain so heavy it swallowed the world whole. It drenched me in seconds, chilling me to my bones. I had no horse. But I walked anyway, shivering. He caught up with me in seconds, grabbing my wrist and he wrenched me back. "Come back inside, Lyra. If you’re uncomfortable here, we can return home. Tomorrow. It’s cold. You won’t last the night out there."

My lips pulled back into a snarl. "Why? So you can kill me? End me?"

His jaw clenched. "You heard wrong--"

He’s lying. They always lie. They always say they love you, right before they strike.

I pried my fingers loose. "My life means as much to me as hers does to you. And I won’t let you take that from me. I have fought this long to preserve it. Do not think I will not hesitate to kill you if you tried."

"Do it, then."

I blinked. "What?"

He took the edge of the sword and brought it to his chest. "Run me through, if it is the only way to silence the noise in your head." I felt it cut through flesh and my fingers trembled as his eyes dared me to. The voices urged me on. Kill him before he kills you. When I didn’t, body trembling, he said more softly, "See me, Lyra. See me."

And I saw it. I saw the ache in his eyes. The want. But I also saw the hard set of determination in them. And I knew I hadn’t heard wrong. Angry tears ran down my cheeks as I fought against what I thought I knew, replacing it with the stark, ugly reality of us. "You’ve never wanted me. You want me because I’m her. You do not truly ache for me. You would get her back at any cost and bury me for it. And I do not want to live like that. I cannot." My grip tightened around the sword’s hilt, even as I lowered it. "I wish we’d never met."

Hurt shone in his eyes and I turned so I didn’t see it. So I didn’t delude myself into thinking that was for me.

A dark laugh echoed behind me and I froze, recognizing the timber, too high to belong to Lucien’s. My hands grew slick with sweat as I turned. And I gasped, staring at a mangled, bloodied face. Malachy’s. "This isn’t real," I told myself.

But he laughed, voice spilling into my skull, repulsing and venomous. "Filthy, whoring cunt. Your blood is tainted. Your hands are tainted. You belong in the belly of the darkest dungeon, fucked and bred to birth more monsters."

The storm bent with the sound. I taste iron in my mouth. Or maybe it was blood. "This isn’t real," I repeated, even as the panic came alive under my skin, burning colder than the rain.

Malachy sneered. "You should’ve died when I speared you. I will find your father and do to him what I would’ve done to you."

My pulse jumped to my throat.

He stepped closer.

I stumbled back, sword clutched too tight. "Don’t," I warned, but the word came out a sob.

He kept coming.

His lips moved, gentle, but I couldn’t hear the words, the image distorting, and the echo of Malachy’s hiss curling around my ears as he lifted bloodied, broken fingers, the glint of a spear flashing in the dark. "You never should’ve been born. Come, Lyra. Let’s die together."

I struck first.

I didn’t even feel the blade go in. Just the sudden silence afterward,

the warmth spilling down my wrists, and the sputter of blood that erupted from...

Lightning struck and I saw a different face. I froze at the cough laced with soft, sensual laughter. At the eyes that didn’t shine with hate, but mirth and amusement. At the sword run though Lucien’s chest. To the red rain pouring down from the gash.

"No," I breathed. "No! No!"

Lucien took a step forward. Taking in the rest of the sword into his chest. I screamed, louder than the voices, louder than the madness in my mind, and I was going to flee, but his hand circled mine, forcing it to remain on the hilt of the sword, driving it even deeper. Twisting.

He grunted. Laughed. Exhales. Coughed. Blood splattered against my cheek. He leaned down and it took the edge of the sword even higher. And he didn’t seem to mind. Or care. He propped his forehead against mine and the spicy scent of his blood teased my nostrils. "You finally saw me." His nose teased mine and he cupped my cheek, caressing with ice cold fingers. "Kill me or love me, Lyra. But just fucking choose."

My tears mingled with the rain. "I didn’t want this. It was you who wanted me gone."

"Not you," he whispered. "I wasn’t talking about you."

"That isn’t--that doesn’t--you wanted me gone! Me!"

He laughed, even as he bled all over my fingers. "I was trying... to save you. If staying with me... was hurting you... I was going to make you forget. Me. Everything. It would’ve worked. You were in control until we met." A harsh breath. "It would’ve silenced her."

"Why would you do that?" I sobbed.

"Because the woman I loved... she would’ve died to save an innocent, not steal her life." His hand slid weakly down my face. "And I love her. Gods, I always will. But you..." His voice cracked. "You deserve better than being caught in the middle of our bond and selfish desires. You deserve to live. You deserve to be free."

He was wrong. He had to be. He was the terrible, heartless one. "You can’t compel me," I said, shaking. "If you could, you would’ve done so earlier."

A faint smile. "I could, Lyra. I am god-kin." He sagged slightly against me. "But I suspect I might have failed, anyway. Because compulsion fails when the other’s will is stronger. The only other exception being..." He licked the rain off his lips. "You cannot successfully compel the ones you love. More times than often, they shake it off."

My fingers unwrap from the hilt. I’d known that. In the same way I knew it didn’t apply to people like me, whose gifts surpassed the basics of compulsion. It didn’t matter if I loved or didn’t love them. I could strip them of whatever I wanted.

I watched him fall. I knew he would heal. Perhaps, not tonight, but he would. But it didn’t change the fact that I had driven the blade through his chest. And maybe even deeper than that. That all we’d ever do was hurt each other. I may have harboured the soul of his dead mate, but that didn’t make us good for each other. It would always be a vicious cycle between us.

One where I shred his heart to pieces in choosing myself. And he makes me bleed. Makes me ill. Brings me to the very brink of death by choosing to remain in my life. There was no good ending for us, except the one where we stayed apart from each other. And we would always gravitate towards each other, unless we forgot about each other. Unless we didn’t know.

I didn’t know how I did it. But I did it. It wasn’t smooth. It was ugly, with sobs and snot running down my face. I kissed him without taking out the sword. Because I knew a ruptured heart was harder to heal than most parts of the body, and he’d begun to black out from the pain of it.

And I whispered the words against his lips, soft and sure. They were simpler than the usual commands, yet more intricate. Recalling each time we’d met and dissolving it into nothingness.

He wouldn’t remember the shape of my scent, or the shade of my eyes. The feel of my skin beneath his hands would be gone, as though it had never existed. The ache, the hunger, the unbearable pull--erased.

There would only be the time before me.

And then nothing of me at all.

A perfect, merciless unmaking.

And maybe I couldn’t handle it, either. I’ll never understand what happen in the hours or days that followed, because I was hardly sane and lethally hypothermic. But I knew hurt. And I’d thought killing an entire village broke me.

Maybe it did. Or maybe that fall that cracked something in my skull had worsened the insanity bearing down on me. I’ll never know.

But what I did know was ending things with Lucien snapped the final string lose. And all I knew was that pain that ravaged me and the cold that made me want to die. And I didn’t want to feel it anymore. Didn’t want to miss him anymore. Didn’t want to feel his blood on my skin.

And so, I didn’t. The switch just... flipped.