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Yet no answer came.

Between his pale fingers, the bargain mark glowed brighter and brighter, like a cat’s eye in the dark. Ophion’s voice rose to a shrill pitch as he tried to force the words out in jumbled wheezes. ‘I did n—,’ he managed and another flare of pain tensed his entire body, his denial derailing into another screech of pain. ‘I never— I—'

Around that pale green agate, his veins were growing purple, then black.

He dropped to his knees, sobbing now, face contorted into a grimace that could no longer be recognised as the Mother’s fiendishly handsome lover. I couldn’t stop watching, enthralled and revolted at once. The spiderweb of black veins spread over his forearm, below his shirt; he curled up on the floor, clutching that marred wrist like a madman, jabbering incoherent pleas and attempts at denial.

Creon’s hand wrapped around mine.

That hand … scarred with wounds the crumbling male before me had inflicted.

‘Did you?’ I repeated, a strange calm coming over me – a feeling like I was swinging the axe down as I spoke the words. ‘Did you regret it?’

‘No!’ he wheezed, spitting out the lie with inhuman ferocity. ‘I – did –never!’

Blinding green light erupted from his bargain mark.

Ophion let out a last howl of agony.

When he became quiet, when the light flickered out, his forearm had gone a deep, scorched black, skin the colour of bubbling tar. Dark veins spread out from above his collar, too. His left fingers continued to cling to his burnt wrist as fiercely as they had done in life, his lips remained curled to reveal blackened gums …

But his head had lolled back against the floor, blue-black curls stained with the blood of his fallen allies, and his cat eyes had dulled to the glassy void of death.

Chapter 37

Creon did not speakas he wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my hair, but the cramped strength of his fingers digging into my back spoke louder than a thousand words.

‘I’m alright,’ I breathed, and only then did my legs start shaking, fear bursting through my veins minutes too late. ‘I’m alright, I’m alright, I’m—’

He kissed me.

A hungry kiss, a desperate kiss – a kiss begging for answers in a way I would not have understood before last night. Here he’d stood, watching me on the brink of death. Unable to fight for me, forced to stay silent. Seeing yet another one of the Mother’s presumed loved ones cast aside over pragmatism, the perfectexample of the life he’d believed to be the universal way of things for far too long …

None of that, the response of my lips said, fingers tightening on his nape to pull him closer.You’re mine. I’m yours. We’re not doing this the fae way, and don’t you dare tell me I’m wrong either.

Ever so slowly, the tension in his touch mellowed, the tautness of his muscles loosening under my fingers.

‘And I’m still glad you’re with me,’ I whispered when we finally broke apart, foreheads bumping together. ‘In case that needed to be said.’

The tremble in his quiet laugh suggested the reminder was far from redundant. ‘I’ll never complain about—'

A loud bang from the open tunnel door interrupted him, followed by a cacophony of shocked and agonised voices.

Yet another trap going off in the distance, shattering the brief moment of peace. Creon released me at once, face hardening. Alyra was circling near the stairwell, eager to go up and face whatever the Mother had planned for us above – whatever awaited us in the White Hall itself, the last obstacles between me and that cold heart of hers.

We had to go, I knew. We had nothing to win by postponing that confrontation, and yet …

Amused, Ophion had said.

A shiver ran down my spine as I forced myself to start walking, stepping cautiously around dead limbs and pools of blood. Already I could hear that tinkling voice again –Little dove …

Wait.

I stiffened in place.

‘Em?’ Creon muttered.

Little dove.My thoughts unravelled, or rather slammed together in entirely new ways – that cursed nickname, Alyra, Zera’s doves cooing around my feet … and then I was fightingwith the buckle of my sword, the new leather of the belt still stiff and unobliging. Even in the dim light of this basement, the weapon’s alf steel and mother-of-pearl gleamed white and clear as I shook it into my hands, its weight growing familiar already, its balance perfect.