Page 48

He stopped beside her. “No one. What are you going on about?”

“If only I could lie with such ease.” Theránawas an effective teacher—and punisher. Since falsehoods were so rare in Dacia, the concept of them had always fascinated her.

“Nobody’s hurt me, because I don’t give anyone the chance to,” he said proudly, even as his golden eyes flickered with emotion. “Trusting another is like voluntarily wading into quicksand. You deserve to sink.”

She felt sorry for him. How lonely his existence must be. “We’ll have to agree to disagree. In the meantime, I remain a staunch believer.”

“Are you sharing all these thoughts with me because you still anticipate killing me?”

“Yes.” Plus, she remained unshackled by blushes and reticence. Here she was, conversing freely with an otherlander, as if she’d done so all her life. Bright side: she would never have known what this was like if she’d never caught the plague.

“You really are a piece of work, female.”

“You’re the villain here, sorcerer.” She started forward once more, and he followed.

When another quake rumbled, they fell silent, each lost in thought, even as they remained on alert for threats.

The path descended, widening. As the fog lifted, no dead end greeted them—the corridor opened up into a plain with a long lake of black water. Far on the horizon loomed a steep hill, covered with rocks. The food scents came from that direction.

The sky was a black dome scattershot with yellow lightning. The lake lay still as slate, reflecting the scene above. Those flashes of lightning reminded her of senses firing during a resurrection—such as her own—or the finale before dying. Was this realm coming into being or breathing its last?

As she studied the sky, she pondered whether she was indeed in Nïx’s sights. Had the Valkyrie wanted her in this place? Mina did find it odd that the Gaolers had been in New Orleans on the very night she’d been clawed. Maybe Silt’s information wasn’t totally useless.

She peered over at him, feeling a tightness in her chest as she took in his strong profile. Fighting beside him with their lives on the line must have supercharged their chemistry, sending it tumbling into less . . . deniable.

He was handsome and focused, a world away from her initial impression of him. Maybe her attraction grew apace with his own metamorphosis. She rubbed her tongue over a fang for a shot of blood—his still spiced her own, and she almost moaned.Heisinside me.

“We haven’t spotted any wendigos in this area,” he said in that deep voice. “Not a single stray bone. Why aren’t they following the same scent we are?”

Her survival instincts flared; thoughts of the past and the future grew muted. “Another imaginary line they won’t cross?”

“Probably.”

Yet again, she and Silt had likely stumbled onto a worse threat. Was some malign being using the food as a lure? “You mentioned that revenants and ghouls live here,” she said. “I’ve read a bit about both. But I thought revenants were corpses reanimated by sorcery.”

“Not here. The majority of Nightside’s revenants are born, not made. They get nourishment from snuffing life, and they’re brutally strong. A mystic told me she’d once seen a vision of a revenant attack. A single jabbing punch from one knocked an immortal’s head neatly off.”

The force that would take . . . “If the undead are born here, how do they multiply?”

“That mystic thought the ghouls reproduced like insects, in addition to an infected immortal here or there. Maybe the others do too.”

“Insects, is it?” Mina shuddered at the thought of spiders’ webs or egg sacs. “Ghouls usually move in large troops. That basilisk notwithstanding, why haven’t we seen any?”

“Luck?”

She laughed without humor. “You believe in that but not in love?”

He slid her a look, his eyes hinting at tangled secrets. “No one expects luck to last forever.”

With that, they continued on in silence, crossing the distance to that rocky rise. Side by side, she and Silt scaled the mound of stones.

Once they crested the top, Mina breathed in shock: “What sorcery is this?”

He bit out, “Exactly.”

At the top of the rocks, a marvel unfolded before Silt and Kosmina.

Past a valley filled with vineyards was a classical castle on an island, surrounded by a sea of boiling water. Torches illuminated the stately exterior in welcome, yet no bridge or ferry offered to take them across the water to reach it.