Page 55

T he chains bit into my wrists. A surge of cold air snaked through the passageway, cutting through the stagnant heat.

I flinched at the shift in temperature. We were rising, ascending the Sanctum.

The stairs twisted beneath my feet like they wanted to swallow me whole.

I couldn’t tell how far we’d gone, only that the air was getting thinner and colder.

“Move.” A gloved hand clamped around my arm and yanked. I’d paused to catch my breath, to map the way back if they dragged me here again. “The High King doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

My legs wavered, stiff with fear. My wounds ached, a burn blooming in my gut, but I wouldn’t be weak for this.

We wove through the Sanctum, up and up, until we reached the level of the throne room. The heavy stone doors to the chapel groaned open with a deafening screech. My lungs screamed for air, but the scent of incense mixed with something acrid, my body rejecting every inhale.

The cold caught in my throat. It pricked along my skin, raw in my lungs. Darkness clung to the corners like reclusive spiders, shifting back from the blue glow of etherlight. So did the man at the center pew, until he rose slowly, like he already expected me to kneel.

He was not cloaked, this time. He was a contradiction to everything I’d imagined him to be.

That made him all the more terrifying. Not some monstrous Daemon, not a gnarled, decaying relic.

He was beautiful. Ageless, otherworldly, the same sculptedness as his son.

But where Dante was storm and shadow, his father was ice.

Light struck the cut of his cheekbone, pale hair spilling like silk over a jet-black mourning coat. He balanced a black wood staff, siver filigree spiralling along it. The High King of Elsewhere stopped before me, studying me like a puzzle he had not yet decided was worth solving.

“At last, Arabella.” His voice slid over me, unhurried. “We meet.” I didn’t let myself tremble. I didn’t bow.

He flicked his hand, and an unseen force yanked me upright. “Stand,” he said. “And breathe. If I wanted you dead, you would be.”

My knees trembled, blood stalling as if his stare had throttled the beat from my veins. Still, I lifted my chin and met his gaze.

He studied me, faint amusement curling his lips. Then, almost like an afterthought he said, “So this is the only living child of a Fallen Angel.” His gaze traced over me, unimpressed. “I expected more.”

The chapel buckled, the words splintering like shards of stained glass. I staggered, my vision a swirling sea of light and dark. That couldn’t be true.

Blood roared in my ears. It was a deafening, frenzied drumbeat that drowned out everything but the searing truth that had just been spoken into existence. The daughter of a Fallen Angel.

A soundless scream tore from my throat. “That’s not possible,” I breathed. “Fallen Angels can’t have children. Their blood dies with them.” I looked at him. “You’re lying.”

“Lies are a waste of breath.” His staff traded hands. “It shouldn’t have been possible, but your mother wasn’t fully Fallen when she conceived. You were born in that threshold, somewhere between light and damnation.”

I thought of her then, really tried to remember. Her hands were always cold and trembling. Her eyes were always rimmed with darkness underneath like she hadn’t slept. She’d always seemed worried, especially the last few years.

I wanted to scream that he was lying. I needed him to be, but like everything else I’d learned, something in me knew in that terrible, marrow-deep certainty. I licked my lips, tasting salt, and willed the tears away.

“No. I saw it. She escaped. You gave her the Lumen to make her human.”

“Human?” His laugher was tight. “No. She’d been marked. She was just the illusion of one.” He continued smoothly, like he was relishing every flicker of disbelief that crossed my face. “Your mother was an Angel. A top-scorer, until the day she called upon me.”

“She was an Angel.” The room shrank around me. “Then how did she Fall?” My voice barely carried. “If she had so much going for her, why did she need an escape?”

“Fallen Angels are created through an action so morally depraved or selfish it can never be undone,” the High King said. “She traded you, and in that moment, she Fell.”

The chapel swam. I grabbed for something, anything to hold onto, but everything slipped through me. My mother had made her choice. And it had been me.

“No.” I whispered it, but I wasn’t sure if I was denying him or the truth of it. “What was she so afraid of? What was she running from? ”

He smiled cruelly. “So many questions, and still not the right one,” he mused, tilting his head. “Evangeline wasn’t running from anything . She was in love.”

A strangled sound escaped me, a laugh. Or maybe a sob. “Love?” The words scraped raw against my throat. “You’re telling me she did all of this—all of this to me —for love?”

The High King breathed through his nose, like he was bored of my ignorance.

“She foolishly fell in love with a human. She did not want to go to the After. She believed if she escaped Evermore, she could leave it all behind and become mortal. She wanted nothing more than to walk among them as if she had never been marked at all, and she was willing to pay eternally for it.”

“No,” I shook my head. “That’s not the kind of person she was. That’s not the person I remember.”

“Arabella,” he said thoughtfully. “The day we grow up is the day we see our parents as they are. Not as we hoped. Your mother was young and blinded by love. She made a fool’s bargain.

I forged her a necklace that would grant her passage out of Evermore and the ability to live like a Common for as long as she liked.

” He shrugged. “I suppose that, after a time, she decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. ”

The pieces didn’t fit. Maybe I just didn’t want them to.

The mother I’d known couldn’t be the same person that bartered me away.

But she had wanted him, my father. She thought she could cut her past clean and start over.

She never looked back, and never once thought of me. I would never make a choice like that.

“If I’m the only living daughter of a Fallen Angel, then what does that make me?” I whispered, barely able to form the words. I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know, but the words clawed their way out anyway.

Then, with a softness that almost mimicked a concession, he said, “It makes you a fracture . An impossibility. A soul that belongs to neither side.” His head tilted in fascination.

“Every Luminari’s soul is tied to light or darkness.

Fate stitches those ties before you draw your first breath. But yours is tethered to both.”

“But the scores. The rankings.” I stuttered over my words. “The point of Evermore is that every Luminari has the potential to choose their path.”

“The illusion of choice,” he said with a shrug. “Most souls are already leaning toward light or dark long before they arrive. The scores only reflect what’s already woven by fate. You, Arabella, are the only one who truly chooses. And choice?—”

“Is power,” I said before he could. “That’s why you need me to Fall.”

“Now you’re understanding.” The High King let out a quiet laugh, the tone of it reminding me of Dante. “If a soul like yours, born of both light and dark, chooses the darkness, it tips the balance just enough. The dark prevails, and the light weakens. It grants me dominion.”

“Dominion.” I paused. “How?”

“The cards.” The High King replied, the tip of his staff igniting at the mention of them. “If you choose to Fall, the balance of power tips away from the Archangels. They will be too weak to fight the binding of the deck.”

Too weak to fight the binding. So, this was his plan. He’d given up trying to find a stronger spell and had resorted to weakening the Archangels instead. There was just one more thing I didn’t understand.

“But there is no choice. You’ve already won. Verrine manipulated the scores. Mine already sits in the negatives, the Rift will propel me toward Elsewhere anyway. I have no choice in this. ”

“You could choose not to Fall.” His fingers idly traced the head of his staff. “You could choose to disappear instead.”

I shuddered. “That’s not much of a choice.”

“Admittedly not,” The High King nodded. “But the choice to remove the Lumen is also yours.”

I ran a hand across my collarbone. “What?”

“While you wear it, the Rift can’t mark you,” he said. “The Lumen binds a soul to the Common World by will. No blade, no spell, not even I can break it. Only a willing hand can remove it.”

I felt a spark jolt through me. “And why do you think I would do that?”

The hunger in his tone told me he had been waiting too long for this moment. “The value of your life was traded away before your birth. This is your chance to take your power back.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then someone else, maybe someone you love, pays your price. Luckily, Evermore overflows with souls.” He tapped his staff and the guards closed in. “Tomorrow, you Fall.”

This was never a choice, not really. But one thing was now clear. They needed me, which meant maybe I held more cards than I thought.