Page 39 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

EVREN

The words hang in the air between us, a perfect, poisoned blade.

That we don’t need each other. It’s the most profound lie we could tell.

A violation of the singular truth that holds us together.

My second life began because Blackgrove needed me here with her.

It continues because I need to be here with her.

To deny that is to deny the air I breathe.

I give a single, sharp nod.

My hand finds hers without a conscious thought from me. Her fingers lace through mine, a silent answer. Before her, I was just a ghost walking. A borrowed life with no purpose. They are my purpose. She is my purpose.

Dathan snorts, a harsh, dismissive sound that doesn’t quite hide the truth in his silver eyes. He shoves his hands in his pockets.

Verik nods, his hellfire eyes burning. We all know what this will cost. To speak that falsehood aloud, to give it power, will feel like tearing a piece of ourselves away.

“And how do we convince anyone of that?” Dathan asks after a beat.

“We don’t defend each other,” I say quietly. This is too important to use a raven or hand gestures. “We become selfish and serve our own purposes.”

“The Court will test that theory,” Lysithea says. “We have to be prepared. None of us can flinch when the others are tested.”

Her words are a death sentence. To stand by and watch them suffer, to pretend I don’t care… it’s a violation of the very reason I exist now. A lie against the core of my borrowed soul. My throat burns, not just from the unaccustomed use, but from the words I know I will have to swallow.

“Let’s get this over with,” Dathan mutters.

I shake my head. “Not yet. We need time.”

“He’s right,” Verik agrees. “If we go there now, we will show our hand at the first hurdle.”

“We need to separate now, not come to each other like our next breath depends on it,” Lysithea says.

“I hate this,” Dathan says.

“It’s the only way.” I stare at him and then at Lysithea.

I pull my hand from hers and move myself through the shadows to the crypts.

Here is where I am most alone and lonely.

The cold seeps into my bones, a familiar, unwelcome friend.

The silence down here is absolute, a heavy blanket woven from dust and the centuries of stillness that have passed.

Usually, I find a kind of peace in it. Today, it just amplifies the emptiness where Lysithea’s hand used to be.

The ghosts of the long-dead stir as I pass their tombs.

They don’t speak to me today, but I know their thoughts.

I ignore them.

I have to build a wall inside myself. A fortress of ice around my heart, thick enough that not even the Soul Scar’s connection can penetrate it.

I need to remember the man I was before her.

The hollowed-out thing Blackgrove dragged back from the grave.

A being of cold purpose and silent observation.

The lie must become my reality. I don’t need them.

Their chaos is a distraction. Her warmth is a weakness.

I am a Harbinger of Death. I walk alone.

I repeat the words in my head, a mantra of self-destruction.

The spirits around me recoil from the coldness of the thought.

They know a lie when they feel one. And this is the most damnable lie of all.

I draw the cold air deep into my lungs, letting it scour the warmth of her from my memory.

The thought is a shard of glass in my soul.

I am death. I am the end. I am alone. The stone sarcophagi around me weep, condensation tracing lines down their ancient faces.

The spirits whisper their disapproval, their spectral forms flickering at the edges of my vision.

They know. My own magic knows. It curdles in my veins, a sluggish, poisoned river.

To deny her, to deny them, is to deny the very life that was given back to me.

A life for a life. A debt that binds me to this path, to them.

But to summon the Warden, I must become the lie.

I must resurrect the ghost I was. A being of cold purpose and silent observation.

I force the memories down, burying them under layers of ice.

The feel of her hand in mine. The sound of her laugh.

My cock buried inside her. The sight of her standing against the world, a queen of shadow and song. All of it must be forgotten. Erased.

I am a weapon. Nothing more. The lie settles, a layer of frost over my heart. It’s cold. It’s empty. It’s perfect.

Painfully perfect. It’s almost too easy, and that is the most worrying thing of all. The silence that follows is a relief. A homecoming. This is who I was. Who I am. A construct of death, a borrowed vessel. Feelings are a luxury for the truly living. I have no room for them.

A sudden, sharp sting on my arm. The Soul Scar. Not my pain. Hers. My first instinct is to find her. To tear through the academy and stand between her and whatever is causing that fear.

I crush the impulse. It’s a phantom limb, an echo of a man who no longer exists. She is not my concern. The thought is a shard of ice in my own soul, but I force it to stick.

The spirits in the crypts keen, sensing the shift in me, the violence of my denial. They flutter around me, their spectral forms agitated. They whisper of bonds and breaking, of a cold that even death fears.

Silence.

The command isn’t spoken. It’s a wave of pure will, a frost that freezes their whispers in the air. They retreat, their forms fading back into the stone. There is no communion now. Only command.

The ghost is back. The Harbinger is ready. This is the lie we need. This is the weapon that will summon the Warden. I am alone. And I will make the Court believe it.