Page 191 of Brimstone

We rolled the guardian’s headless body over the edge of the cliff as we had agreed to. We watched the golden clad corpse tumble through the air and land on the rocks without saying a word. There were those who might have deserved a prayer to the gods as their body was laid to rest, but not him. Whoever he was, whoever he had been, he had served a monster, which made him a monster, too.

We were walking back up the steps, away from the cliff face, when I noticed the figure sitting alone by a large chalk boulder that jutted out over the drop to our right. I knew him straight away.

It wasTal.

I pressed the plague bag into Carrion’s hand. “You go on without me,” I told him. “Get this to Iseabail and Te Léna as quickly as you can. Let them know I’ll be back soon. There’s something I need to take care of.”

I was wrong.

He wasn’t alone.

A body lay next to him on the chalk, red dress torn and dirty, blond hair pooling around her head. Zovena looked like she was sleeping, but I had seen enough death by now to recognize its subtle hue creeping into the female’s pale cheeks. Tal sat on the very edge of the cliff with his legs dangling over the side.He wasn’t touching Zovena, though he must have carried her here and laid her down. The wind blew his silver hair about his face, the strands glowing orange and red, reflecting the bloody sunrise.

A sword rested on the ground beside him. His hands were covered in cuts and scrapes; he absently twisted the chunky ring he wore on his thumb around, around, around as tears streamed down his face.

He didn’t look at me as I took a seat beside him, letting my legs dangle over the edge, too. “The fates scorn me,” he whispered airily. “Every time I try to die, they rob me of my peace.”

“What are we doing, Tal?”

The muscles in his neck worked as he swallowed. I had only ever witnessed the male in shadow, his features carved in monochrome or maybe washed green from the evenlight. The morning had painted him in peaches, purples, and pinks as soft as silk. He had been remade. His heart pumped warm blood around his body for the first time in centuries. For a second, he looked soyoung. But then he turned to look at me, and there was that ancient sorrow in his eyes.

“I was having Fisher send me home so I could die there instead. At Bayland’s End. The inconvenience ofthatunpleasantness would have served my mother right. But then we were in the middle of a battle, surrounded by feeders, and for once . . .” He choked on the word, biting back a strangled sob. “Foronce, I got to fight on the right side.” He shook his head, batting away fresh tears before they could fall. “I found this sword in the grass and picked it up. I ran straight at Death, then. Iknewthat he’d take me. But every feeder I faced, I killed. And then there were no more, and . . . I foundherin the dirt.”

His gaze went back to the rising sun, smudging light across the rippling surface of the ocean. He didnotlook at Zovena.“She was a horrible person,” he said, letting out a cracked bark of laughter. “I found myself laughing at the insanity of it all the time. I doknowit was insane,” he said, nodding. “All of it. Imagine . . .” He squinted, for a moment seeing something I couldn’t see. “Imagine loving Kingfisher. Imagine not being able to stop yourself. And then imagine that he couldn’t give a fuck about you, and he took pleasure in hurting you every opportunity that he got. Andthenimagine selling your soul to the devil so that you could follow him into hell.” I couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying now. “Willingly!Hah!”

“Tal—”

“She was already dead when I found her. Drained dry.” He sniffed loudly. “And when I looked at her, I stood there, waiting for the grief to land, to absolutelydestroyme, and do you know what?” He threw back his head, closing his eyes and sighing loudly. “I didn’t feel . . . fucking . . .anything. It was always a game to her. I don’t know how she did it. If it was magic, or . . . or . . .” He shrugged helplessly. “It wasn’t real. It was a game, and now I feel as though I’ve woken up, and all the sacrifices I made were for nothing. How fuckingstupidI was.”

“You’renotstupid, Tal.”

“A thousand years . . .” He stared blindly off into the distance, lips parted, as if the gravity of it all had struck him dumb. “So I came here to give her to the sea. I came here to die . . . and once again the fates have snatched back my peace.”

“What do you mean?”

Taladaius held up a hand, turned palm up, and pointed at the dawn. He closed his eyes again, and the sunlight bathed the angular planes of his face. “One thousand . . . and sixty-three years, five months . . . three days . . .” His voice tapered to a whisper. “That’s how long it’s been since I felt the sun on my face, Saeris. If I’d gotten here an hour earlier, I would have done it. I would have jumped.” He blinked his eyelids open, a stillnessfalling over him as he looked out at the water. “But now?” A crooked, heartbroken smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “How can I consign myself to another endless dark when I’ve been given back the light?”

I didn’t speak. What was I supposed to say? The only thing I could do was take my friend’s hand. We sat in silence for a long time. Eventually, I picked up the sword that he’d found and carried here, turning it over in my hands. It was a pretty thing, narrow-bladed and elegant as a rapier. Its razor-sharp edge was lethal. Something about it reminded me of Tal.

I knew what I had to do—knew that it would be right. With steady hands, I drew Erromar from its scabbard and held the god sword over the narrow sword.

There was no need for silver now. No need for jokes, or games, or bargains. The quicksilver rune on the back of my hand blazed brilliant blue-white for a second, and then a bead of shining metal formed on the end of my short sword. It rolled until it welled and dripped down onto the other blade and immediately sank into the metal.

Tal watched, his expression a little stunned. “What are you doing?”

Out of nowhere, pain zipped up my arm, sinking its teeth into my shoulder. I dropped the sword between us, shaking out my hand.

“What wasthat?”

“That,” I said, a little disgruntled, “was a warning. I held it too long. And you know as well as I do that a god sword may only be held by the warrior it chooses to wield it.”

I tried not to laugh at the surprise that flashed over Tal’s face. He pointed at the sword. “You’re not . . . serious? That’s agod swordnow? That’s all it took?”

I shrugged. “A bit of borrowed quicksilver from my blade. A little bit of magic. An abundance of good intentions.”

The former vampire looked lost for words. “And it’s for me?”

“Yes, it’s for you.”