Page 13 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

At first, my movements were small, hesitant.

A gentle sway of my hips, a graceful sweep of my arms. But with each breath, each stretch and turn, a fragile sense of calm settled over my fractured nerves.

I focused on the placement of my feet, the elegant lines of my body as I moved through familiar forms.

Spin. Turn. Bend. Point.

Move.

Slow, sweeping circles gradually gave way to faster, more complex steps.

I leapt and spun across the moonlit meadow, my hair flying out behind me in a wild tangle.

The whispers faded to a distant hum as I lost myself in the silent music, the soft shush of my feet through the grass, the chirping of the crickets, the soothing metronome of my breath and heartbeat.

The Remnants responded to the rhythm, their frantic writhing gentling into something almost like a dance. Their shadowy tendrils caressed my skin like cool silk, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. Like they were a part of me, as vital and necessary as the blood in my veins or the air in my lungs.

When I leapt, they lifted me higher, until I was soaring, weightless and free. When I spun, they whipped around me in a shadowy vortex, blurring the edges of my form until I became something more than human, a wild creature of the night.

The whispers had gone silent, drowned out by the rush of power, the wild thrill of letting go, of unleashing everything I’d kept pent up inside for so long.

I threw my head back and laughed, giddy and drunk on the sheer joy of movement.

The sound echoed across the meadow, eerie and unearthly.

This was madness. This was freedom. This was the monster’s playground. My damn playground.

But as I completed another turn, a flicker of movement at the edge of the meadow caught my eye.

My heart stuttered in my chest. I recognized the tall, broad-shouldered silhouette standing motionless in the shadows of the trees.

Reverius. Maybe Ezra, but I was sure I’d seen the black mark on his neck when he shifted backward, trying to hide in the shadows when I spun.

Now, he stood as still as a statue, his face half-hidden in darkness. Even from this distance, I could feel the weight of his gaze upon me. The hazel eyes that had once looked at me with such tenderness now seemed to burn with an unreadable intensity.

I didn’t want him to be here. He was seconds from ruining the only peace I’d felt in days. The Remnants recoiled, sensing the shift in my mood, their dance transforming into fury, immediately taking over any sense of joy.

They swirled around me, a living barrier of shadow and mist. They sensed my anger, my pain, and responded in kind. Tendrils of darkness lashed out like whips, slicing through the air between us. The grass at my feet withered and turned black, as if life was being drained from the earth.

Reverius approached slowly, his steps measured and cautious.

The moonlight caught the planes of his face, throwing half of it into sharp relief while leaving the other shrouded in shadow.

Gods, he was handsome. Infuriatingly so.

And I wanted nothing more than to rip that fucker to shreds with my bare hands.

“Stay away from me.”

He took another step forward, the crunch of grass beneath his boots unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night. “You’re unraveling.”

The Remnants surged in response to his voice, coiling around my limbs like living armor. I could feel their hunger, their desire to attack, to tear and rend. It took everything I had to hold them back. This was my moment. Not theirs.

“And whose fault is that?” I spat, clenching my fists at my sides. The shadows mimicked my movements, clawed hands of darkness forming in the air around me.

“Let me help you.”

He might as well have splashed ice water on my face. “In no realm, in no lifetime, in no space of existence from now until the end of time, will I ever, ever come to you for anything more than to watch your final breath.”

“This isn’t you,” he whispered.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

He took another step forward. “You took too much power and you can’t control it. This anger isn’t you. It’s the power. It’s consuming you.”

“Does living in a pit of audacity give you that youthful glow, or is it the constant state of denial? You trapped me behind a veil, pretended to be someone else, lied through your teeth at every fucking turn and let someone who believed she was your friend die. You could have saved her, all powerful asshole. You didn’t.

But then you could have done about a thousand things different, so I guess we’re all living with the consequences of your actions now.

“Let me make myself perfectly clear. I don’t want you here. I don’t need you here, and I’ve got news for you, asshole. You don’t get to interfere. Or have you forgotten our bargain?”

I watched him straighten. I watched the color drain from his pretty fucking face as I played the only card I had left in my arsenal.

I took a step toward him this time, letting the Remnants creep forward, darkening the space between us.

His eyes flashed to the ground, but he made no attempt to move.

“Come on, Reverius darling. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already, or did you not realize? ”

“What bargain?”

“You said you’d help me find the king. And you said you wouldn’t stop me when the time came for me to do what I needed to do. You agreed to that, didn’t you? You gave me your word.”

One of the Remnants circled his ankle, hesitant at first, just as I was to make such bold moves against this powerful god, but again, he didn’t move. Instead, his eyes darkened as another tendril crept forward.

A breath of power lashed out, wrapping around his legs and arms, the shadowy form solidifying into barbed vines that bit into his flesh. I watched, a mix of horror and savage satisfaction churning in my gut, as crimson bloomed against the white of his shirt.

He made no move to defend himself, his eyes locked on mine even as the shadows tightened their grip. The Remnants sensed my conflicted emotions and responded with increasing ferocity. They ripped and tore, leaving bloody furrows across his skin, shredding his clothes to ribbons.

Yet he stood motionless, his face a mask of calm acceptance.

Annoyingly, no pain, no fear, not even a flicker of discomfort marred his features as the shadows continued their relentless assault, even swirling over Alastor’s black mark upon his neck.

Blood dripped from countless wounds, staining the grass at his feet a deep crimson.

I couldn’t deny that a weaker part of me screamed to stop this, to call off the attack. But the darker, wounded part reveled in his suffering, in finally having some small measure of revenge for all his lies and manipulations. I wanted to see him bleed, to make him hurt the way he’d hurt me.

“Stop,” he commanded so quietly I almost couldn’t hear him.

The Remnants hissed. I stepped forward again, boldly this time, willing the ground to practically crumble beneath each step as I moved toward him. “Would that have worked for me? If I’d have told you to stop?”

He said nothing, of course.

“The bargain stands, Reverius Hawthorne Noctus. You may not question or stand in my way. Now, be a good boy and kindly go fuck yourself.”

His face tightened, the anger so obvious I could feel it in the heated air between us. “Be reasonable, Paesha.”

“Reasonable?” I laughed, the sound as hollow as his promises had been.

“You want reasonable from the woman you’ve killed a thousand times?

The one you trapped and manipulated and lied to?

” My Remnants squeezed tighter. “How’s this for reasonable?

One cut for every life you stole from me.

Don’t worry though, Supreme Sovereign, unlike you, I only plan to kill you once. ”

“You can’t kill a god, and I won’t sit back and watch you destroy yourself.”

“No, darling. You wouldn’t. You’d much prefer to do the destroying.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I slid the blade Harlow had given me from my thigh.

“Did you just call me a liar, Reverius Hawthorne Noctus? The things I saw with my own eyes never happened? What you’ve done to me for hundreds of lives?

Or should we talk about the memories Alastor showed me?

The one of you putting a blade in my back on my wedding day?

” I traced my knife along his jaw, a mockery of the tender way he’d once touched me.

He was a breath away, but a thousand lies too far to reach.

“You and your brother played the same game. Make the poor little mortal fall in love, only to kill her. Do you have to break my heart before you can stop it? Is that the key here?”

“This is not a fucking game between brothers.” His voice was low, dangerous. “Ezra and I have been at war for a very long time and you’re the battlefield we keep scorching.”

“The battlefield and the bounty. How fucking sweet. Let’s skip the small talk and get to the point here, Reverius.

You and I have a bargain. Like it or not, you don’t get to ask me a single question.

Not one. And you cannot stand in my way.

As far as I’m concerned, being here right now is an invasion of my space.

You’re in the way. Get the fuck out of it. ”

The earth all but rattled as he shook himself free of my Remnants, a show of power as much as anything as he took a step toward me and snatched the wrist holding the blade. “Ezra is dangerous.”

I scoffed. “You’re all dangerous.”

“He is my equal,” he said, eyes cold and hard. “You don’t need me as your enemy right now. I can promise you that.”