Page 62 of Evermore (The Never Sky #3)

Paesha

T he mark on my shoulder meant nothing. Like everything else in my life, it was just another chain wrapped in pretty magic.

I couldn’t let myself think about Archer, my friend, the man who’d helped me save Quill, who’d stood beside me against an evil prince and all the gods alike.

I couldn’t bear to wonder if every protective instinct, every moment of loyalty had been nothing but Ezra’s manipulation.

The pain of that possibility was too sharp, too raw.

So I locked it away with all my other broken pieces and focused on the haunting melody drawing us deeper into the forgotten city.

The song pulled us through empty streets like a hook beneath our ribs, each note both beautiful and wrong. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other, but the voices wouldn’t be silenced so easily tonight.

We are your only truth , they whispered in unison. Your strength. Your salvation.

The mortals will betray you , Winter crooned. The gods will destroy you. But we? We are you. We are all you have ever truly had.

Mother is right there , Sylvie purred. She will help you destroy a god. When he tears a door into this realm, simply break it. Like the veil. Like our hearts. Like your past.

Their words slithered through my mind like poison, tempting and terrible. I shoved them away, though it took more effort than I cared to admit. I couldn’t afford their seductive promises, not when I needed my wits about me.

Thorne walked beside me, close enough that his arm occasionally brushed mine.

Each touch sent sparks through my skin that I refused to acknowledge.

The memory of his kiss still burned on my lips, making everything more complicated than it needed to be.

I couldn’t afford to think about the way he’d looked at me like I was the answer to every question he’d ever asked. Like I was worth burning realms for.

The melody grew stronger, filling the air with promises I couldn’t quite understand. My feet moved of their own accord, following the sound deeper into the twisted city.

“This way,” Thorne murmured, gesturing toward what might have once been a grand boulevard. I wanted to hate how easily he took the lead, how naturally I fell into step beside him. But the truth was, his presence felt like an anchor in this nightmare place.

The song shifted, becoming something darker, more seductive.

It pulled at memories I didn’t know I had, making my head spin.

I saw flashes of my childhood. Of my tears and loneliness.

I saw my father’s face. I saw things I’d chosen to keep behind walls until they’d been forgotten.

The threadbare blanket I’d kept through my childhood.

My first pair of ballet slippers the Maestro had given me.

And gods help me, I saw Ezra’s face the first time we’d met.

I saw the blank stare in his eyes. The way he hadn’t seen me at all when I thought he was everything.

I’d forgotten. Forgetting was so much easier than sitting in that pain.

I stumbled, and Thorne’s hand shot out to steady me.

“I’m fine,” I snapped, jerking away, but the lie tasted bitter on my tongue.

A massive structure loomed ahead, its architecture impossibly beautiful despite its decay. Weathered black stone spiraled upward, defying gravity. This had to be a temple. And Irri’s song came from within, each note carrying the weight of centuries. Of her sorrow. My sorrow.

As we stepped across the threshold, the haunting melody grew louder, echoing through the cavernous space like a mournful sigh.

A song without words that spoke directly to the soul.

The hair on the back of my neck rose as I took in the space with vines and moss clinging to every surface, nature reclaiming what must have been a magnificent structure.

Though now, only the cracked columns held the history of this space.

Only the dust that drifted in the night air.

Something moved in the shadows between the columns, deep within the pit of darkness, hiding from the moonlight.

“Thorne—” I started, but he was already moving, pushing me behind him as a creature emerged.

It was massive, its body a rippling mass of forgotten things.

Broken weapons, shattered mirrors, torn pages from books.

Its eyes, gods, its eyes were human, filled with a hunger that made my blood run cold…

But then I saw the limbs. The distorted faces of people trapped within the darkness.

Mouths full of silent screams, eyes vacant.

Hands reaching out of the mass, begging for a savior.

The creature lunged, faster than anything that size had any right to move. Thorne’s power flared golden around us, but the monster passed through it like smoke. And in that falter, I felt the warmth of his magic around my mind dissipate.

For a second, everything stopped. With Thorne at my side and the monster looming over us, there was no escape.

We couldn’t run fast enough. Thorne’s power had faded.

But still he tried. Still, he put himself between me and the monstrosity.

But the fucker swiped a giant arm with claws the size of horses at us.

I’d never forget the sound as he made contact with Thorne’s body.

I’d seen him powerful, arrogant, in complete control, but in that moment he looked fragile, mortal, and as the impact sent him flying backward, one of the temple’s weathered columns broke.

The crack of stone meeting flesh made me physically ill.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was a god and yet he crumpled to the ground, golden light flickering weakly around him like a candle about to go out.

My chest tightened painfully as I watched him struggle to rise.

In all our history, in all the lives I’d apparently lived, I doubted I’d ever seen him vulnerable.

Never seen him hurt. The sight of blood on his skin made something primal and protective rear up inside me.

It didn’t matter that I hated him, that I planned to leave him here.

In this moment, watching him wounded and fighting alone, every complicated feeling I had for him crystallized into one burning truth: No one got to hurt him but me.

The monster advanced, its form a nightmare of objects that shifted as it moved. But it was those eyes, so hungry, fixed on Thorne with predatory focus that made my blood run cold. It wanted to consume him, to add him to its collection of forgotten things.

“Run!” he shouted, voice rough with pain as he finally made it to his feet. The creature lunged again and my heart lodged in my throat.

But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Every fiber of my being screamed to help him, to fight beside him.

I didn’t know what I wanted anymore, to save him or destroy him, but I knew with bone deep certainty that he was mine to protect or to break.

Mine to save or to damn. This creature didn’t get to take that from me.

He must tear open a path, Sylvie screamed through the rush of thoughts. The Keeper cannot be left behind until he’s opened the door.

My Remnants surged forward without conscious thought, meeting the creature’s attack in a clash of shadows and nightmares. The impact sent me falling backward, my head spinning as a thousand voices screamed for blood.

The creature reeled back, those human eyes widening in surprise as my power tore through it.

The voices in my head reached a crescendo, a thousand lifetimes of love and loss and rage pouring into my attack.

This was their moment. They would not be robbed of their vengeance.

But it was mine too. This was my power. My anger.

And as I drew from that very deep well inside of me, expecting to find the bottom soon, I didn’t.

I pushed and pushed, screaming along with all the past lives in my mind until nothing existed anymore.

Until light shone on every dark corner of my thoughts, forcing me to feel emotions I refused.

And in that, I felt it all. The anger and the hurt.

The loneliness, the abandonment, the betrayal.

Not just from Thorne, in fact, in the grand scheme of things in my life, he’d done very little.

He’d lied, but my father had left. My mother had left.

I’d spent my past alone and manipulated and I was so very angry.

The ground split beneath my feet, a chasm opening between us as my rage tore the world apart.

“Paesha!” Thorne’s voice barely reached me through the roar of power and screaming voices in my head. He stood on the other side of the widening gap, blood trickling from a cut above his eye. The creature was already recovering. Its massive body had reassembled itself. “Find her! I’ll hold it off!”

“I can’t—” My voice broke. I couldn’t leave him. Not like this. Not when every instinct screamed to stay and fight.

“You have to! I can’t die, remember? But I can’t protect you and fight this thing. Please!”

The voices reached a fever pitch, drowning out everything but the need to run. To find Irri. To end this. I stumbled backward as I watched the thing advance on Thorne again.

“Go!” he roared, power flaring around him as he met the monster’s charge.

I turned and ran, following the haunting melody that still drifted through the temple’s twisted corridors. Each step felt like betrayal, but I forced myself forward, letting Irri’s song guide me deeper into the forgotten temple.

I found her in what might have once been a grand ballroom.

She stood at a window that overlooked the forgotten city, staring out, unaware of the battle in the other room.

Unaware that I’d even come for her. Her hair, as red as fresh blood, cascaded down her back in waves that moved of their own accord.

When she turned, her movements were dream-like, disconnected.

“We have to go,” I said, the words tumbling out breathlessly. “Right now. Please.”