Page 70

Malice

She skips on bare feet across a moonlit hill of celestial flowers, sweetness permeating the air.

The goddess’s fingers reach out and pluck delicate stems, harvesting blossoms until she’s gathered a posy, the bouquet cradled in her hands.

Picking flowers on a cliffside isn’t Malice’s scene, but it makes this female happy, so it’s also the only thing that matters.

“Can mortal flowers cohabitate with immortal ones?” she asks, twisting his way as he leans against a tree, arms crossed while watching her. “Can such blossoms inhale the same air, thrive beneath the same sky, and take root in the same soil?”

Not something Malice has experience with, but he’ll never not indulge this exquisite creature.

With that dress flitting around her bare feet, and her hair in disarray because he’d spent hours fucking her, it’s the most beautiful sight he’s ever known.

He’ll give Wonder whatever answer she wants, so long as he gets to feast on the vision until he fades to dust.

A blush steals up her cheeks because he must be looking at her in that way. The I’m-going-to-fuck-you-again way. The it’s-only-ever-been-you way. The I-worship-you way. Well, he’s not lying; nothing about her will ever be a regret.

Wonder smiles, a lock of hair sailing across her face. She smiles like he matters, like he’s worth something, like she loves him. The possibility drains his breath.

Goddess of Reading. Goddess of Flowers. Goddess of Goodness.

Can she really love a murderous devil who’s only ever dealt in death?

They step toward one another. The hill blurs, transforming from one realm to another. Now the cliff becomes a meadow, the elevation dropping.

Another addition is the pomegranate tree, globes of fruit hanging from the branches. As the wind blows, leaves shake and clap like tambourines. Stars hover, and planets float in the galaxy, so damn large they might burst.

Everything appears close enough to touch, yet that shouldn’t be feasible. How the hell did they get here? The Stars must have brought them, but now Malice and Wonder will have to figure out the rest for themselves, like a compromise between fate and free will. Two worlds uniting.

Wonder blinks. She twists and turns, searching for something, for someone.

For him. Malice opens his mouth, but no noise comes out. He reaches, his hand slipping through hers like water.

His frantic goddess whirls this way and that, unaware he’s right in front of her. Wild with panic, Wonder drives her fingers into her hair and hollers, but he can’t answer. Matter of fact, her shouts come out soundless too.

It’s a name. She’s calling for him. Isn’t she?

Is she screaming for the right person? The right name? His name?

The heavens blacken, blotting out the celestials. The more she yells for him, the darker it becomes. Her voice tears a rift in the atmosphere. Daisies quiver as the ground opens, a pocket of nothing spreading beneath her. It happens so fast that Wonder cries out.

Malice roars, incapable of grabbing her, yanking her to safety. The scene plays behind his eyes. The cavity swallows Wonder whole, the wind lashing as she plummets into a bottomless pit, an underworld of shredded paper and ash. She claws at the air, failing to find purchase, to stop the fall.

Vaguely, he recalls a mortal tale reminiscent of this moment, something mythical yet unmythical.

And suddenly, he’s a forsaken figure garbed in ebony, capturing her, dragging her with him, forcing her into another universe.

He’ll feed the goddess pomegranate seeds, make her believe she wants to be with him, and rob her of free will.

But no, Malice wouldn’t do that. Not anymore.

And she wouldn’t let him. Because she captured him first.

Besides, he used to have nightmares about bars, cages, and syringes. Now he only dreams of her.

Jagged terrain rises out of nowhere, the foundation surging upward. Now he’s falling with her. But before Malice and Wonder smack into the ground, his eyes flash open.

Malice coughs, his body jerking, practically hacking up a lung. He gapes at a torn ceiling, his figure distorted on top of a paper mountain. Tilting his head produces a throbbing skull and aching joints. When he sucks in more air, stardust slips down his throat, melting away the dryness.

He scrutinizes the rafters. And remembers.

The moonstone arrow. The astral sphere. The Hollow Chamber.

It caved in. They fell.

“Malice,” a female voice croaks.

His heart catapults into his throat. Out of his mind with terror, Malice wrenches upright and speed-crawls across the wreckage to the curvy body sprawled nearby. She’s bruised and bleeding, but she’s alive.

His knuckles stroke her temple, the blade of a fingernail gently outlining her dusty cheekbone. Twisting her head, Wonder blinks as his face materializes above, her eyes gleaming the moment she recognizes him.

She swallows, her voice brittle. “Intelligent cinder eyes, deceptive golden waves, and the foulest mouth in history.”

Malice would smirk if this were funny. “Shh. I’m here, Wildflower.”

Tears water her eyes. She vaults to a sitting position and flings herself at him. His bare arms cord around her, clasping tightly while she shakes. Pulling back, Wonder inspects the gashes and bruises splotched across his body, but he’s in one piece too.

Not far off, their quartz and poplar weapons lay scattered, fractured in places but repairable. And that’s when it hits them both. But it strikes Wonder harder, grief slamming into her chest, her body caving as if she’s been sucker punched.

“No,” she cries out, staggering to her feet.

Malice follows. What they see decimates his fucking soul.

Together, they gawk at the haphazard levels and sloped walkways, at the glaze of stardust and the debris of parchment. It’s a battlefield of legends. Stashed between the outdated and prohibited, those stories had hidden themselves, waiting to be found.

Now there’s only ruin, detritus of vellum and ink. Bits of the central sphere rest in different areas, the carnage flickering with wan light. The Hollow Chamber is a sunken ship, a fallen city of knowledge.

Wonder’s eyes mist. Her hand shoots to her mouth, a sob lurching from her mouth. It’s the worst noise Malice could ever hear, a sound he wants to erase from existence.

His goddess opens her mouth, likely to shriek, but her vocal cords fail to make noise.

So her knees buckle instead. She lands on the ground, pages fluttering around her.

Crawling on all fours, she scavenges, plucking leaflets like flowers, trying to reassemble them, to bind them into hardbacks.

Her movements accelerate, hectic and rushed, rifling through the mess.

“I must fix this,” she grunts in desperation.

The vision shatters Malice’s chest. “Wonder.”

“No. I need to fix this.”

“Wonder.”

“I will fix this.”

He repeats her name, but his resourceful goddess shakes her head. She mumbles about putting everything back together.

“I can do this,” she wheezes. “I can do this. I can do this.”

Squatting, Malice takes her scarred hands, balling them with his own. “Look at me, love.”

He knows what she’s going through, and she’s wielded arrows to manage this same feeling in humans. Wonder slumps, the salvaged items tumbling from her grasp. Her glazed eyes cling to his, then her features crumble. She hunches over, rocking back and forth, locking her arms around her knees.

It’s a position he’s found himself in before. In another life.

But like hell is he going to let her experience it alone. Cursing, Malice hunkers behind Wonder, wrapping her into his solid body. His forehead presses to her nape, his muscles convulsing. Like this, he rocks with her.

In his peripheral vision, a glittering blue speck floats across the ruins. Wonder must notice too because she glances up, sweeping the hair from her face. They follow the illumination’s path, which leads to a surviving book spread open on one of the piles.

It’s the same title they discovered hours ago, the one that caused the others to ignite, to trigger the trap. It’s also one of the books that got displaced when he first fucked Wonder up against the shelves.

“Malice,” Wonder gasps.

She doesn’t have to say more. Locating and harnessing their weapons, they hunker toward the book, its cover pulsing. The moment Wonder sets her fingers on the case, another dot of color flares from the rubble, coming from farther away.

It could be another trap. Or it could be something else.

They stumble to their feet. The same process repeats, with Malice and Wonder tracking the sequence of glowing titles, hobbling over chunks of wood and glass and paper.

When they reach what used to be the restricted section, they encounter the final book abandoned on the ground, tattered but still bound. It gleams as if having expected them.

Holy shit. Of all candidates, Malice and Wonder shouldn’t have underestimated the power of these volumes. Yes, they formed a trap at the hands of The Fate Court. But that’s not all.

“It is a trail,” Wonder breathes.

She glances at Malice, who shrugs. “What the hell do we have left to lose?”

Stooping, she grabs the tome and rises. The text sparkles, random passages and sentences radiating, standing out to reveal a legend.

Wonder scans the contents, with Malice reading over her shoulder. “Well, I’ll be fate-fucked,” he murmurs.

Their gazes collide, drawing the same conclusion. A flicker of hope alights Wonder’s face as she wheels toward Malice

She whispers, “This is—”

“— the way to win,” he finishes.

It’s the answer they’ve been looking for. The solution to balance fate and free will. And the answer is so obvious, so simple that Wonder’s mouth lifts into a teary grin, and Malice quirks his lips, mirroring her smile.

A dark shadow flits behind Wonder. Frowning, Malice’s eyes drift past her, the echo of shifting rubble snaring his attention. The goddess stiffens, maybe sensing the aura of disillusionment, just as Malice detects the aura of rage.

A lone figure steps into view and points a slender object toward Wonder’s back. Wrath and fear grab Malice by the throat. No!

He seizes Wonder and spins her around, the rotation cut off by a clean whoosh of air.

Something tapered punches through his flesh.

His body snaps, caving like a bowstring, the momentum jerking Malice into her.

For a moment, he stares at Wonder, consumed by the sight of her, his nails digging into her hips.

Confused, Wonder searches his disoriented features. As one of her palms drops to his tailbone, confusion tugs her features. Then Malice feels the same thing. Thick fluid leaks over the goddess’s knuckles, a slow drip from an arrowhead.

A shot meant for Wonder. Its tip protrudes from Malice’s chest, right through his heart.