A flash of lightning sliced through her mother’s ghost, and the ground burst in a wave of rock and dirt that sent Pandora flying. She tumbled head over heels, then rolled to a stop ten feet away. The white light vanished. Her mother disappeared. The sky crackled, and another spike of energy flared, zipping toward the earth.
Bolters, she suddenly realized. Titans.
“Go!” she shouted to Naya, who was splayed across the ground only a few feet from where Pandora lay.
The medium looked up, eyes the glowing amber of the cat, no longer the white magic of the necromancer. She hesitated, holding Pandora’s gaze, unsure. Because even though she’d said she would leave, not everyone in the world was accustomed to abandonment. Not everyone could turn off the guilt and the shame that came with leaving a friend behind.
For the first time in Pandora’s life, there was someone who wanted to stay, who wanted to fight beside her, fight for her. She’d dreamed of this moment for a long time, wondered what it would feel like to know she wasn’t alone, that someone out there had her back. But it wasn’t what she imagined. Instead of hope, her stomach filled with dread. Because she thought of Naya, and the way her throat closed tight when she spoke about her brother, and the way her expression lifted when she’d heard about the cure for vampirism.
“Go,” Pandora mouthed, unable to bring herself to say the word.
Because it was one thing to know someone was willing to make the sacrifice, and another thing to actually let them. Pandora had shouldered many burdens in her life, but she wouldn’t shoulder this guilt. She couldn’t be so selfish.
“Go!” Pandora shouted.
Naya held her gaze for one more second. Then she turned her back on Pandora and shifted into the jaguar midleap as she disappeared into the forest behind her. It was the first time Pandora had ever been happy to watch somebody leave. She held on to that joy as she stared up at the sky, letting the setting sun warm her cold body as the truth washed over her.
I’m the key.
The words felt right.
Finally, after so long, she had her answer. The truth became clear. She was the key, the titans were the prison, and Sam was the beast trapped within.
So obvious.
And yet…it was Sam.
Sam who’d saved her life.
Sam who’d taught her how to use her power.
Sam who’d set her free.
Who’d taken her to the wolves, who’d danced with her beneath a blanket of moonlight, who’d made her feel more joy and acceptance in that single memory than she’d ever felt in her entire life. Who’d loved her for a thousand years.
Sam.
Her Sam.
The ground began to thunder with pounding titan feet, and Pandora did the only thing she could think of, something that was so natural to her she’d never understood how unnatural it truly was. She called upon the darkness and disappeared, wrapping the shadows around her, melting into the abyss. Sinking deeper and deeper, she abandoned the world, because somewhere in this starless night, Sam was waiting, watching. And she needed to hear it from his lips, to hear him explain that he was just like everyone else. That he was using her, lying to her, playing a game. That he never cared about her. That all he ever wanted was to be set free.
“Come out,” she ordered, voice calm and controlled.
Sam emerged from the depths, mist rolling off him like black smoke, until his golden hair was bright, his blue eyes even brighter.
“Who are you, Sam?” she asked, staring at him unflinchingly. “Who are you really?”
He stepped closer, lifting his palms to her cheeks. They were warm, solid, not the half-touch she was used to but the real touch of a man, a living, breathing man. The tattoo on the back of her neck tingled, prickling with energy, a magic she didn’t yet understand.
“I’m Sam,” he murmured, searching her expression. “Your Sam, like I’ve always been.”
His voice was magnetic, pulling her toward him, making her want to believe him. Before she could stop herself, Pandora found she was sinking into his touch, letting him hold her, shivering as he brushed his thumb over her skin.
She stepped back, clearing her head.
He let her.
“Tell me your real name,” Pandora demanded, forcing her tone to remain strong.
Sam closed his eyes, dropping his shoulders. The shadows curled around him, as though providing comfort. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
“You didn’t want me to find out at all,” Pandora growled. “You told me not to search for answers. You told me to let it go, to choose you. You told me so many things, everything, except for the truth. And I want it now, Sam, because I know you can. You’re not bound like my mother was, bound like Jax is. You’re just afraid I won’t like what you have to say.”
“That’s not true,” he said with a sigh, shaking his head ever so slightly. “We’ve been here before, Pandora. You just don’t remember. They won’t let you remember, but the walls they built are crumbling down. And the longer you wait, the more you’ll see for yourself. That’s all I want, for you to see our story with your own eyes, not to hear it from someone else’s lips, not to listen as it’s twisted into something ugly.”
“Then help me,” she countered. “If that’s what you really want, help me see. Tell me who you are, what you are. Because I finally know what I am, Sam. I’m the key—the key to your prison.” His eyes flashed with surprise. Until that moment, she hadn’t been sure she’d guessed right—but the truth was undeniable, etched in the grooves of his petrified face. “So tell me who you are, Sam. Tell me why the world is so desperate to stop me from setting you free.”
His face smoothed out, gaze softening as he lifted his hand toward her, stopping when she pulled away. His arm dropped back down, dispersing the shadows as it fell, heavy. “You always did call me Sam. I wasn’t lying about that. I wasn’t lying about anything, not in the way you suspect.”
Pandora didn’t speak.
She was waiting, waiting for the honesty he owed her.
Sam took a deep breath, the burden of a thousand years weighing him down. “My true name is Samael, though I’ve been called many things. For a long time, I was known as the blind god.” He paused, the corner of his lip lifting as he shook his head. “But that wasn’t quite true. I’m not the blind god. I’m the god of his blind spot. I’m the god of darkness, cursed to live in a world that worships the light.”
Sam lifted his hand, folding his fingers through the shadows that clung to his golden skin, wrapping around him in a protective shield, loving almost, as though the ebony was part of him, belonged to him. The darkness had never called to her like that, not in the same way.
Because it doesn’t belong to me, she realized, watching the smoke deftly follow Sam’s every move. It never has.
“Why did you share it with me?” she asked softly, mesmerized by the way his muscles clenched, the simple grace with which he moved. “Your darkness.”
“Because you saw the beauty of my world in a way no one else ever could,” he said, hand dropping, eyes lifting so they held hers captive. Pandora inched forward, lured by the desolate quality of his voice, by the silent promise in his gaze. “I wasn’t lying when I told you why I fell in love with you. You were the first person to show me the true splendor of endless night—that it provided endless opportunities with which to dream. And that’s what we did once upon a time. We dreamed of a world too good to be true. And in those final moments before we said goodbye so many years ago, I gave you a piece of my darkness because I never wanted to see you stop dreaming.”
“Who were we, Sam? The truth?” she asked, fighting the urge to reach out to him, to comfort him, to press her palm to his chest to let him know he wasn’t alone. “You told me that we fell in love in a place where love wasn’t allowed, that we were caught. But there’s more. I know there is.”
“Everything I told you was true,” he said, clasping the hand she hadn’t realized she’d extended toward him. Their fingers entwined instinctually, drawn together, fitting perfectly as though made for each other. “We were angels, once, a long time ago. Soldiers, protectors. Some might say slaves. We were gifted with more power than you can even imagine, and in return, we pledged our loyalty. And everything was fine until humans came. They were vulnerable, weak, with short lives and small minds. They had no power. But they were gifted with something far greater, something I began to covet—the opportunity to love, to create families, to choose their own lives. While you and I were hiding, only able to touch within the shadows of my power, they were free to do as they pleased. And they had no idea what a gift they’d been given. They took it for granted. And he took us for granted. So we rebelled.”
Sam tried to pull his hand back, but Pandora held on, clutching his fingers, because the more he spoke and the more they touched, the more something began to unlock within her. “How, Sam?”
“We abandoned the heavens. We fell to earth because we wanted to be free. All we wanted was to be free. But it was forbidden. So we fought, a terrible war that no one could win. And we did things, I did things…” he trailed off, shaking his head, squeezing his eyes shut as his face filled with pain. “We became monsters. And they became monsters, too. But no one remembers that because they won. And the winner gets to write the story, Pandora. Remember that.”
A knot of terror filled the pit of her stomach, expanding more and more the tighter she squeezed Sam’s hand. He pulled away again, but she wouldn’t let go. For the first time, he was real, and he was being real, and she refused to let go.
“What did you do, Sam?” she asked, throat clamping as the image of her father seeped into the forefront of her thoughts. His fangs. His wild, uncontrolled gaze. His hunger. All because of the shadow she’d sent into his heart. “What did you do?”
“Something I would never do again, and you know that. If you could only just remember, you’d see that I’ve changed. Because I was blinded by rage and vengeance, but I’m not anymore. Your prison worked the way you always hoped it would. It gave me time to think, to change, to understand that my power can be used for good.”
“What. Did. You. Do?” Pandora forced the words through her teeth one by one as her hand shook, holding on to him so tightly her muscles began to spasm.
“I tried to destroy them,” he whispered, voice as dark as the power swirling around him. “Because they had what I craved. What we craved. And I wanted to take it from them. But I sacrificed in vain. Because humans have everything, yet they still want more. They’re never satisfied, and it’s made them selfish, and that is a different sort of darkness, a darkness of their own making. And it’s done far more to ruin them than I ever could.”
The back of her neck burned.
And her hand burned where she held him.
A memory pounded on the door of her soul, demanding to be set free.
Sam backed away. The shadows curled around him, surrounding him in wave after wave of ebony, trying to carry him deeper. Before, she’d thought some unseen force had been tearing him away, but she realized now that he had always commanded the shadows. The darkness could never force him anywhere. No. He was running. Running from the truth. Running before she had a chance to really see what he was. But she wouldn’t let him fade away into the darkness. She wouldn’t let him disappear. Not this time. Not again.
Pandora reached for Sam and held him by the shoulders.
The air began to flare.
Fire scorched her skin, invisible flames.
They’d been there before, in the center of a raging inferno.
His blue eyes glimmered with both panic and surrender.
But not remorse.
Not regret.
And deep in the darkest corners of his pupils, she finally saw what he’d been trying so hard to keep concealed—she saw the monster within.
Sam stood in the center of a bloody battlefield with his back to her, ebony wings unfurled, sharp as razors. Blood dripped from those onyx feathers, falling onto the carpet of bodies beneath his feet, a sea of limbs and feathers and gore. He stilled, as though sensing her presence. He turned his head slowly, golden hair falling over his shoulder as he looked back, eyes bluer than the cloudy sky above their heads. His wings dipped, revealing the rest of his face—the red stains painted across his cheeks and his chin, the teeth sinking down beyond his lip, the tan area around his mouth where he’d licked the blood of his kills clean. Holding her gaze for a moment, he pumped his wings, ignoring the russet river that fell away as he rose. And then the shadows closed around him, taking him to a place she could not follow.
Pandora blinked.
The image faded away, replaced by another.
Sam loomed at the edge of a wood, standing in a spot untouched by the bright light of day. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. His gaze was hard. His muscles were harder, rigid and unyielding as they clenched. His hands were in fists. His feet were in a fighting stance. His eyes looked beyond her, to an enemy she couldn’t see. His wrath was palpable, suffocating as it traveled across the field and slammed into her like a physical weight.
The shadows moved for him, curling out from underneath those ebony wings extended from each shoulder. They undulated, coiling around the trees, over the grass, spreading wider and wider—a living, breathing beast of darkness.
Sam’s nostrils flared. The edges of his lips rose in a sinister smile.
The feathers at the bottom of his wings began to flutter as the shadows billowed. Shapes emerged from the darkness, forming into monsters, creatures twisted in evil. They catapulted out of the ebony mist, charging into the light, hungry for the taste of human flesh. She recognized them—the mistakes, the accidents. They’d been discarded to the darkness long ago, twisted by it, and now they longed for the life they’d been denied.
The demons and beasts Sam had once fought to contain were now his weapons, and he grinned as he released them upon the world.
Pandora stepped back, horrified.
She didn’t need to see more.
But there was nowhere she could go to escape the truth descending swiftly upon her. She blinked, trying to force the memories away, but another came.
A black cloud filled air that had been empty moments before, forming into the shape of a man, of a monster. The shadows fell away as Sam returned to the earth, pushing his power back, ebony wings snapping wide.
Behind her, a woman screamed.
A child began to cry. Then two. Three. More.
She ran to Sam and threw her hands against his chest, pleading with him to stop, that it had to end, that it was over. But his blue eyes were blinded to her words—he could not see. He was no longer the man he used to be, the soft man, the dreamer, the one who loved. Hate had filled his heart, anger had rattled his bones, and vengeance had changed him. So she fought, pushing with her fists. But while the fall had made him strong, she’d grown weaker, and she couldn’t stop him as he lifted his hand and held it before him.
Smoke seeped from his palm, thick tendrils that snaked across the air, smelling of death, calm and calculating. One by one, each onyx arrow found a heart and sank deep, hitting true, disappearing within their targets. One by one, the humans fell. And one by one, they rose with hunger in their eyes, craving blood, transforming into mirror images of the monster the man she once loved had become.
They went for the women first.
She jumped forward and clung to him, begging him to end this, to make it stop, to pull the darkness back. If only to save the children. The innocent children. Children like the ones they had once dreamed of. Like the ones who had been so cruelly snatched away.
He wouldn’t listen.
Instead, he spread his darkness, throwing more out into the world, poisoning more people. The children kept crying, but the sound grew softer, one by one. She couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t listen. She jumped on him, fighting, punching, pulling.
He tossed her away.
She landed hard on the ground, crying out as her crumpled wings bent and crushed even further. They’d stopped working long ago.
He stared at her.
For the briefest instant, she glimpsed the unyielding sadness clinging to his soul. And then he was gone.
The crying stopped.
When she turned, chest aching, afraid of what she would find, the children were gone. Not dead, but vanished. Because he had taken them with him.
“Make it stop,” Pandora begged, shaking her head.
More and more scenes flashed. The nightmares that had plagued her childhood were rising from the depths of her subconscious one by one. Vignettes of terror. Memories that had haunted her through life and death, through eternity. Visions of the man she loved turning into the beast she’d had no choice but to contain.
“I’m not that man anymore,” Sam implored. “You have to believe me. You have to see. I’ve changed. We can be together now, the way we were always meant to be.”
Pandora released him, snapping her hands back from his shoulders, and jumped away. She couldn’t stand to touch him, to be near him, to even look at him.
“Go away,” she whimpered, voice weak, crushed.
“Pandora—”
“Go away!” she shrieked, unable to stand her name rolling off his lips, the way his voice still wrapped around her like a soft cocoon, making her feel safe and loved even as it terrified her.
Pandora tugged on the shadows, yanking on the darkness, trying to swim her way up through the abyss and back into the world. But the more she tried to run, the deeper she sank, the more she drowned, and the thicker the mist became. Black vines wrapped around her wrists. Onyx coils looped around her legs. Ribbons of darkness, solid and unyielding, held her contained, held her captive.
Sam walked through the mist.
The shadows spread like vapor around him.
Thin. Translucent. At his mercy.
I don’t know the darkness at all, Pandora realized, struggling against the power she’d wielded for her entire life. I don’t know him at all.
Sam stopped a foot away, close enough that the heat rolled off his body, seeping beneath her skin. She flinched at that warmth, hating the way her soul pulled toward it. He raised his hand to cup her cheek. Part of her yearned for that touch. Part of her felt destroyed by it.
“Remember what I told you, Pandora,” he murmured, voice silky. “You have a choice.”
“Let me go,” she demanded, tone far stronger than she felt.
“I will,” he said, calm and cool and collected. Totally in control. Sam brushed a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear, then rested his fingers against the hollow of her throat. “But first, I want you to ask yourself something. Why didn’t you kill me? All those years ago, why didn’t you kill me? Why did you choose to lock me in a prison world? Why did you choose to curse yourself with countless lifetimes of loneliness and death? Why did you choose an eternity of suffering when you could have ended it swiftly?”
“Because I was an idiot, apparently,” Pandora snapped, unable to control herself. “But I assure you, I’ve been cured of that little problem.”
“No.” Sam smirked, eyes flashing in delight, amused by her defiance. “No, it’s not that. It’s because you loved me. Despite it all, despite everything, you wanted to save me. You couldn’t find it within yourself to kill me. Because you loved me.”
The shadows loosened their hold and fell away from her body.
They soared to Sam, enshrouding him in a curtain of darkness.
Pandora swam through the smoke, dragging herself away.
The world grew brighter, clearer.
The light of the fading sun forced its way through the mist.
The shadows fell away.
But Sam’s last words chased her through the darkness. And as she landed with her cheek against wood and her shoulder still throbbing with the stab wound, unaware of where she was, they were the only things she could see or hear.
“And as much as you want to fight it, my stubborn, beautiful, strong Pandora,” Sam whispered, tone laced with amusement, confident and sure he spoke true, “you know you love me still.”