Chapter Forty-Six

The impact of Luna’s landing spasmed through her legs as she skidded along the stone rampart overlooking the spiked moat of the Ibresean stronghold. She folded her wings and combed back her windswept hair, her face scrunching as her fingers met tangle after tangle. With each step, she shifted back into human form, her iridescent plumage receding layer by layer and crystallizing into her second skin.

She loved flying under the cover of night, loved how the shadows blurred together and sharpened her already augmented senses, letting things usually invisible in the daylight bloom under the ethereal glimmer of the stars.

Kane and Killian leaned against the parapet, their silhouettes cloaked by the gloom. The white-haired hireling regarded Luna appraisingly as she approached. She ignored him. It was easy to recognize the glint that had recently manifested in his eyes. The way his gaze lingered on her when he thought she couldn’t see.

As if she had time for men when she had kingdoms to conquer.

“Well?” Killian called out, shooting her a cheeky grin. “How does it feel to be an immortal shadow demon . . . Your Majesty?”

Luna inhaled the night air deep into her lungs and sighed in satisfaction. Your Majesty. Sweeter than syrup to her ears. She returned her fellow anygné’s grin. “You would know.”

It really hadn’t taken much convincing for King Jakob to abdicate his title. Luna could tell that he had been hoping to stall her until Adrianna returned—perhaps thinking, wishfully, that her aunt could have persuaded her to reconsider. But nothing and no one but the might of all nine gods and goddesses could have deterred Luna from the mission that King Eoin had assigned her.

Even then, though, while signing the document that would officially pass his sovereign to Luna, King Jakob had faltered at the last moment. “My dear, must it be this way?” he murmured to her, his tone light, forcibly amiable. “There are other options. Together, we could—”

“I have no desire to conspire against the King of Immortals with you, Father,” Luna interrupted. She leaned in close, smiling ruefully at the dismay that pinched his mouth. He looked like he had just bitten into a lime. “I must obey him, you see.” Without quite touching his hand, she coaxed his quill back to the parchment. “For I have absolutely everything to lose, and absolutely everything to gain.”

And just like that, without any fanfare at all, Luna ascended the dais in Throne Hall and crowned herself the Queen of Ibreseos.

“So,” said Kane, drawing her attention back to the present. He kept his posture relaxed as he nothing short of swaggered over to her. “I was thinking that you might like to train with me later. In my rooms. Your Highness.”

Luna struggled to keep a straight face at his boldness as she walked right past him and settled against the parapet at Killian’s side. “Kindly, I’ll pass.”

Kane flushed at the casualness of her rejection, the arrogance he had oozed mere seconds before evaporating into the night air.

Killian stifled a snicker and pointed at his face. “You know, Kane, I’ve never quite noticed it before, but you bear a startling resemblance to a tomato.”

Luna recoiled at the lethal flash of silver that sliced through the air toward Killian. On pure reflex, the anygné’s hand shot up in front of her face, two clasped fingers halting one of Kane’s knives an inch away from her left eye. A thin trickle of silver blood traced down her forearm. One flick of her wrist and the blade snapped into the air. She caught it smoothly by the hilt. The next time she spoke, the light didn’t reach her eyes. “How uncalled for.”

“As if you haven’t already healed,” Kane drawled back.

Killian cocked her arm. “Jealous?”

When she flung the knife back at him, Kane dodged it easily enough. Unfortunately, he definitely didn’t expect it to loop over his head like a hornet and nip him in the ass.

Melodious laughter rang through the night as Kane spat curses at the anygné and her magic.

Luna shook her head. “Go to bed, Kane.”

The hireling snatched the enchanted knife out of the air and stormed off.

Only after his footfalls faded did Luna speak again. “Sometimes I can’t believe Rose loved him. Of all people . . .”

Killian raised her arms above her head and stretched. Luna’s eyes darted to the slip of taut midriff revealed by the arch of her spine and blushed—first for looking, and then for being embarrassed about looking.

“I’ll be the first to admit—grudgingly,” said the anygné, “that Kane isn’t always quite as shallow as he plays himself off to be.” She released a sigh and lowered her arms. “It’s all a ploy to get you to underestimate him. He knows the worth of his magic is very little. So he’ll take whatever advantage he can get in a society that revolves around power by way of magic. Kane doesn’t care for pride or honor, and he hates magic more than anything else.” She flicked a piece of lint off her robe. “In fact, he wishes that it didn’t exist at all.”

The thought seemed inconceivable, but Luna remembered what limited power felt like, especially around wielders like Asterin and Eadric. And it made sense—she had never seen Kane use any magic, ever. Affinities could be trained, but everyone had a certain, definable capacity. Many were born with very little power, left with no other choice but to accept themselves as they were.

Magic, as it turned out, was a talent.

“Why did he attend the Academia Principalis, then?” Luna demanded. “Isn’t it the most competitive school of magic in the world?”

“Kane’s father used to be one of the professors at the Academia,” Killian explained. “Until one day he tried to break up a duel between two first years and there was a horrible accident. He died. Kane was only twelve at the time.”

Luna’s eyes widened.

“The Academia offered Kane a place in the incoming class in reparation for his father’s death, so long as he could keep up with his studies. But imagine . . .” Her mouth quirked to the side. “Being accepted to the best school in the world knowing that the only reason for it was because of the death of your father.”

Luna bit her lip. “Couldn’t he have stayed somewhere else?”

Killian shrugged. “No other living family members that I know of, so I don’t think he had anywhere else to stay. The Academia offered him everything he could possibly need—a roof over his head, more meals than he could ever eat, the best educational facilities in the world—all without asking him to pay a single copper. So obviously he accepted.”

The pieces were starting to fit together. “With hardly any magic to survive with,” said Luna. Definite, spoken-word magic like a healing incantation was a skill and could be practiced, but raw elemental power . . . indefinite magic, shaped by the wielder’s will and capabilities, was a born gift.

“He didn’t need magic,” Killian told her. “He survived by cheating. For the first few years, at least. No easy feat, by the way, from what I’ve heard.” She sighed again. “That’s always been his way of life. Stealing, taking advantage, lying. And he’s damned good at it. Good enough that people never really find out how good.”

Except for Rose, Luna thought.

Killian hunched over to prop her elbows on her knees. “But I imagine that the upper school exams eventually grew too difficult for him to rely on his . . . unorthodox means. Despite the fact that he probably excelled in non-magic areas. Like, say, knife wielding. As you may or may not have noticed, his aim is practically inhuman.” She gestured vaguely toward her left eye, a reminder of their earlier skirmish. “Except it was just never enough.”

Luna leaned back over the edge of the battlements and mulled over the new information. She had to brace her palms against the merlons to keep herself from toppling over. Even if she did fall, would it matter? Her broken bones would heal themselves in seconds. It suddenly occurred to her to try.

To simply let go.

Would she survive the fall in one piece? The thought kicked her heartbeat to a gallop. She closed her eyes, her fingers sliding along the stone. She let her body tip farther into the emptiness . . .

An iron vice gripped her wrist. Luna cracked one lid open to find Killian staring at her with a strange look in her eyes, almost fever bright.

“Hey,” the anygné murmured. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Luna glanced down at those slim bronze fingers enclosing her wrist, as stark against her skin as the first crocus of spring breaking through the snowfall. It was beautiful. “Immortality is funny, isn’t it?”

Killian kept her amber gaze trained on her. “The novelty wears off rather quickly, love.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. She felt intoxicated. On adrenaline. On euphoria. She had never noticed how, from a certain angle, the anygné’s eyes glimmered with flecks of copper. How had she missed that?

It took Killian a moment to respond. “Most of the time, I avoid companionship. It gets rather lonely.” She turned her gaze toward the horizon beyond the city of Ibresis. “Too often I forget that mortals have an expiration date.” She still hadn’t released her hold on Luna’s wrist. “And a short one at that. Tortoises live longer, for hell’s sake.”

“Companions come and go, even for mortals,” Luna reminded her. “Or has it been so long since you were a mortal that you’ve forgotten entirely?”

At that, Killian huffed out a breath. “I’ll never forget my time as a mortal.”

The nostalgia in her voice piqued Luna’s curiosity. “How . . .” She wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “How were you . . . claimed? By Eoin?”

“Hmm?” One eyebrow quirked. “Ah. I guess he just came to the Mortal Realm and then we left. Nothing interesting.”

Luna scoffed. “I doubt that.” She waited for Killian to elaborate. When the anygné remained silent, she nudged her. “What was it like? When you arrived in the Immortal Realm?”

Killian adjusted her sitting position, a crooked half smirk flitting across her lips. “It’s a long story.” Her eyes did not quite meet Luna’s. There was such sorrow behind them, a faded melancholy blurred by the veil of time.

I avoid companionship.

A gentle brush of Luna’s fingers along Killian’s hand caught the anygné’s attention. “I’m here forever now too, Eirene. So you can tell me every story you want, no matter how long. And once you’ve run out of stories to tell, we can go and make up an infinite more together.”

Killian blinked at her, mouth agape. Then she ducked her head to hide her expression and mumbled, “You’re really something else, you know that?”

Luna only gave her a sly smile. “Are you planning on letting go of me anytime soon?”

The grip on her wrist tightened slightly. “No, I think not.” Mischief shone dark and wet in the anygné’s eyes. “You’re not falling. Yet.” Before Luna could respond, Killian exhaled. “Fine, I’ll tell you about my mortal life, but you tell me something about yours first.”

“Like what?”

Killian stretched her legs out—the picture of nonchalance. “What was your deal with Covington?”

Luna’s stomach churned a little at the thought of Eadric. Soon after she had stopped replying, his letters had ceased. And while she knew that she could likely restrike their correspondence, she’d kept putting it off until she forgot about it entirely. “We haven’t spoken. Not since I left Axaris.”

“Do you still love him?” Killian asked bluntly.

It surprised her that she didn’t know the answer right away. “More than anyone before him,” she finally admitted. “Except for Asterin.” She blushed when Killian’s head snapped up, realizing what it sounded like. “Ah, I meant—”

Killian dropped her eyes back to the ground. “No, no. I understand.”

Does she? Luna wondered to herself. “Anyway, I must have loved him at some point. He courted me for years. But I guess I was . . . growing up. Even before I discovered my true identity. And after I became more independent, he couldn’t reconcile with that. Especially after I became . . . this.” She gestured at her face, the face that Priscilla had robbed from her—along with her magic—and that the enchanted lake in Aswiyre Forest had restored.

Eadric had fallen in love with a lovely, naive girl who had undergone a metamorphosis and emerged changed, with a new identity and even a new name.

“He couldn’t stand it when I refused to stand aside and let him do the dirty work,” Luna went on. “Or when I wanted to fight, even for myself. I resented that, and I still do. I can’t make myself be with someone who won’t let me grow. Is that . . .” She swallowed the tightness in her throat. “Is that all right?”

“Of course it is.” Killian’s quiet voice soothed the ache in her chest. “Thank the Immortals he can’t see you now. His head would literally explode.”

Luna snorted at that and prodded the anygné. “Well? Your turn. Tell me your story.”

“I was wondering, actually,” said Killian, “if you might like to see for yourself.”

It took her a moment to comprehend. “You mean, with my shadow affinity?”

Killian shrugged. “I’ve found that shadow tends to enhance your most potent affinity in some way or another. Give it a try.”

Luna scooted a little closer to the anygné and reached up to probe her temples, the skin warm beneath her fingertips. She watched, entranced, as Killian’s eyelids fluttered shut, the dark fan of her lashes glimmering like liquid night. Their faces tipped closer, until Luna could have counted every single one of those lashes.

In her mind, Luna imagined herself standing on the edge of a cliff, like the one in the glade behind Eoin’s palace. She took a deep breath, and then she dove straight into the abyss of Killian’s memories.

The muffled shrieking of children’s laughter filled her ears. Luna broke past the memory’s surface and the world sharpened to startling clarity. Indistinguishable blotches of color disentangled themselves to form rolling hills of flaxen gold and spindly trees with wide, sparse boughs flush with fruit. The oppressive Voltero heat edged every half-hearted breeze, more like a bison’s muggy exhale than a cool respite.

“I’m Ruler of the Rock!” Luna bellowed from atop a crop of boulders, her hands cocked on her hips and her chin tilted high. Her three older brothers and the stable master’s son clambered onto the boulders, trying to reach her, but she was too fast, too sure-footed, pushing them off and sending them tumbling to their pretend deaths on the soft, hay-covered ground below. No one could ever beat her, and she soon grew bored. So she eventually relinquished her throne in favor of an ice-cold glass of black currant juice, kicking dust into the air as she ran for the family estate.

As she gulped down the sweet juice, the sky darkened like the cascade of night, only quickened tenfold. She set down her glass and rushed to the nearest window to see a black sun high and center in the sky. Just then, a knock echoed from the front entrance of the estate. People—servants, relatives, advisors, dwellers of their village—were constantly coming and going from the house, so the knock shouldn’t have felt so out of the ordinary. Yet suddenly the air took on a chill, and the hunting hounds in the kennel downstairs began to howl.

Something drew her to the door, some inexplicable force reeling her in like a fish caught on a lure. In the foyer, she found her father, the mayor of Zemja, on his knees with his head bowed in submission and his hands clasped above him in prayer. Or pleading.

Before him stood a tall man in a star-speckled suit cut from a swathe of twilight. Luna’s usual bluster shriveled when his eyes flitted to her. They were so dark. So ancient, so bottomless, pits of ink-drop black. He was so out of place among the bright yellow rugs and vibrant floor-to-ceiling tapestries woven only from the richest of threads, like a blight poisoning a blossom.

The strange man bent down to look her in the eye. In a soft voice that made her every hair raise, he said, “Hello, Lady Eirene. My name is Eoin. I’m here to take you to your new home.”

“No,” Luna blurted out. “Go away.”

“Please,” her father begged. “Please, have mercy. Return in a few years. She is too young.”

Eoin shook his head. “Unfortunately, the next eclipse will not come to pass for over a hundred years.” He held out a hand to Luna. “Come, little one.”

She planted her feet. “I don’t want to.”

His head tilted. “Do you remember when that puma mauled your mother?”

How could she ever forget the infection that had spread across her mother’s bloated flesh, the purplish veins snaking along her pregnant belly? “Yes.”

“Do you remember when her heart stopped beating?”

“Yes.”

“Yet she lives. She is upstairs, braiding summer zinnias into your baby sister’s hair.” Eoin pointed at her father. “He traded your life for hers.”

“Liar.” Luna spun to stare at her father, static filling her ears. “Right, Father?”

When her father’s shoulders collapsed, the static went silent. “I’m sorry, Eirene. You must go with him. For your mother, for your sister, and for our family’s honor . . . go with him.”

An invisible force tugged her hand upward to clutch Eoin’s. The tapestries and her father’s face festered to darkness and the ground vanished beneath her feet.

Six-year-old mortal children did not belong in the Immortal Realm. She spent the first week crying inconsolably, and when Eoin finally managed to stuff a contract under her nose, she tore it into pieces while screaming her head off without reading a single word.

“How about this,” Eoin growled. “If you accept your contract, I’ll let you visit the Mortal Realm for one hour.”

Luna stopped crying. “Two hours?”

Eoin frowned. “One hour and a half.”

She shook her head, adamant. “Two hours.”

The god threw his hands into the air. “You win, child.”

The outcome pleased her. Just like that, she thoughtlessly signed her life away in her chicken-scratch penmanship, a little zinnia doodled beside her name.

It was a struggle to control her new powers. Soraya, the oldest of the anygnés, supervised as much of her training as she could, but sometimes she disappeared from the Immortal Realm for months or even years at a time. Still too inexperienced and unreliable to take on an assignment, Luna ended up stuck in the Immortal Realm—yet even as miserable as she was, and even with her heart constantly yearning for home, nothing compared to the first time Eoin punished her by making her force-shift.

Eoin’s dark eyes filled her mind, accompanied by a single whispered word.

Zäär.

Luna screamed. She screamed and screamed and screamed. The pain tore her right out of Killian’s memories. It burned through her every vein, crushed her bones in one blow, ripped her flesh to shreds. She recoiled, gasping for breath, her heart hammering and her nerves sobbing. Bile rose in her throat as she wrenched herself away from Killian and stumbled away.

“Did I hurt you?” Killian exclaimed, the panic clear in her voice.

Instead of responding, Luna simply leaned over the parapet and vomited into the moat below.

“Immortals.” Killian scrambled over to her and held her hair back.

“I—I thought him kind,” Luna whispered between heaves. “He . . . he was kind to me.”

“The King of Immortals has no room for kindness in his heart,” murmured Killian, rubbing circles between her shoulder blades, “because he does not have one.”

Luna shook her head. “That’s not true.” When the anygné pursed her lips, she changed the subject. “How badly did you disobey him to deserve such punishment?”

Killian gave her a grim smile. “I didn’t disobey him, exactly. Remember how you mentioned growing? He wanted me to grow, too. To emerge from my chrysalis as his weapon . . . but unlike you, I just wasn’t ready.”

Overhead, a fog passed over the moon. Instead of shrouding it, the moon bled through completely, luminescent white beams staining every last wisp.

Luna straightened and stepped onto a merlon, spreading her arms to embrace the night. The spikes in the moat jeered at her from below. A whirlwind of thoughts assailed her, but she wished to dwell on none. She did, however, have one declaration.

“You’re wrong,” she told Killian as she began shifting back into her demon form, feathers flourishing down her shoulders and breast and spine in a shudder of dark opalescence. “I’m not his weapon. The only weapon I’ve become is my own.”

And then she stepped off the edge and plunged into the void.