Page 57

‘Oh, Valentin.’ She steps closer, and the river recoils from her ankles. ‘You always were easiest to steer when you believed yourself immovable.’

The air changes around her and the towers lean nearer. From the river, hands rise, pale and black and bone-thin, fingers opening in worship or hunger.

‘She is mine to protect,’ I say.

‘She is yours to consume. Then discard, as is the right of creatures of our ilk.’

‘No.’ The word cracks across Netheris. Something screams in the far citadels.

Morrighan’s eyes brighten. ‘There. That sound. Defiance pretending it is honour. How I missed it.’ She lifts one hand, and pain spears down my spine. ‘You drank and rose. You drank again and fell. Do you understand the shape of it yet, beloved mistake? Her blood is a door. Your need is the hand on the latch.’

The glee in her voice tells me that door leads nowhere good. Still, uncontrollable rage at Eira’s name on my Creator’s lips pummels me. ‘You will not touch her.’

‘I do not need to touch her. You are doing that for me.’

The words slash at me from every direction, leaching terror from my very bones.

For a moment, I am back above with Eira, her body around mine, her beautiful throat beneath my mouth. She’s whispering against my ear as her blood fills me with a power so violent it feels like salvation.

Then I fall again. Harder into dark. Into this.

Morrighan circles me slowly, and with each step the blood-glass shows reflections beneath her feet.

Eira in my bed. In the Vault. Her magnificent hunter’s eyes bright with pleasure and terror. Then… her mouth forming a truth she refuses to speak.

The shape of it flickers soundlessly inside the glass and I feel my entire body lock in bewilderment as I strain to see it. To feel it.

Cruel delight softens Morrighan’s face into something almost maternal. ‘Ah. There’s the secret with its little pulse.’

I lunge towards her.

Netheris trembles.

‘I have killed for less than that expression,’ I breathe, more than a little aghast at the savagery tearing through me.

‘No. You have killed for everything, my darling. Pride. Territory. Love, though you never called it that because men like you prefer prettier names for weakness.’

‘You know nothing of love,’ I snarl. And do you? I ignore the mocking voice in my head I hope my Creator can’t hear as she continues.

‘I invented hunger and watched you mistake it for devotion.’

The hands in the river slap against the shore now, the black water rising by inches. My feet sink into the blood-glass as if the plain is softening beneath me.

Morrighan lifts her face towards the dead sky. ‘She will bring me closer to what you fear most, king.’

Escape? Freedom? ‘No, she will not.’

She laughs and glass shatters all around. ‘She already has. You’ve felt it. Tell me, have you looked into your precious Heartshard Glass lately?’

Pain erupts through the mark. I stagger once, and her smile turns radiant.

‘These little descents are gifts, Valentin. Mine to you. Yours to me. Each time you fall, you arrive more quickly. Each time you arrive, the path grows clearer. Soon you will stop climbing back.’

The red wounds in the sky open wider. Voices pour through them, and I hear my Twelve, distant and frantic.

Then Eira, sharp with fear.

Valentin.