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I scoff, and pain twists in my stomach. “Clearly. Is that how I ended up here? You needed a mortal to sacrifice, so you sent an unnatural beast to chase one to the right side of the veil?”
“No.” He takes a step forward, pausing when I shift away from him. “Of course not. Elora, I—”
“Don’t lie to me,” I tell him, hoping he doesn’t hear the catch in my voice. Swallowing around the tightness in my throat, I meet his pleading gaze with my defiant one. “The least you can do is tell me why. I deserve that much.”
“No, Elora,” he says, and my heart sinks.
He’s more of a monster than I thought he was. How did I not see it before? I should have known not to expect any kindness or compassion or mercy from the God of Death.
Thieran takes a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. “You deserve so much more.”
His words catch me off guard, but I clench my hands into fists, digging my fingernails into my palms. I will not allow Thieran to charm me to my death.
I want to toss insults at him. To hurt him the way he has hurt me. But of all the things I should say to him, my mind snags on only one thought. And it crosses my lips before I can stop it.
“If you wanted to kill me, you didn’t have to make me fall in love with you first.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Her words knife into me, spreading warmth and pain in equal measure. She doesn’t realize what she’s said, the gravity of it. But I do. And it strengthens my resolve to fix this, to save her. To keep her by my side.
“I have never wanted to kill you.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, and every emotion drains from her face. She’s cutting herself off from me, and I hate it more than I hate her anger and the sadness that lies just beneath it.
“I deserve the truth, Thieran. All of it.”
I hardly know where to begin, and I don’t understand half of it myself. I don’t know what is happening to my realm or why she is seemingly the only one who might be able to fix it. But she’s right. She deserves to know whatever bits of information I can give her. I owe her that much.
Lifting my arms, I gesture all around us at the diseased trees and earth gone to dust.
“The Shadow Realm is dying.”
Nearly the whole of the border looks like this, the veil thin and throbbing. When I bleed myself, it’s fine for mere hours before it fades to this again. As much as I hate to admit it, Railan’s right. The realm likely doesn’t have much time left. And still that is not enough motivation to use Elora as the solution to my problem.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ve been more concerned with stopping it than finding out why it’s happening.”
“And stopping it means killing me.”
“No.” I take a deep breath when her eyes narrow. I’ve committed to telling her the truth. I might as well give her all of it. “It needs your blood.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“Then how do you know this will even work?” She thumps her fist against her chest. “You’re just going to plunge a knife into my heart and hope for the best?”
The visual makes me uneasy. The thought of spilling her blood sparks rage deep in my bones.
“I would rather watch the Shadow Realm splinter into a thousand pieces than spill a single drop of your blood to hold it together.”
Her eyes widen, her mouth dropping open at my words. But they aren’t a lie. It’s the truest thing I could say to her.
“Then why, Thieran?”
Her voice is soft, measured, but I hear the pain in it, and I want nothing more than to erase that for her. I want nothing more than to shift time back to yesterday so she never had to know about any of this. So I could fix it before she found out.
