Page 76 of In the Ravenous Dark
“Rovan? What’s wrong?”
He’s so beautiful that for a moment I want to cry. But those tears belong to another person. “Ivrilos,” I say. “Did you know that my mother’s dead?”
His expression—pure devastation—is answer enough. And yet he doesn’t look even close to how bad I feel. “I knew as soon as your father did. That’s what King Tyros whispered to him at your betrothal ball. Rovan, I’m so sorry. Silvean didn’t want—”
“It’s fine,” I interrupt, even though it’s not. “It’s fine.”
And then I take all of that shadow inside me, thatpieceof Ivrilos, and drag it to the surface. I feel him in my very skin.
But I don’t use that to block him out. Not yet. First, I want to bring him closer. And now I can do that.
IseizeIvrilos by the back of the neck. I actually touch him, pull him into me, using his own substance to do it. What he gave me of himself. We crash into each other, nearly losing our balance. He’s taken completely by surprise. I fight against myownsurprise at how wonderful he feels under my fingertips, curls of his dark hair tangled in my hand. My other palm rests on his chest, above where his heart would beat. I want to keep touching him.
His eyes are wide, his body tense, but he can’t do anything before my lips are on his. I kiss him hard. Deep. He responds, andthe feel of his tongue moving against mine sends a distant thrill through my body, like lightning far across the night sky. His hands rove over my flesh as if he’s never felt anything like it before. He probably hasn’t touched someone like this in a very, very long time. And then I feel an answering call inside him, and it’s more than just his kiss, his hands. It’s his very essence. What makes himhim.He’s right: We’re connected in ways we shouldn’t be, in ways he can’t control. He can’t help but open himself up to me—exposing that deep well of shadowy darkness inside him.
And then Itake.
I take so much. Much more than a breath. His hands tighten on my shoulders, and he sucks in a ragged gasp as if trying to get it back.
“Rovan,” he grates against my lips. “What—how—?”
Howcould I do this to him, after everything he’s done to help me? But he hasn’t only helped me. He’s also hurt me. And this is what he gets. I need something he has, so I’m using him to get it. I’m finally just as selfish as everyone has accused me of being.
And I can live with that, if only because I might not be alive much longer. Ifthisdoesn’t kill me, then what I’m about to do probably will.
“I truly am sorry,” I breathe. I don’t mean for the words to be double edged, but I realize it’s an echo of what he said to me when he bound me to him.
Ivrilos’s knees buckle. It’s as if he’s been gutted. He tries to use me for support, but his grip fails and I let him go. He crumples to the ground.
“Don’t be too mad at me,” I say, my voice numb. “I’m actually helping you. Maybe.”
I leave him there, staring, convulsing on the floor of the necropolis. I keep moving. I don’t look back.
Move, move, move.
I feel so cold, sofull, brimming with his icy essence. Powerful. I still can’t help stumbling. Memories blind me. I see the ax falling. I see his mother and sister screaming. I see terrible Athanatos in front of that horrible, dark city. And then… I see my father smiling, tears in his eyes, as the strange earth in that upside-down place drifts up and away around him.
So Ivrilosdidsee my father in the underworld. He lied to me, like everyone else… But no, I can’t look closer at that memory, or else I’ll lose my focus.
My father is gone. My mother is gone. I can’t do anything to get them back.
But I can sure as hell make someone pay for it.
I move quicker, as if trying to outrun the sight of my father. I lurch through the main chamber of the temple and into the underground passage leading back to the palace. The movements of my body are all wrong. I’m trying to walk like Rovan, the nineteen-year-old girl,andlike Ivrilos, the twenty-three-year-old swordsman who’s had an additional four hundred years of experience as a shade. It doesn’t help that my skin is numb from the cold, my limbs deadened. I nearly fall over at several points. When I catch myself against a wall, I’m forced to look at my hand, splayed out on the marble in the torchlight.
My fingernails are blue like Bethea’s, but worse. The skin around them is black. Not just like I’m freezing, but like I’m diseased. Rotting.Dying.
Stealing from Ivrilos may not have been the best idea.
I have to shove down a spike of horror. Drawing too deeply on death magicisbad for a bloodmage, I think with grim humor.That, at least, wasn’t a lie.
As long as I don’t die too soon. I just need my legs to work in the meantime. And the worst of my imbalance is coming from the link between Ivrilos and me that I can now feel, like a chain madeof shadow. He’s still trying to control the pneuma I’ve taken from him. He still thinks it’s his.
But it’smine.
NowI use my father’s parting gift to erect a barrier around me, keeping what I have of Ivrilos inside and cutting off the rest. I only have to sketch the sigils in the air. My bloodline does the rest, calling forth the sigils now that I know where to look for them. I draw them out along with a tiny pinch of what I’ve stolen from my guardian.
Something settles over me, as light as silk. It warms my limbs and muffles Ivrilos’s influence through our bond, nearly silencing his presence. I still know how to use a sword—oh, how I know—and I still remember things I don’t want to remember, but Ivrilos’s movements and memories are no longer trying to bring me to my knees. And now he won’t be able to stop me.
