Page 90 of In the Ravenous Dark
“I’m afraid I consumed Kineas,” he adds after a long pause. “I hope you don’t mind.”
That’s enough to jar me out of my frozen reverie. I can’t help my bark of laughter. It’ssick, but Kineas’s demise is the least of my concerns.
“I can’t believe I’m dead,” I say. Maybe if I say it enough I’ll get used to it.
What willLydeathink? Maybe that’s the one bright side to losing her trust. If I already disgust her, being dead won’t make much of a difference.
“You still have flesh and a life force,” Ivrilos says hopefully. “You’re just…”
“Living dead. Right.” It brings back all the stories of ghouls and other creatures of the night I heard as a child. “That makes me want to vomit.”
“Don’t do that,” Ivrilos says, leaning forward to kiss my temple. Into my hair, he adds, “You need todrink.”
I jerk my head upright to stare at him, his face only inches from mine. “Youwantme to?”
He holds my gaze levelly, a flat lake of an expression. “If you do,” he says calmly, his dark eyes beginning to trace my face, “I believe you’ll become one of the most powerful forces in Thanopolis, Skyllea, or the entire blight-ridden land. I believe the king—kings—have tried very hard to keep someone like you from coming into existence. Someone likethemselves.”
“I’m… he’s… you mean…” It all comes flooding back. How the king swatted aside my sigils like they were flies. How my shield against death magic briefly lifted his long-held disguise. How he pulled a dagger out of his heart without bleeding or flinching, and then stabbed it into my own.
How he’s Ivrilos’sbrother, Kadreus, still alive after four hundred years. Well, not exactly alive. But he’shere. Affecting the world of the living as if he were alive—tooalive. Far too powerful. Imbalanced.
And now I’m the same.
“The king, my brother, is a revenant,” Ivrilos says, “by some combination of the magic in his blood and his bond with my father’s shade. My father, king in the underworld, is his guardian. He has been, this entire time. They must have discovered what could happen from mixing blood and death magic ages ago, and so they forbade it. The insanity, the rot, when a living bloodmage is exposed to too much death magic is bad enough. But for them, the worst possibility must have been the creation of other revenants—someone to rival their power.”
“That’s why only royal women receive bloodlines and can never inherit the throne,” I murmur, my mind starting to piece it together. “Notonlybecause the… kings… hate women. It’s so a male heir could never risk becoming a revenent—first as a bloodmage with a guardian—and then challenge their rule. It’s so your brother could steal their faces and onlypretendto give up the throne, generation after generation.”
“Even so.”
I pull back enough to glance up at him. “Why pretend, though? Why doesn’t Kadreus just show his true face to the people? With your father, he has all the power… in this worldandthe next.”
Ivrilos shrugs one shoulder, his fingers tracing my collarbone again. “Do you think people would follow him? Bloodmages are frightening enough. Binding them to shades allows the polis to accept blood magic in their midst. A revenant is far more frightening. If people found out, it could cause mass panic. Revolt.”
I look away, toward the ceiling. Like the walls, it too is covered in roses: a mask for cold stone, the smell of rot. “And now I’m just as monstrous as they are.”
“Two of the same force can balance each other, if they’re on opposing sides.Youcan restore balance.” We’re lying so close together on the bed, I can’t help but notice the gleam of excitement in his eyes.
It stirs an answering response in my belly. One tinged with hunger, yes, but also eagerness. I want tohunt. I try to ignore it.
“You’re not upset with me?” I murmur. “I ruined your plans.”
He sighs, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingertips brush over my cheek. “It’s honestly a relief. I’m not alone for the first time in centuries. Someone knows my secrets. I have a partner in treason, even if she upended all my carefully laid plans.” He pauses. “That is, if she’ll have me. I’d rather start over with the planning, if it’s with you. Do you want to bring down a kingdom with me, Rovan?”
It’s his goal. It’s my goal. It’s revenge, and yet it’s a solution to right so many wrongs.
It’s also quite possibly the sexiest thing anyone has ever suggested to me. I’d be breathless even if I weren’t dead. I nod into his hand.
“I hope this is okay,” he whispers, fingers running down my jaw. “Touching you, I mean. Tell me if it’s not.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper back. It’s more than okay. My eyes grow heavy lidded as his fingers skim over my lips.
His long, dark lashes shadow his gaze as he studies my mouth.“It’s just that I haven’t touched anyone except to hurt or to hunt in a very long time. This is—” He pauses. Has to swallow. “To touch someone just because, or even better, out of desire… Rovan, I…” Now it’s his turn to be lost for words.
“Keep going.”
His fingers find my chin, turning my head gently as he continues his careful inspection. His voice is low. “I didn’t think I would see you again, and I wasn’t sure how I could bear it. I couldn’t, actually. I was going to throw myself at my father, just like you threw yourself at my brother. So I can’t be upset with you.”
I don’t interrupt, mostly because I want him to keep touching me.
