Page 186 of Promise of Darkness
This time, I don’t dare look back.
* * *
The costof channeling the Mother of Night’s power is heavy.
I can barely see by the time Thiago returns to Valerian, carrying me through the portal in his arms. He’d found us by the Hallow, and I vaguely recall fainting forward into his arms.
“Why Valerian?” I whisper.
He hesitates as he sets me down. “Because I don’t know if I can entirely trust everyone in Ceres. And it’s the first place your mother will attack.”
I shudder, staggering sideways.
“You broke the curse,” he says, his eyes locking on me intently. “But you didn’t remember me until it was too late.”
I look away. Now comes the time of reckoning.
“End yourself,” he whispers. “Kill the queen. Or find something with more power to break the spell. I should have paid closer attention to you in those last few days. What did you do?Why?”
“I made a pact with the Mother of Night,” I whisper. “She would give me the power to break the curse—”
“And in return?” he demands harshly, because we both know that making deals with the Old Ones is more dangerous than jumping off a cliff without a pair of wings.
“In return, I have a year to find the Crown of Shadows and present it to her. Or….” I can’t say it.
“Or?”
“Or I must bequeath her our firstborn child.”
For a second, he looks as though I’ve punched him in the face. Fury lights his eyes. “Youwhat?”
“I had no choice.” The very thought makes me feel ill. Could I have made a better bargain? I’ve tossed and turned over the thought every night since I made it, but the truth is, I would cut off my own arm before I ever gave a child to the Mother of Night. I will find the Crown of Shadows.
Making this deal was the only way I could buy myself some time.
“I offered my soul, but she wouldn’t take it.”
“Curse you, Vi! Why?”
“Because I couldn’t bear to watch you die, and I was afraid your faith in me was misplaced. I needed an answer. I needed a guarantee. And I didn’t set her free. I wouldn’t promise her that,” I tell him. “We have a year. And as long as I don’t fall with child in the meantime, then we’re safe. She cannot take what does not exist.”
“The Mother of Night wouldn’t make a bargain unless she thought she had something to gain from it,” he snarls. “If she made a deal that involves a child of ours, then she considers it to be more than a possibility. You could be with child now.”
“I’m not,” I assure him. “I’m not a fool. I would never have accepted if there was any doubt.”
He rakes his hands through his hair. “You don’t understand. What were you thinking?” he yells. “Orwereyou thinking?”
Days of worrying about how I’m going to save him, and this is his response? I tip my chin up in anger. “I was thinking that my mother was going to execute you right in front of me and I wouldn’t have even shed a cursed tear until it was too late.”
“You would have remembered—”
“I’m glad one of us is certain of that,” I shoot, “because I wasn’t. And even if I did, I didn’t have the power to challenge my mother.”
“All you had to do was free me—”
“And start a war?” I point out, though the irony of my mother’s betrayal does occur to me. “Because I’m fairly certain if I’d remembered you, we would have had to fight our way out of there. Oryouwould have had to fight our way out of there, and I didn’t even know what condition you’d be in. What if you were beaten? Unconscious? Your magic chained? What then? I am tired of hiding behind you. I am tired of not being able to face her. My mother doesn’tlose, Thiago. She will fight until the last breath leaves her body. And she would have rather seen me dead than happy in your arms. I had to make her fear me. I had to have the power to confront her, and I didn’t have any other options to get it from.”
“She’s the Mother of All Darkness, curse you!”
