Page 99 of Curse of Darkness
“She is so beautiful,” Death whispers. “Let me touch her. Let me make us whole.”
Vi is not finished. “Kato guards the mouth to the Underworld from the kingdoms above, so that those within it cannot escape. Somehow it became a prison of Darkness, but I have walked there. At first I knew fear, for I believed in the stories. But there was a moment—just a moment—where I stood upon that rooftop and the stars there twinkled, all for me. There was no breath in my lungs, but in that moment I knew peace. I was no longer afraid of the silence, nor the darkness. It was a gentle dark. A homecoming. A place that had seen the moment of Creation, and a place that awaits that final hurtling moment of Destruction.” Her voice softens. “I knew you were out there, waiting for me, and I just had to find you.”
“Vi.” The smile on my face feels like a grinning rictus. I can’t let them see what is happening inside me, but I need it to stop.
“It is the haven of monsters; those that do not fit the aesthetics of the seelie world. And maybe that’s why I felt such affinity with it.” She turns her face toward me. “I am the replacement my mother fears, the princess who fell in love with a beast, and the monstrous queen who will end her reign.” Her lips quirk. “Maybe one day, in the stories, that is what they will write of me. Maybe they will give me horns and eyes of Darkness. Maybe my lips will be red as sin, and I will whisper torment and ruin into the ears of my victims. My crown will be forged of bones.” This time, there’s an actual sparkle in her eyes. “What do you think? Do you think I would make a wonderful monster? Do you like my story?”
I cannot move.
Tension screams through me, a horrific twisting inside. Death fights to rise, to consume, to take over.
All I can see is the Darkness, and the silence, and the glittering stars there. They felt like watchful eyes. “Yes.” The word is a lie. My heart beating painfully hard.
I need to get out of here.
“Old Mother Hibbert had a story about the Darkness too,” Amaya speaks up, biting her lower lip. “It is the great emptiness that will devour those that are unworthy—”
Exploding to my feet, I try to escape.
Amaya screams, diving behind her mother. Vi blanches, shoving herself between us.
The sudden movement. The look on my face, no doubt. I can see their interpretation of my actions, even as the world comes at me too fast, too sharp.
“I’m not going to hurt her.” I blink and my hands are in the air, the words echoing through the room.
I can’t remember saying them.
But the look on their faces. The look—
“I need fresh air,” I say.
“Thiago.” Vi reaches for me, heat and warmth flooding through me. “Why don’t we—?”
“I told you!” Amaya screams at her, tears in her eyes. “I told you what he is. I told you I didn’t want him in here! But you wouldn’t listen!”
And then she’s gone, bolting from the room.
Grimm’s furry little mouth hangs wide open as if even he didn’t sense such a reaction coming.
“Not a word,” I warn him.
“I’m so sorry,” Vi gasps, torn between both me and Amaya. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. But she’s been asking questions about the Darkyn, about the Darkness. I thought if we talked about it…. If she wasn’t afraid of it, then maybe she wouldn’t be afraid of herself—"
“Go,” I tell her, locking down the trembling that seems to be soul deep. “Go and see to her. I’m fine.”
It is, like all the other times I’ve said it since I returned, a lie.
21
ISKVIEN
As always, Amaya is on the parapet.
Grimm shoots me a look of warning as I slowly climb the stairs, and I wrap my arms around myself as I walk toward her. He vanished the second I left her room, but at least he was keeping an eye on her.
I feel like such an idiot.
She’s been asking questions about the Darkness all day, no doubt spurred by my recent quest to bring her father back. I’d only meant to discuss it calmly with her. I hadn’t even thought of his trauma….
