Page 22 of Curse of Darkness
“The only thing that thwarted him was the fact that some of those Darkyn had bred children. And within each of those children were fragments of the creature within them. Its soul bled down. Wisps of its power scattered like grains of barley on the winds. After centuries, there were hundreds of them. And so, he set about hunting each and every single one of them until only five others remain.”
The breath explodes out of me. “Thiago. And Amaya.”
“Correct. Kato and two others,” she murmurs, “according to my brother’s ravens.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know. Not on this continent, Corvin assures me.” Lucere takes a deep breath, even as her words leave me reeling. She snaps the book closed and then places it on the table in front of me. “Your daughter will contain a seed of this power within her. And she will be hunted for it. I don’t know if those other Darkyn know of her yet, but I do know that Malakhai does, and he’s the only one that matters. He was under Queen Angharad’s control for several centuries, though he disappeared from her court at some stage during the last two hundred years. Nobody knows where he is. None of my brother’s ravens have seen him. But at last count, he’d claimed nearly two hundred Darkyn souls. One wonders if he’s controlling Death, or if Death is controlling him? My grandmother considered him a threat that needed to be subdued at some stage, but very few have the power to confront him, and so far, he’s remained content to stay in the north.” She pauses. “She considered your husband to be the only weapon we had against him, should Malakhai complete his transformation into Death.”
“But now that Thiago is gone… surely Malakhai can’t complete the transformation?”
I would wait for you in the Darkness….
He’s gone. Lost to this world. Safe from his father.
Isn’t he?
Kato would never let Malakhai past the gates to the Underworld.
“Malakhai is but four pieces of the puzzle away from becoming Deathless. Can even Kato stop him if he consumes your daughter and the other two?” Lucere’s lips thin as if she’s keeping one last secret. “I don’t know how your husband died. Was he killed by another Darkyn?”
“No.” I see him falling again, with Angharad’s knife driven through his chest. That wretched lump is in my throat again. “She killed him. Angharad killed him with the knife she was using for her ritual.”
Grim lines form around Lucere’s mouth, and she twists one of the rings on her finger. “I cannot give you hope. Know that. But… it is said that the Darkyn cannot trulydie. Your husband’s soul will have returned to the primordial Darkness. He cannot cross the threshold of the Underworld, not with Kato guarding it. But I do know that his soul will remain there. Forever. He will not pass on to the Bright Lands.”
A slow breath escapes me. “What are you trying to say?”
“There’s a chance he’s not entirely lost to you forever, Your Highness. But know this: He may not be the same as he once was. The male you knew is gone. But the Darkness within him? The darker half of his soul? It’s still there. Beyond the Gates of the Underworld.”
6
“Do I need to kill her?” Thalia asks as I stare at nothing, long after Lucere has gone.
I blink. I hadn’t even realized she was in the room.
“No.” I draw the book toward me, not daring to close it. The pictures haunt me. Shadows. Ancient warriors fighting an all-consuming darkness. And there, an elegant sketch of a creature with enormous black wings, turned away from the viewer. It could almost be Thiago. “Lucere wasn’t here to hurt us.”
Thalia arches a brow.
Hope. It’s a supernova burning within me, and I think I hate Lucere a little bit for doing this to me. I saw him die. My hand closed around his ashes before magic swept them away. But if he cannot truly die, then maybe I could see him? Maybe I could talk to him? Say goodbye.Something. The need is so strong it makes me want to choke.
I would wait for you in the Darkness.
I breathe out slowly, exhaling all the emotions slicing through me. “What if there was a chance we could see Thiago again?”
Thalia rears back. “What?”
The words spill from my lips, everything Lucere just told me.
But the look on her face—it’s not what I want to see.
“I know what you have lost. I miss him too.” Our eyes meet. “This darkness inside him…. Vi, there was a reason he kept it carefully leashed. If it survived him…. It won’t be him, Vi. It won’t be the prince you loved. It will be everything he hated and feared about himself.”
And yet he barely even mentioned it tome.
I don’t want to be angry at him, but I can’t help feeling as though so much of our love was built upon a platform of lies.
He wanted to be my lover, my husband, my prince, but he never gave me the chance to love him for every part of him. All I ever got to see was the surface.
