The Blood of Darkness

Chapter 54

Kye

Val isn't going to die.

Almost in a sort of trance, I leave the roof, make my way down the narrow staircase, walk calmly through the empty, winding halls of the castle, and enter my room. My mind is empty and my heart is fractured, yet only dripping blood. Resolve holds me together—keeps the torrential wave of agony bubbling up inside me at bay, keeps the fracture from spreading like cracks in a delicate glass vase, keeps the drops of blood from becoming a monsoon.

But as soon as I pull the door closed behind me, I crumble. I turn and press my back against the wood, let my head fall back against it hard enough that I see stars for a vivid moment. I slide down to the floor, my body shaking with staggering, silent sobs. My eyes sting, but there are no tears. My head falls into my trembling hands and the world around me blurs and my mind roars as a thousand dreams within me softly burn. I take heaving, heavy breaths, let each sob wrack my body until I'm gasping for air.

Just for a moment though.

Then I make myself get up. Because I don't deserve to react like this. I head straight over to the bookshelf in the corner, the texts still scattered across the floor from when I threw them.

I pick one of the books up. Open it.

You will lose her, each page says. I snap the book shut, toss it back down to the ground and step on it. Something inside me is pulled taunt.

Val isn't going to die. I'm not going to lose her.

My traitorously-dry eyes are like kindling, for in moments, fire surges up before me, engulfing all the books splayed on the floor in front of me. I control the blaze—the burning, the heat, the size and height of the flames. Everything. I can control this, I tell myself. This is mine. I'm not spiraling. I'm in control.

Val isn't going to die.

There are still more books on the bookshelf, ones that I haven't touched. I don't bother opening them to see what, if anything, they say. I just carefully run my fingers over the spines and summon more flames.

Controlled chaos, ataractic destruction.

I burn all of the books, pulling open the balcony doors to let the smoke out of the room. There's not much of it, but I can barely stand it. Smoke brings back to me those moments when the Pyrrhos was burning down and I was dying in the attic and Val had come back for me. The moment when I flung open the door and saw her, desperate and determined, mere minutes away from being burned alive. There was blood on her face, both crimson and black. Her eyes were burning with fierceness, like cold flames.

She ran into the fire for me, I remember thinking. With no intention to die.

Because she knew—she trusted that I would be able to get us both out of there, through the inferno.

So I did. How could I not have? I'd do anything for her.

Anything.

I grasp the railing of the balcony with both hands. It's dawn, and the sky is breathtakingly beautiful, and I hate it.

Val isn't going to die.

Tell me what to do, I think, pleading to Ignus. Tell me what to do to save her. Anything—I'll do anything, just say it. Please.

There's a long stretch of silence, and rage boils inside me, because if this wretched fucking god doesn't answer me—

"Do you threaten me, Kye Merran?" Ignus's voice is smooth and cruel.