Page 69 of Artemysia
Slashing, hacking, stabbing.
The corpse becomes a pile of bloodied mush. Her skull is crushed, and an eyeball hangs loose.
His violence sickens me.
“I fucking hate you,” he hollers as he kicks the detached head with his boot.
My eyes fly open at my dawning realization, my heart wrenching as if torn out.
His anger comes from a place of self-loathing.
I fucking hate you.
He hates the possibility that he’s Syf.
“I fucking hate you,” he repeats, his face pink with a mix of blood and sweat, his eyes watering.
It devastates me that he’s speaking to himself. It’s never been more clear.
He sees himself in the Syf, and he hates it.
Suddenly, I don’t see him as a king’s assassin, but as a broken soul killing to survive, searching for where he belongs. Like a lone wolf traversing an icy lake, trying not to fall into the rapidly melting cracks.
Profoundly lost and alone.
I scramble to my feet and grasp his arm to pull him away from the mangled corpse.
He wrestles away and throws me off, but I seize him again and twist his arm behind him, hard enough to spin him against the nearest tree trunk. I use his momentum to press his back into the bark.
We knock over a bloom of turquoise fungi, and its blue spores release around us, smelling like powdery vanilla and decaying violets. Riev coughs, choking on the stink, but I hold my breath. His grayeyes flash, a murderous volcano of rage about to erupt. His gaze is still locked on the corpse. He thrashes to shove me away, but I pin his throat with my forearm.
He gasps heavy breaths against the tree trunk.
“Stop it! You’re being…” I catch myself.
“I’m being what? Say it, Delphine! You’ve been thinking it this entire time. I’m a savage beast. A fucking murderer. You’ve seen what I can do.”
“No—”
“But what about you? You kill as much and as freely as I do.”
I know he is lashing out, and will regret the words slipping out of his mouth.
But they hurt anyway.
He doesn’t stop there. “How are you more human than me? Why aren’t you the villain? You’re a murderer, too.” He strains against my arm on his neck. He could break free, but for whatever reason, he doesn’t.
“I was going to say you’re being a self-loathing a-hole. You’re not like them. But maybe you’re right about me too. I am a killer! Do you think this is what I dreamt of doing? Do you think I like it?” I ask indignantly.
“Do you thinkIdo?” Riev rages. Gone is his usual quiet seething, replaced by something uglier.
His loss of restraint makes me flinch. His control is shredded by his emotions, visibly unraveling even as I try to tamp down my own temper.
He spits out a hiss, and I’m uncertain what he’ll do next. He needs to calm down. I keep him pinned to the tree, for both our sakes.
Ivy and Throg reappear through the crack. I steal a glance at them, and Throg’s jaw tightens at the sight of me pinning Riev. Ivy stares at the uneven pieces of Syf at our feet even as she motions us to get our elk and arguing asses inside the cave.
This momentarily breaks the tension, and I remove my arm from Riev’s neck.
