Page 50 of The Princesses of Ruin
The muscles in Lily’s jaw flex. For a fraction of a second, I sense her desire to do real harm to me. I drop to my knees in supplication, praying she can see my devotion.
“I only wish you will still beyouat the end. I fear if you stay on this path, you’ll change.”
Then her killing intent is gone.
The crease between her eyes disappears and she gasps. In one, fluid movement she reaches out, pulling me to her chest. I wrap my arms around her back, melting into her, wishing to push her into me. If she lived inside me, I could protect her.
“My demon knight.” She breathes the words into my coiled hair. “You have protected me for so long. I understand that you think it’s still your duty to protect me. I do not need your protection.”
I’m pushed back. My lungs fill with a shock of cold air, snapping me into a place between awake and asleep. I sense the future, the past, the now. I can hear every creature on Gaien. I can smell fate. I can taste destiny.
She caresses my cheek. “But I do need your love.”
I can’t bear to tell her she’s wrong. She needs not my love, but shedoesneed my protection. Her greed will subsume us to the never-ending war of the gods, and one day, sister will face sister.
In the depths of the nine hells, the heat of the inferno core of Gaien, they will battle to determine the fate of the daughters of ruin. To the monsters who claim their souls by rite, or to the fathers who cannot live to see them taken by beasts.
Fortitude knows the way. The goddess of Grit understands the sacrifice. But my love…
My sweet, bright, giving, caring, wife…she will crave her offspring more than she will respect the will of the gods, the fated bond.
“Alastair.” Lily’s voice calls me back from…
Where was I?
I turn and look at my surroundings. I’m where I’m supposed to be, the snowy forest of the north. Why is it I feel I’m not supposed to be here?
Lily’s palms are warm on my cheeks as she turns my face to meet her gaze. “My husband, what happened?”
“I feel something,” I say, unable to formulate the words to capture the concept inside me. “Some deep…knowing. I know something bad is going to happen.”
Liliana’s shoulders melt and she kneels with me in the snow, folding against my chest. “Oh, Alastair. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I know my mother…that Ashai has imbued me with power. The runes on my arms that she gave me as a child have been burning, and I know how to use them now. I didn’t before, but you’re right. Something has changed, and I can feel the magic she’s bestowed upon me.”
Her admission doesn’t put me at ease. Something else is wrong. Something…farther away.
“Am I experiencing a prophecy?” I whisper, my mind reeling.
“Are you two finished yet!” comes a shout from behind us. It’s the captain.
Lily jumps to her feet. “Nothing is happening! Trust me, if it was, the whole forest would hearus!”
The two women laugh. Alejandra and Adrik return with arms full of smaller branches and some dry kindling. They chatter as they make camp, but I’m trapped in the liminal space between the man I am now and the man I was ten minutes ago.
I get to work unpacking the cookware, but I can’t shake the feeling that the world has shifted. Even as I hunt, my demonic senses finding prey quickly, it tells me that something has changed.
Something is wrong.
And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Chapter eighteen
Lily
We ward off the cold in the best possible way. Alastair worships me in the quiet of our warded tent and I worship him back. He watches me, his eyes dark and distant, like he’s looking into a future where I’m gone.
When he embraces me off to sleep, I stay awake, remembering the only rambling he said that I could understand.
Sister against sister.
