Page 84 of Godsbane
“Marks believes it’s me, but I don’t.”
“What do you believe?” I ask cautiously, both wanting and not wanting to hear it said aloud.
“I believe it’s you. Marks only knows about your earth magic … which, while fucking incredible to witness, isn’t what sets you apart. If he had any idea what you’re capable of, he would have done far worse than villainized you. Poison Ivywas his attempt at controlling you, his personal revenge for your mother scheming with the enemy.”
I would hardly classify negotiating a way home as ‘scheming with the enemy,’ but of course Marks would.
If my mother was pregnant with me when she was exiled, then he knows I’m capable of more than the other heirs. But rather than manipulating me to be his ally, he chose to belittle me and make the nation hate me. He wanted to make sure I never realized my own worth—and damnit if he didn’t almost succeed. He crafted a narrative that I was a villain, and my words and actions proved him right. He created Poison Ivy, but I grew her thorns all on my own. I became what he made me and never realized I could be more. I wore the yoke the gods bestowed on me and never thought to remove it.
Until now.
“If we succeed and kill Marks … if it’s you who can open the portal … will you?” I ask.
Silver rims Cal’s gray eyes. I can’t read him; his wants are muddy, like he’s considered this question a thousand times and has never settled on an answer. He scoots closer to me, letting his arm drape over my shoulders and his head rest atop mine.
“If you want me to open the gates of the Under Realm and let Death’s demons devour this realm, I will find a way to do it for you. Whatever you ask, I’m yours to command.”
“Whoever sits the throne will command you, Cal. Not me.”
“You sell yourself short, princess. You may not be the savior the people of Corinth think they want, but you are exactly what they need. Whether saving them entails killing a god or opening a portal to a different realm, you will do what needs to be done. You should be their queen.”
I don’t correct him. Letting him think that I want the crown is kinder than the truth: I won’t be alive long enough to even cast my vote. No one can kill a god and live to tell the tale.
“Is there no limit to your delusion?” I joke, trying and failing to distract my aching heart.
“Limit?” he laughs. “I have no limits when it comes to you. There is nothing I wouldn’t do, nowhere I wouldn’t go for you. There is not a path you could take that I would not follow, in this life or any other.”
A million tiny daggers slice my skin. Shattered fragments of what can never be rip me open in bloodless wounds. I slide backwards across the muddy creek bank to distance myself from his touch, from the magic that overwhelms every part of me.
I can’t bear to hear him speak like this anymore, like I’m someone deserving of this kind of love when I am only every vile thing they have ever said about me. Even the gods believe me unworthy of happiness, or they wouldn’t have dangled this in front of me while orchestrating my demise.
“Stop,” I demand, cursing the tears that well against my will.
“Stop what?”
“Stop loving me!” I yell at him. “I am darkness and poison. I can’t give you what you want.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
My confession is little more than a whisper, the words shredding what’s left of me on their way out. “Can’t. There’s too much at stake to get distracted now.”
“How am I a distraction? We have the same goal.”
The words I can’t say hover on the tip of my tongue. The concession that I refuse to voice:because you make me want to stay.
“Because if it came down to it, you wouldn’t choose Corinth and I will.”
“Don’t fucking lie, Ivy.” Cal runs his fingers through his hair, pulling the ends tight in frustration. “You’ve never had a choice, not in your title or your destiny, and the very first one you get, you’re going to pick the people who have loathed you over me?”
“How is this a choice?” I rise to my feet, lifting my shirt to expose the sea beast inked across my skin. “This is designed by the fucking gods. We didn’t choose this.”
“I did.” Cal rises to his knees, tanned fingers gripping the fabric of his shirt as he tears open the buttons to reveal his matching tattoo. “We were always destined to find each other, but that could have been as enemies or reluctant allies. Our lives are connected, yes, but the only god who has a say in how I feel about you isme. My love is not fated; I willed it into existence. I alone chose you and I will do it every day for the rest of my immortal life whether you choose me back or not. Fuck destiny. Fuck the gods. Fuck the prophecy. All I want is you!”
“You don’t even know me!” Black shadows dance at the corners of my vision as my dark magic rises in resistance.
Cal grips my wrists tight, pulling me down into the mud until we’re chest to chest.
“Don’t I?” he scoffs. “We are the same. If anyone can understand what it’s like to live behind a moniker meant to dehumanize you, it’s me. We are products of a cruel world and an even crueler god … but we don’t have to be alone anymore.” Rough hands find my face and force my eyes to meet his. “I want all of you, Ivy. There is no part of you too dark, too poisonous for me. No piece of you that I do not want.”
