Page 103 of Godsbane
It’s eerily still now. The earth has stopped its shaking, the walls have ceased their crumbling. The fire that engulfed the throne is now reduced to piles of ash. The once pristine alabaster floors are scorched with veins of godfire and stained red with blood.
There’s so much fucking blood.
I can’t see her over the mounds of my uncle’s smouldering, rotting flesh that litter the ground between us. I try to stand butmy broken, shattered body can barely move. She was chained to the floor and still she tried to get to me. Shredded muscles and gaping wounds won’t stop me from getting to her. Death himself couldn’t stop me from getting to her.
Using the sheer force of my will, I drag my mangled body toward her. Through the charred hunks of whatever remains of the god Mikais, over the unburnt vines that still bind what remains of his body, past the splintered gold bars of the broken cage where the fouraevusstir.
Ivy’s maimed body lies lifeless on the stone floor, the blood forming a halo around her brown hair.
“No. No. NO!” Each word is more desperate than the last. “Wake up, princess. Wake up!”
I feel their watching eyes on my back as they close in to survey the scene. I hear their silent exchange, their misplaced pity for the man who can’t face what they believe to be certain truth—Ivy is dead.
But I can feel her magic inside of her, singing in a language only I understand. It’s a song more beautiful than any ever composed for even the highest of gods. A song written for and heard only by my ears.
Ivy is alive. Barely clinging to life, but alive all the same. My stubborn, relentless goddess still fights. She is with Death now, but he won’t keep her.
“Help her,” I plead, but the gods do not answer, and neither do theaevus.
“HELP HER!” I demand louder, but still they do nothing. “Godsdamnit. She’s alive, you idiots! She saved you all! Now use your fucking magic and bring her back!”
Kieran moves first, dropping to his knees in the coagulating blood.
“Murphy, look at me.”
“No. Don’t you fuckingdaresay it, Rollins. I am not giving up on her.”
“Marks gave us all the same tonic, Murphy. We can’t access our magic.”
“She did!” I scream at him. Lies, pathetic excuses for denying their aid.
“Wilson, Porter. Release the others from the dungeons and fetch a physician.” Kieran emotionlessly commands the other governors to do his bidding. Their footsteps on the stone floor indicate their obedience.
The adrenaline that pushed me across the floor fades as quickly as it appeared. Collapsing across Ivy’s body, I pull her tight against my chest as if I can absorb her back into my heart where she belongs. Tears well in my eyes before spilling over my lids, the salty liquid mixing with the crusted blood smeared across her face before pooling into the open wound in her hair line.
If I could bring Marks back, I would, so that I could kill him myself. Not for what he did to me, but for what he did to her. I would choose another lifetime of torture and manipulation at his hand for five more minutes with her.
The large doors swing open. Heavy-footed marching indicates the arrival of the Corinthian soldiers now flanking the throne room awaiting orders. Twenty pairs of boots if my count is correct. I don’t lift my head to confirm.
“Captain,” Kieran says slowly. “What do you want them to do?”
The soldiers.With the Lord General dead, the responsibility to lead them now belongs to me. I am the heir apparent to the militant tyrant, the next in line to take up the mantle of my abuser and Ivy’s tormentor.
I don’t want to be the Lord General of Corinth.
I don’t want to be the Prince of the Gods.
I don’t want to be the son of Nobus.
I only want to be hers.
“Hen-ry.” My brother’s name is broken in half by the sobs that wrack my feeble body without shame.
Henry will lead them. Henry will know what to do.
The military was always a means of survival for me, a surefire way to stay out of the dungeons and put food on the table for my mortal mother and brothers. I never meant for Mikais to know my name, let alone know who I really am. For years I have wished that I could go back to that fateful day on the battlefield, wished there had been any way to save Theo other than putting my secret on full display. My uncle knew who I was after that, and he made sure the tales of my viciousness spread across Corinth.
If I had been able to tap into the core of my power, none of this would have happened. Emerald would still be whole. I would be alone, but Ivy would be alive. I would trade all of it, every second that I have spent with her, if only it would bring her back. I would damn the whole realm to the gods’ wrath if it meant sparing her.
