Page 56 of Empire of Death
I had said that, and now I wished I hadn’t.
“You know me in a way I’ll never know you. You can replay moments of the past, show me how my father lost his first wife and daughter, how he took back the Southern Isles with the army of the dead. Watch me when I don’t know you’re there. Witness a private conversation between me and those I love. And this is all I get to see of you, the small amount you’re willing to show me. The tip of the rock that juts out of the ocean, while the rest is concealed beneath the surface.” Her emotional eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “I know it won’t be the beautiful, secluded beach with the little house you built just for the two of us. I know it’ll be a horrible place. But it’s still the place you go where we’re apart, and I just want to know.”
I only considered the request because of the person making it.
“Unless it’s unsafe.”
“It would be the same as it is when I’m here. No one can see you but me.”
“And I can return.”
“I would never let you stay down there even if you wanted to,Xivin.” Even if she decided she wanted to leave her family behind to spend a life with me inXian, I wouldn’t allow it. It was something I’d contemplated before, something I’d even asked of her, but as my love for her reached a depth greater than I could ever fathom, I knew it was the wrong choice. She deserved so much more than that. A woman like Lily Rothschild should never settle for a man who could only give her despair.
“Then you’ll take me?” she asked, somewhat hopefully.
“If you seek a solution to my problem, you won’t find one.”
“Ourproblem,” she said. “And I still want to see.”
I searched her gaze and found the resolution of a woman who wouldn’t change her mind. Who wanted to see the horrors of the Underworld and carry those memories for the rest of her life. Talon Rothschild had handled the equivalent of a year in that dark place. I knew his daughter could handle much more.
18
WRATH
Her eyes were closed when we arrived, her hand still clamped tightly on my arm like she might fly away.
I studied her face as I waited for her to look at me, as I waited for her to find the courage to see the world she’d asked me to show her. Her eyes finally opened, but the first thing she looked at was me.
Now I stood in my uniform and armor, the heavy two-handed blade across my back, the black steel forged in the black flames of the underworld. Bahamut had carried it before me, a sword that lived thousands of years. I stepped back to give her space to see the room.
She surveyed the dark walls with the sconces that contained wax candles. Then she looked at the bed against the wall and the dark headboard that looked like it was carved out of a slippery rock. There was a dresser, also black, along with an armchair and a mantel over a fireplace. An ordinary bedroom, except it had no color. Every time I came here from the mortal world, it took me a moment to get used to the lackluster appearance.
I watched her take it all in, examine a low-burning candle in one of the sconces before she looked at the four-poster bed carved out of rock by slaves. “This is your room.”
“Yes.” Where I bedded women I didn’t care for. Women with hearts full of evil. I felt disgusted in that moment, remembering those interactions in the presence of a woman who had a heart of gold. Somehow I felt like I’d betrayed her when those transgressions had happened before she came to my island in the sea.
“But you don’t sleep.” She turned back to me.
“I use it for privacy. Either as a reprieve from the calamity of this place…or for company.” I felt guilty for sharing that part of my life, but I couldn’t lie to her.
She didn’t seem bothered by it, and she looked around the room again.
“Privacy is a luxury here. Because we don’t sleep, many inhabitants don’t have private bedchambers. So they’re always surrounded by the cacophony of screams and madness. While I’m in here, I have a retreat.”
She crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at the cold fireplace.
I let her take it in for another moment before I headed to the double doors of my bedchambers and stepped into the hallway. The second we did, a scream issued from another part of the castle, one packed with fear and pain like they were in the throes of being tortured.
Lily came to an instant halt when she heard it, a natural reaction for someone unfamiliar with this place.
I continued on, moving down the long hallway with the sconces on either side, the chandelier that hung from the dark ceiling holding a sea of candles that were constantly replaced to keep this place aglow.
The hallway exited into the throne room, an enormous chair carved out of dark wood, the image of skeletons holding up the chair. It was made for a demon more than a man, so it was naturally too small for me.
She stopped and stared at it, taking in the grotesque imagery used by the artist and the slaves who’d sculpted it. “Is this yours?”
“Yes.”
