Cruel Beauty(57)
Author: Rosamund Hodge

His clothes were torn and ragged; his fingertips bled as if he had been clawing at the lid of a coffin, and blood dripped also out of his ears and nose, stark crimson against his colorless skin. All across his face and hands were the same swirling pale scars that the darkness had left upon Ignifex.

But his breath whispered in and out. He was still alive; I could still save him and all Arcadia.

I laid my right hand—the one that wore the ring—upon his forehead and said, “Heal,” as commandingly as I could. But nothing happened; he lay still, his breath sliding in and out in the rhythm of perfect sleep.

“Heal,” I said again. “Wake!” But he didn’t move.

I leaned down to his ear and whispered, “I know who you are. Come back.”

Nothing.

Then I remembered how my kiss had made him able to speak; I remembered also half a dozen tales, and how Ignifex had said that the Kindly Ones loved to leave clues.

“Please wake up,” I said, and then very gently, I kissed him on the lips.

He sighed. His eyes did not open, but the scars on his face had visibly faded. My heart beating faster, I kissed his forehead, his ears, and finally his lips again; and the skin on his face looked fresh and healed.

I picked up his hands. One by one, I kissed his bloody fingers, trying to ignore the smell and taste of blood, and his fingers healed under my lips.

Ignifex did this, I thought as I kissed each fingertip. Ignifex knew how he would suffer and did it to him anyway. He deserves this betrayal. If I could concentrate on just that thought, I might be strong enough.

I kissed his palms and laid down his hands. He looked healed now, but he still had not wakened; so I leaned down and kissed his lips again.

This time he woke with a quick, shuddering intake of breath. He stared up at me, eyes wide and dazed. As I had stared up at him when he betrayed me in the Heart of Fire.

He had been trying to save Arcadia. I was betraying Ignifex for the same reason now.

For a moment his mouth worked soundlessly; then he said, still not quite looking at me, “Are you here . . . to punish me?”

His voice was rough and hoarse, as if from screaming, and my stomach curled. All this time, while I had been delighting in my husband, he had been tortured by the Children of Typhon.

“No.” I grabbed his hand. “No. You’re safe.”

He shuddered and focused on me. “Nyx,” he gasped, and then repeated, “Are you here to punish me?”

“I’m here,” I said unsteadily, “to save you and kill my husband.”

He sat up slowly, wincing, and leaned against the wall. “Thank you.”

I didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “I had to.”

He met my gaze. “You know.”

“Yes,” I said. “You’re the last prince of Arcadia. My prince. I’m going to save you, and you’re going to save us all.”

“No,” he breathed. “You’re going to save us. I knew you would do it.” And he pulled me into a kiss.

Despite the memory of what he had done, the kiss still rippled through my body. But more than his betrayal lay between us now. I pushed him back, my right hand flat against his chest.

“I’m helping you,” I said, my voice low and clear. I couldn’t meet his eyes, so I stared at the ring glinting on my finger. “I chose you and Arcadia, so I will betray Ignifex. I will destroy him so that you can take back everything he stole. But I love him, not you, and I’m his wife, not yours.”

He let out a gentle breath and took my hand. “Then collect the Children of Typhon, and let’s go find your husband.” He stood, drawing me up with him.

I pulled free. “I never told you about needing them.”

He looked back at me silently.

“You knew what to do all along,” I said, my voice clenching with hopeless fury. Everyone had always known what I needed to do. I had just deluded myself that I could have a happy ending. “Why couldn’t you tell me before I fell in love?”

“I can’t start anything.”

“Aside from throwing me into the fire?”

“Almost anything.” His eyes narrowed and his voice lowered in the tone of contempt I remembered. “I know and can’t act. He acts but knows nothing.”

I blinked. Memory flickered at the edge of my mind: something about a fire, no, a face lit by lamplight—an angry voice—

Then it was gone, and maybe it had been nothing, just a half-remembered dream. And there was no dream that could change what I had to do. As the Kindly Ones had said, while Ignifex had power, Shade was helpless. And Shade was the only one who could save Arcadia.

Grimacing, I stepped to the threshold again. The Children of Typhon waited just a breath away, quivering with anticipation but not attempting to trespass.

Because they knew. They knew I had the ring, and they knew I was preparing them a victim who would last forever.

I reached into the darkness with my right hand. Shadow burned and swirled around my fingers, across my palm. I clenched my teeth, bearing it. After a few moments, my hand still burned and my heart still thudded, but I was no longer quite so dizzy with pain.

“Come to me,” I whispered, and the Children of Typhon pooled in my hands, twisting and shrinking into a tiny seed of darkness, like the pearl at the heart of Pandora’s jar. I closed my fist.

There was still darkness beyond the door, but it was no longer terrible: it was an absence of light and no more.

I turned back to Shade. “Follow me,” I said. My voice seemed very cold and far away.

“That is all I can do,” he said, and again there was that trace of a smile.

With him following silently, I strode back down the hallway. When I came to the door at the other end, I paused and thought of Ignifex. When I imagined his face, my hand throbbed with pain; it felt like the Children of Typhon were trying to claw their way out and devour him.

“Soon,” I muttered at them, laying my free hand on the door handle. Now the thought of my mission only made me feel empty and determined. The cold burn in my hand seemed to have taken away my grief.

Take me to Ignifex, I thought at the door, and pushed it open.

I stepped into my bedroom.

It did not surprise me that he had stayed there in my absence. The racks of burning candles were also as expected. What stopped me on the threshold with shock was the state of the room. Drifts of paper covered the floor: page after half-burned page ripped from the books in library. The silver wallpaper was covered in scribbled charcoal notes. At the foot of my bed crouched Ignifex, shuffling anxiously through the papers.