The muscles tightened around his eyes. “You are not the Bellicent I once knew. The woman I fell in love with never would have asked me to murderher.”
I watched their exchange with growing dread. Oberon could see the true depths of his wife’s cruelty now, something he’d long insisted wasn’t there. No matter how many times I tried to tell him the god’s power had corrupted her soul, he wouldn’t believe me. He wanted to see her as Bellicent Denare, the queen with stars in her eyes. The woman who wept when she thought she would never see her son again. The one whose remorse was so great for what she’d done that she could barely leave her bed. But that person had died a long time ago.
A monster resided in there now.
Bellicent gave him a flat stare. “Go gaze into the mirror, Oberon. You’re not the man I fell in love with, either. Look at all the horror you’ve wrought.”
Oberon sucked in a breath.
She continued, “You’ve happily sacrificed the lives of innocent mortals to keep me here in this world. You only care now because you think you have a connection to this fae.”
Sorrow flashed across his face. He stood. “You’re right. We’ve become the very things we once hated. It has twisted us both.”
“Took you long enough to realize,” I muttered beneath my breath.
Bellicent glared up at him. “You’re the one who started this. It wasn’t my choice, and I am who I am because of you. Now are you going to finish this or not? Put me in the last body I’ll ever need, and we won’t have to do this anymore. No one else will have to die.”
I glanced between them, a strange fierce hope gripping my heart. Oberon’s constant cruelty had haunted my steps every day for several centuries. He’d forced me into a vow I could not break, and he reminded me of it at every turn. But maybe, just maybe, the fog in his eyes had cleared. Perhaps he would let me go.
Oberon’s shoulders slumped. “Very well. I’ll make the preparations. Sleep now, my darling love. When you wake, it will be with fresh eyes. The last ones you will ever need.”
I crumpled to my knees, and my voice was barely a scratch in my throat. “No.”
“Stay where you are,” he said, slowly turning from his wife’s side. Now that she had burdened me with my fate, her future was decided. Her lungs released their air, and she slumped against the ground, like a ship’s sail when the wind goes still. Like this, she looked frail. Her cheeks were sunken, and her eyes were ringed with purple bruises. It was as if the mortal body knew the ancient being living inside her should no longer be there.
It was time for her to pass on.
But she would cling to this life for as long as she could.
Oberon unpacked the special ink—the boiled remains of a comet—that I’d brought with us. It had always been in my pack for emergencies. Another order from Oberon. My life was full of them. I’d never thought much about this one until now. We had the ink, and we had a knife, and soon, that mark would be etched into my skin.
“Sit still,” he ordered. “And do not speak until I am done with this.”
I kept my backside rooted to the stone while Oberon took the comet’s ink and etched the mark into my upper back. Pain flared, as bright as the comet itself, but I did not cry out. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me suffer. The edge of the blade dug into my skin, drawing the lines of the one-eyed dragon. Andromeda’s symbol, the one Oberon had co-opted to use himself at the encouragement of Bellicent.
When he was finished, my back felt raw, as if he’d sliced off an entire layer of skin. Soon, the pain would fade, and the wound would heal, but this mark would be on me for the rest of my life. How much time did I have before they made the transfer? Days? Hours? Or even less?
“I am sorry, Morgan. This isn’t how I wanted things to end,” Oberon whispered as he stepped away from me.
“Don’t bother,” I said. “You could have released me from my vow decades ago. For the love of light, you could do it now. No one forced you to go through with this but yourself. And don’t you dare think that I will not curse your name when you finally take the last thing from me that you can. When I die, I will link your soul to mine and drag you into the underworld with me. You will turn to ash.”
Oberon closed his eyes and turned away, striding toward the mouth of the cave. Without another word, he wandered out into the mists. I watched him vanish. Now would be the perfect time to escape, if I could. The transfer could not work if there was too much distance between the gemstone and the vessel. I could run. Get far away from here. Anywhere would do.
Anywhere but here.
But my feet were frozen in place. Oberon had ordered me not to leave.
I looked toward Bellicent’s sleeping form. He’d forgotten to order one thing, though.
I held my fingers to my lips and whistled. Moments passed. Soon, they crept into an hour. I whistled, again and again, desperately hoping a nearby bird would hear. I’d given up by the time the flap of wings jolted me from my reverie. Dark feathers rushed toward me. The raven settled onto my shoulder and cawed.
This was not Boudica, but it would do. Most ravens were trained to report to the shadow fae.
I whispered into the bird’s ear.
And then my only hope for salvation flew off into the mist on a pair of gleaming black wings.
Thirty-Two