Cruel Beauty(43)

She had been so delighted, so proud when she thought I would cut off the Gentle Lord’s head and bring it home in a bag. Against Father’s will—and she had to have known he didn’t want it, even though she hadn’t known why—she had schemed to bring me that knife.

She had been a child. She still was, and she had no idea what it meant to kill, much less what it was like to feel the living shadows bubble out of your skin—and though the darkness eating Ignifex was different, it was close enough that I couldn’t leave him to it. Even if my sister hated me.

“He’s a monster,” I said. “Maybe I’m a monster to pity him. But I can’t leave him.”

Then I ran out of the room.

Finally I found my way back into the narrow hallway. When I did, at first I thought that he was gone. Then I realized the lump in the middle of the clotted darkness was him.

I ran forward, but stopped at the edge of the worst darkness. “Ignifex?” I called, leaning forward as I peered at him.

He didn’t move. I couldn’t see his face, only the darkness writhing over it.

I knelt beside him. My skin crawled as I remembered my fingers sliding into the dead wife’s mouth, but I couldn’t back out now. Gingerly, I reached through the darkness to touch his face.

The darkness swirled away from my hand, as if frightened of my skin. Underneath, livid welts crisscrossed his face. I snatched my hand away, then realized he was still breathing. As I watched, the welts faded to pale white scars that began to subside into healed skin.

I shook him by the shoulder, the darkness boiling away further. “Wake up!”

One crimson eye cracked open; he hissed softly, and the eye slid shut again. The darkness crept back up his body.

It seemed to be afraid of my touch. So I hauled him up to rest his head and shoulders in my lap; after a moment he twitched and curled into me. And the darkness flowed away.

“What are you doing?”

My head jerked up. Shade stood over me, his hands in his coat pockets, his pale face unreadable.

“I—the darkness—”

“You should leave him.”

“I can’t,” I whispered, trying not to hunch my shoulders. This was far worse than seeing Astraia. Shade was the last prince of Arcadia. My prince, who had helped and comforted me these past five weeks, who had kissed me not an hour ago and nearly said he loved me. I had kissed him back, and now I was embracing his tormentor before his face. It was obscene.

Shade knelt beside me. “Weren’t you going to defeat him?”

Weren’t you my hope? his eyes said.

“I was. I will. I want to, but—but—” I felt like I was ten years old, summoned into Father’s study to explain how I had spilled honey in the parlor. “This won’t defeat him. I hurt him just for revenge.”

“Do you know how much suffering he’s caused? This is the least of what he deserves.”

Ignifex had shown no sign of hearing our conversation, but I realized now that he was trembling.

“I know,” I said. I remembered huddling with Astraia in the hallway, listening to the screams from Father’s study. “But I can’t . . . I can’t leave anyone to the darkness.”

Shade’s silence was like a condemnation.

“Help me get him to his bedroom,” I said. “Then I’ll leave him.”

Shade’s mouth thinned, but he obeyed. He grasped Ignifex’s shoulders, I grabbed his legs, and together we dragged him through twisting hallways back to his bedroom.

I had never wondered where he slept, but now I half expected a dank cavern with a bloodied altar for a bed. Instead it was a crimson mirror of my room: red-and-black tapestries instead of pale wallpaper; red-and-gold damask bed curtains instead of lace; and supporting the canopy were not caryatids but eagles, cast from a slick black metal that glittered in the candlelight. All around the edges of the room burned row upon row of candles, casting golden light in every direction so that shadow barely existed.

Shade disappeared as soon as we had dropped Ignifex onto the bed, for which I couldn’t blame him. Now that I had appeased my guilt, I wanted to be gone as well. I looked down at my husband and captor. The weals had faded and most of the scars as well, but he was still pale as death and limp as wet yarn. He was also curled into a position that seemed likely to give him cramps—and while I found that thought amusing, I supposed that if I was going to help him, I should do it properly. With a sigh, I rolled him onto his back and straightened out his legs.

His eyes didn’t open, but one of his hands reached out and gripped my wrist.

I twitched and went still, but he made no further move. Then he whispered—so softly I barely heard it—“Please stay.”