Crown of Crimson (Underworld Gods 2)

I want to see him before he goes. I need to see him. One more time, one more time. Then I remember the sunmoonstone sphere. I had put it in my thigh holster with my dagger. My dagger might be gone, but perhaps the sphere isn’t.

I reach down and feel for the edge of my dress, hiking up the ruined rags and run my hands to my inner thigh. My holster is gone. It must have snapped off when I was thrown in the cell.

I get on my knees and start crawling around on the floor of the cell, the damp dirt and rocks cutting into my shins. I know I could be reaching blindly for horrible insects and other creatures that thrive in this hellscape, pinchers and claws and slimy legs waiting for a taste of my hand. The thought makes me want to be sick but I keep going until my fingers curl around the familiar feel of leather.

I snatch it toward me, fumbling over the sheath where my knife was, and then, with a burst of relief, feel the hard round shape inside. I push the sphere out of the leather until I feel its cool weight in my hand and immediately make a fist over it, holding it tighter and tighter until the crystal begins to warm.

Like magic, because it is magic, light starts to seep through my fingers, slowly illuminating my hand, my arm, the space, with the softest, ethereal glow.

I turn around to see Death.

I gasp, nearly dropping the stone.

He’s still lying there on his back, looking like he’s asleep, but it’s the absolute stillness that accompanies him that makes my heart feel like it’s being ripped to shreds. Despite being the God of Death, Tuoni has always felt filled with life, like he’s bursting at the seams with it. It’s in his eyes, it’s in what he says, the way he laughs, the way he fucks, the way he sees the world. He’s just so undeniably a fucking God, that it has seemed impossible that anyone could take that away from him.

And yet here he is, lying before me, eyes closed, his dark hair spilled around his shoulders, his skull mask knocked off somewhere. I don’t know what Salainen did to him, but whatever it is, it appears to have worked.

The third part of the Prophecy of Three.

The one to defeat Death.

And I never found out my own role in it. I was supposed to be the one that Death could touch, the one to help unite the realm, but Death and I were too scared to put it to the test, to find out the truth. If I had let him touch me earlier with his bare hands, all of this could have been avoided.

Yeah, if you were the one he could touch. If you were wrong, you’d be in Oblivion. It was a risk you didn’t want to take.

I stare down at Death and feel the hot press of tears behind my eyes. What fucking difference does it make now? In the end, the risk was too great, because I am here but he’s not.

“Where are you?” I whisper to him, my voice sounding like a child in the dark cold depths of the cell. I place the stone on the ground beside me, then put my palm against his cheek, the angles of his face harsh in the shadows.

He’s not cold yet, but he’s no longer warm.

There is no life beneath my fingertips.

Nothing at all.

Tears fall from my eyes, landing on him like rain. I brush my fingers over his face, tracing his features—his firm brows that seem to frown even in death, his broad forehead, his sharp cheekbones, his strong nose, those impossibly soft and full lips, lips that know my body better than I do.

I wish more than anything I could go back in time. How funny that death repeats. When I thought my father had died, all I wanted was a time machine to see him again, to step back into the past and grab hold and spend every moment appreciating him and soaking him in.

Now I want to do the same with Tuoni. I want to go back to this morning, when we were in bed together and though the future seemed scary and uncertain, he was alive. He was alive and I didn’t appreciate it because I was too scared of what I felt for him. I want to go back to the moments when I was lying with him under the sheets, and I wish I could have just turned off my brain for a moment, ignored the fear, and told him how I really felt.

That I loved him.

That I love him.

My husband.

My king.

I should have said it, but I didn’t even know it this morning because I didn’t allow myself to feel it. I always felt that I could negotiate this new life, that I could rise above what I’ve been thrust into, so long as I didn’t let my feelings and emotions come into play. I could do the role of the Goddess of Death, I could be married to Death, as long as I knew I was pretending, that I was staying strong and true on the inside. I wanted so badly to be made of stone that I really believed I was.