The Half King

25

Once Cerise was fully below the surface, she glanced up and saw her own reflection. The group was as invisible to her as the stairway had been to them. Below her, Nero waited on the bottom step, beyond which she could see only blackness.

The Petros Blade had vanished. Everything had vanished.

“Come,” Nero called.

As she continued downward, the smell of sulfur gave way to something worse—an odor so rank it triggered her gag reflex. She pulled her collar over her nose. “What is that smell?”

Nero faced away, unfazed. “If I had to guess, probably the ones who came before us.”

“The ones who came for the blade? And didn’t…” survive?

Nero must have heard the fear in her voice, because he thrust out his hand to her. She jogged down the steps and took it. His grasp was loose but steady, a message of support despite having been forced to go into the pool with her.

Together, they stepped into the darkness.

Once their feet met the floor, their surroundings changed. They were no longer inside an acid pool, but instead within the dimly lit walls of an ancient temple. The staircase had changed as well, now constructed from the same dusty clay brick as the floor. There were no structures visible in the open room, at least not in the spaces illuminated by the half dozen flickering wall sconces. What existed in the shadowy corners was anyone’s guess. The only other source of light came from the Petros Blade itself, which floated above a great stone dais that was as long and wide as a grown man. There were no visible barriers protecting the blade, but Cerise knew better than to assume she could simply snatch it out of the air.

A voice bellowed, “Prove yourself bold.”

Bold? Maybe she should grab the blade after all.

She barely had time to consider the idea before a scraping sound drew her attention to the shadowy rear corner of the room, where a tall, slender man dressed in stained rags limped toward her.

Not a man , she realized as he limped into the torchlight. A half-decayed corpse .

She froze, the horror of him locking her in place. She had never seen anything so grotesque. Tufts of black hair pushed up from his scalp in greasy patches. His head, tipped sideways at a curious angle, seemed to have no face. His eyes and lips were gone, his skin decaying like a curtain of putrid lace. Only half of his nose remained, which twitched as he sniffed the air to follow her scent. She planted her feet in a defensive stance and practiced the drill Nero had taught her, summoning her energy and casting it in front of her as a shield. But no sooner had the static wall formed than it dissolved. The magic wouldn’t hold, just like Daerick had warned her.

There was nothing to protect them.

She backed away, bumping into Nero. They fled all the way to the dais.

And then a second corpse arose from behind the altar.

This man had both of his eyes, though no light shone from within them. He, too, inclined his head at them; in doing so, he widened the gap where his throat had long ago been slit.

Icy terror gripped Cerise, and she stumbled back a step. The stench was overwhelming. She tried to cover her nose, but something heavy appeared in her palm, dragging it down. She glanced at her hand to find it holding the Petros Blade. In disbelief, she looked above the dais where the blade had just been floating. Nothing was there. It seemed she had the real thing in her possession. She and Nero locked eyes and instantly agreed on their next move.

They ran for the stairs to take the blade back to the group.

As if anticipating what they meant to do, the temple raised a new wall to seal them in. The barrier grew from the floor like a stone hedge, rising so quickly they couldn’t stop in time. Shoes skidding, they slammed sideways into the wall with a thump. The impact loosened Cerise’s grip on the blade, but instead of falling to the floor, the hilt stayed put. She splayed her fingers and shook her hand. The weapon clung to her palm.

“It’s stuck,” she shouted, trying to pry it loose.

“Then use it.” Nero pointed at the first corpse, sniffing its way toward them. “Pierce his heart. That’s how the blade was designed to kill.”

“But he’s already dead.”

“Who cares?” Nero yelled while circling the man to grab him from behind. “Just stab the thing!” He locked the corpse’s elbows behind its back. “Do it now!”

Cerise rushed forward and instantly recoiled as the man lunged at her with snapping teeth. The rot from his mouth was suffocating. She cringed, aiming the blade over his heart, but the man moved as he shifted within Nero’s grasp.

“Hold him still,” she shouted over the man’s guttural snarls.

Nero strained, his face reddening. “He’s stronger than he…” Trailing off, he glanced behind them, where the second corpse had climbed over the dais and now dragged his feet toward them. “Hurry!”

She closed her eyes and thrust the blade as hard as she could into the man’s chest. His ribs splintered, but then the blade wedged there, and her arm jerked as the man thrashed back and forth. She tugged backward, pulling the corpse as well and making Nero stumble.

“Not through the chest!” Nero called while darting glances behind him. “You never stab a man through the chest! His bones will lock your knife.”

“Now you tell me!”

“Do it here,” he said, keeping one arm around the corpse while using the other to point at its upper stomach. “Go under his rib cage and thrust upward. Pierce the heart from below.”

That brief moment was all it took for the corpse to free one hand, which it tangled in Cerise’s hair, pulling her face toward his snapping mouth. She held her breath and yanked the blade free. Then, without thinking, she drove it up beneath his ribs so hard that her fist embedded inside his cold, wet, half-rotten body.

The man went limp.

His fingers released her hair. Pulling the blade from his chest was no more enjoyable than putting it there, but with the second corpse advancing, there wasn’t time to dwell. She yanked free and tried not to look at the putrid blood that streaked her arm.

Nero circled around behind the other man to restrain him. The second kill was easier now that she knew what to do. Moments later, she was pulling her arm from another chest cavity and resisting the urge to study the men for clues to who they had once been. She didn’t want to know.

Suddenly, her arm flung out, and the blade left her palm to float above the dais again, where it shone flawlessly as though she had never used it. She glanced behind her and found the wall still blocking the stairs.

It seemed the temple wasn’t finished with them yet.

A voice boomed, “Prove yourself deserving.”

Cerise turned to Nero just in time to see his body drift up from the floor. He wheeled his arms and legs as some unknown force carried him to the dais and then slammed him down on his back. Four leather straps appeared and snaked around his wrists and ankles. In the time it took for her to run to him, he was fastened so tightly to the altar that his hands began to redden and swell.

She tugged uselessly on the straps, scanning the dais for some sign of what to do. The answer came when the stone hummed to life beneath Nero’s body and illuminated a network of carved channels, roughly a fingertip in width. Like miniature canals, the channels began at his bound wrists and extended down the sides of the dais. The rust-colored stains inside the grooves made it clear what had once flowed there.

She knew what the temple wanted.

Nero’s throat shifted. He knew it, too. “Blood. That’s why both of us had to enter. So one of us could serve as a…”

Sacrifice .

The unspoken word rang between them.

Cerise glanced over her shoulder at the fallen bodies. The dead men had been sacrificed. Someone had killed them in order to borrow the blade for some important purpose or other. She wondered if the survivors had considered the slaughter worthwhile, if the blade had saved enough lives to justify the murder of innocent men.

The blade emitted a buzzing sound, as if to redirect her attention. Somehow she understood that it wanted to feel her touch again, so she stood on tiptoe and pulled it from the air. This time she was free to move the grip from hand to hand, so she set the blade down next to Nero’s shoulder.

Nero glanced at the blade, then to her.

“I’m not going to kill you,” she told him, a little insulted that he’d doubted her. “If I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my pup for the blade, what makes you think I’m capable of killing you in cold blood?”

“You might not have a choice,” he said.

“There’s always a choice.”

“Yes,” he agreed in a dark tone. “Either I die and you live, or we both die together. Technically, it’s a choice, but it doesn’t seem like saving me is one of your options.”

She shushed him and turned in a slow circle, looking for another way out—perhaps a hidden wall or a trapdoor.

“Shiera can’t want this,” she murmured. “It’s wrong to take a life.”

“Shiera is half darkness,” Nero reminded her. “She takes as many lives as she gives.”

Cerise knew that from a logical place, but her heart resisted.

“We won’t last long down here,” he went on, jerking his gaze to the corner as some hidden creature made a scratching sound. “The best outcome is we’ll die of thirst. More likely, other dead ones will tear us apart before that happens.”

“I have the blade,” she told him. “I can kill anything that comes for us.”

“And if they keep coming back to life?”

“Stop talking and let me think.”

“Listen to me,” Nero urged, and repeated himself when she shushed him again. “I have to tell you this while I can.”

“Fine. Hurry up.”

“If I don’t survive, go back to the city and ask for Ronus,” Nero said. “That’s my uncle. You can trust him. Tell him what happened to me so he doesn’t have to wonder.”

Cerise hugged herself against a swelling of fear. She didn’t want to hear Nero talk about his death as though it had already happened. No one deserved to die in this terrible place, least of all him. Kian was wrong to think that Nero was motivated by coin. Even now, strapped to a sacrificial altar, Nero cared more about her safety than his own. How could the blade demand the blood of someone so brave? She knew the Petros dynasty had forged the weapon in order to slay the goddess, but she’d never imagined it could be infused with so much evil.

“Whatever happens, don’t blame yourself,” Nero said. “One way or another, my path is destined to end here. Yours doesn’t have to.”

“There’s only one path,” she told him. “And we’re both on it. So either we leave here together, or we’ll haunt this place together.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Save your—”

A deep rumbling interrupted him as the temple walls rattled hard enough to fill the air with dust. The Petros Blade vibrated toward the edge of the dais. Cerise caught it before it could hit the floor, but no sooner had she gripped the weapon’s hilt than a series of cracks sounded from the great stone walls, where the blocks had split apart and were now spraying water into the chamber. The tremendous pressure caused the cracks to widen even more, allowing torrents of water to gush over the floor, sweeping the dead bodies in its swirling current.

In a blink, Cerise was covered to the ankles.

The temple was forcing her hand.

“Do it,” Nero yelled as he peered over the edge of the dais at the rising flood. He tugged uselessly against the leather straps. “Kill me! I would rather bleed to death than drown!”

The Petros Blade warmed in her palm as if urging her to give Nero the quick death he had asked for. Water covered her to the knees. Her hands began to tremble. There was no way out and nothing left to try. If she didn’t kill Nero now, they would both drown.

She thought of Kian’s command to preserve her life by any means. The absence of magic inside the temple must have disrupted her bond of servitude, because she had free will. But when she pictured Kian and Blue, Mama and Father and Nina—all of the people who would miss her, all of the lives that would be ruined by the curse if she didn’t survive long enough to break it—she began to see the logic in Nero’s argument. What was the point of both of them dying?

She snuck a glance at him. He was already watching her with a surprising sense of calm. He nodded his consent. “Go ahead,” he told her. “You don’t know it yet, but you’re destined for more than this. I think my role was to bring you here. My fight is over, but yours isn’t. So end me. Make it quick. It’s what I want.”

She tightened her fingers around the hilt. A voice of reason told her that one life was a small price to pay to save the world. With both hands, she raised the weapon as water swirled around her hips. Nero closed his eyes. She focused on his nearest wrist and brought down the blade.

Instead of flesh, she severed a leather restraint. One by one, she slashed the others until Nero was free. His eyes flew wide. He sat up and stared at his hands.

“This is my limit,” she told him.

“What?”

“My limit to how much I’m willing to lose,” she said, and for the first time, she understood Kian’s words to her—his limit before surrender. “The goddess knows what’s in my heart. She knows why I want the blade. I don’t think she would ask me to do something evil to atone for evil. But if I’m wrong, then so be it.”

Nero gripped his forehead and yelled, “Have you lost your mind?”

“Maybe,” she said. “But I haven’t lost my soul.”

To escape the rising water, she climbed onto the stone dais beside Nero. She reached up and returned the Petros Blade to its rightful spot. It glowed and floated peacefully in the air. She supposed she wouldn’t need it now.

She threaded an arm through Nero’s. She felt like she should say something meaningful, but her fear rose with the water, and all she could do was shiver. Nero didn’t say anything, either, until right before the water reached his mouth. He gulped one last breath and used it to call her a fool. Cerise used her last breath to laugh.