“Where do you believe we are?” Aon let out a sharp, vicious, and mocking laugh, holding his arms out at his sides. “Where do you think inspired all those great myths of the underworld? And who do you believe inspired the worst of such tales but I?” He stood over Nick’s body like some great nightmare. “Here I stand before you, Lord of Darkness, Black Angel of Agony. I am he who brings this upon you!”

  “Fuck you,” she snarled at him. “You egotistical sack of shit!”

  Nick was trembling and likely going into shock. There was an ooze seeping from his face, and Lydia tried not to throw up. He had most definitely lost his eye. Nick wasn’t even making a noise. He was in too much agony. He was going to die.

  “Nick!” she cried. “Stop this. Save him!” she begged Aon, desperate.

  “Ah, still you have hope. Such an insidious poison. No. Now, he dies.”

  Send me in, Coach.

  “He can’t be serious,” she whispered. “He won’t let this happen.”

  “Hm? I did not hear you.”

  Aon rolled Nick onto his back with a shove of his wingtip shoe. Nick’s hands turned weakly and uselessly away from his face. He was unconscious. “Do not fret. He does not have long. Nor does he suffer…well, he does not suffer much.”

  He was, in this moment, the King of Shadows. Not her lover, and not her friend. He was the dreaded King in Black. The one every single person here had seen fit to warn her about. The monster she hadn’t believed existed.

  Let me finish this. Let me give him some payback.

  Lydia buried her head in her hands and let out a sob, feeling everything in her just wanting to crumble up and fall away into the ocean. “This isn’t fair.”

  “What is the saying, my pet? Life is not fair?” Aon goaded.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, asshole!” And that was it. She could almost hear it in her as she just gave up trying, like the tone of a bell ringing through the mayhem. There was an immense clarity and a strange kind of peace, knowing this was the end of the line for how much she could take. Something in her broke. Somewhere, she couldn’t take it anymore.

  Nick was dying.

  Her best friend for the past five years. Her cohort and drinking buddy. Her coworker, her ally in all things. The one who sat there patiently and sighed his way through every video game with her. The one who she rolled her eyes at every time he wanted to watch some new anime with her because he insisted, “You’ll like this one, I swear.”

  She was going to have to watch her best friend die right in front of her, at the hands of the man who said he loved her. At the hands of a man she—maybe at least until right now—loved in return.

  All she had done since she had come here was take it from people. All she had done since the day she woke up with that fucking mark on her arm was to eat the misery other people shoveled onto her. Wading through hell night and day, trying her goddamn best.

  Every time she adapted, every time she thought she was going to be okay, more and more of this bullshit was piled on top of her. Magic appearing tattoo? Fine. Chased by a man-eating corpse? Fine. Abducted? Fine. Nearly drowned? Fine. Rejected? Fine. Threatened? Fine. Murdered? Fine! Raised from the dead as a dreamer? Fine! Mutilated and tortured? Fine!

  But Nick? Killing her friend?

  Going after someone else to hurt her? No more.

  That was too far.

  That was one step too goddamn far.

  If her friend was going to die, she was going to make Aon pay.

  Anger boiled in her the likes of which she had never felt before. She had never really known what it meant to be furious. Lydia wanted to stand. No, she was going to stand. Lydia wrapped her hands around the thing around her neck and silently demanded it was gone. She simply told it to fuck off. If there was power in her—if she was indeed a dreamer—if she was some worthless fucking queen of Under, this was all going to stop. This all stopped right here, right now.

  The tendril came apart in her hands like dust, and she looked down as it dissolved into strange turquoise sand that fell to the floor around her knees. Lydia got to her feet slowly and watched with idle fascination as she saw twisting, glowing, turquoise symbols that were winding their way around her arms as though they were liquid. They were fading in and out of existence, as though they were sinking up and down through waves. As if they only existed when she demanded it.

  Lydia wasn’t in the habit of demanding much in her life. She supposed that was going to change, now.

  When she finally looked up to Aon, he was silent, standing there still as a statue over the body of her dying friend. Whatever he was thinking, whatever expression was on his face, she’d never know. Honestly, she didn’t give a rat’s ass right now.

  “Q?”

  Yeah, Cupcake?

  “Kill him.”

  “Oh, I thought you’d never ask!”

  Aon went rigid, his head tilting back slightly. He clearly heard the voice she had only known in her head until now.

  The feeling of the room shifted. There was the sound of liquid moving as something around the edges of the room stirred. In the moat that ran the circumference of the room, filled with that black and inky opaque liquid, something was moving. Until this point, it had been smooth as glass, but something had come to life beneath its mirrored surface.

  The warlock whirled as a shape pressed up from the liquid. Coils of a giant snake whose body was as black as the liquid from which it emerged. Rising from the water was Q, and he was huge. He coiled around the room several times over, and the black liquid ran in rivers from his empty eye sockets and ghoulish skull. His body was just as ghostly and smoke-like, fading in and out at the edges.

  Q snapped his blue-green wings open wide, spanning the curved walls in a crack that echoed like lightning. The sound made even Aon take a step back away from the great beast. The glow of Q’s wings dwarfed the chandelier overhead, casting the whole of the room in an eerie turquoise light.

  Aon’s hand exploded into flame again as he quickly moved to defend himself. But he was caught off guard and unprepared. Q attacked, almost faster than could be seen like the strike of a cobra. Aon’s shout of pain choked off as the giant snake wrapped the coils of his tail around the warlock’s ribcage and arms and hefted him easily off the floor. Aon fought, but every time he squirmed, Q squeezed.

  “Feel that? Feel that hopelessness? Feel that pain? Each time you breathe in, you have to blow out. And every time you blow out, I’m waiting…right there.” Q squeezed tighter, and she heard a crack of Aon’s bones. “Just like that, every time. Yes! Yes, do it again! Feel that? Isn’t it divine?” Q was mocking Aon’s ecstasy and words from last night when Aon held her own beating heart in his palm. “You know what? You’re right. This is fun.”

  Aon twitched, gagging, choking for air. He coughed, and it was a wet, sloppy sound. There was blood in his lungs. Lydia could only watch, morbidly fascinated, as Q slowly constricted himself tighter and tighter around the man. It might have dragged on for minutes. She wasn’t sure. This was taking longer than she would have expected, but then again…it was Aon. Five thousand years of living and dying was a long time to learn how to suffer.

  “Aaaaaand…” There was a sickening, horrible crunch. “Pop goes the weasel!” Aon twitched once and then went limp, his head rolling forward. Q dropped him to the floor unceremoniously, not caring in the slightest how undignified the King in Black now was, a crumpled and broken heap on the ground.

  Now that Aon was dealt with—at least for now, he’d be back—Lydia ran to Nick. He was lying lifeless on the ground, arms splayed out to his sides, uncaring for the burn that consumed most of his face.

  Oh god…Now that she could see it, she realized the burn hadn’t just taken his skin. It had taken most of his skull with it. He hadn’t just lost his eye. She could see the matter underneath, charred and blackened.

  There was nothing she could do to save him. It had been hopeless the moment Aon put his hand on his face and set him ablaze.

  Lydia sobbed and fell to her knees at Nick’s side, doubling over and pressing her head against his chest. It was still rising and falling, but shallow and weak. She just stayed there, holding on to him, weeping. There was nothing else to do. Nothing else to do but stay by her friend’s side and wait for him to die. The only thing she could do was make sure he didn’t go alone. With the damage he’d suffered, it wouldn’t take long for Nick’s body to give up.

  Her only solace was the fact that he felt no pain. He would have no idea what was happening. “It’s not so bad,” she mumbled to him, knowing he couldn’t hear her. It didn’t matter. She was going to see him off anyway. She took his hands in hers and held them tightly. “Dying isn’t so bad. I promise you’ll be okay. The worst of it’s over. After this, it just doesn’t feel like anything at all. It’s just quiet. It’s peaceful. Oh god, Nick.” She sobbed again, feeling her ribs hurt from how hard it wracked her body. She doubled over, pressing her forehead against his chest again.

  Lydia had been right. It didn’t take long.

  Nick spasmed where he lay, his body convulsing as it came to terms with the lack of an owner. It could no longer keep up the work without artificial help. She could only hold on to him, tears blurring her vision, as he wheezed and then lay still.

  He was gone.

  She wailed, a sound of pure and utter pain and loss. She prayed to any Ancients or Gods or God or anybody who might hear her. She prayed to anyone who might listen to her for someone to take care of her friend.

  How long she stayed there, she couldn’t say.

  A gentle weight settled around her. Q was trying to comfort her. The coils of his tail gently picked her up, scooped her away from Nick. There’s nothing more you can do. Wrapped in the very tip of his tail was something, and he handed it to her gently. A wooden mask etched with dark green symbols. Nick’s. Except remember him.

  She leaned back against Q, whose main trunk of his body was as thick as a tree, and clutched the mask to her chest. “Let’s go home,” she said weakly to the giant creature. There wasn’t a single thing in this world you could give her—except the life of her friend—that would make her stay in this place for another second.

  With a swirl of a turquoise wing, they were gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  This time, it had been Aon who had summoned Lyon to his library and not the other way around.

  It was not uncommon in days gone by that Lyon would find himself standing here in Aon’s home, debating the warlock in matters of politics or science. Despite his belonging to the House of Blood, and in the service of King Rxa, he had shared a keen friendship with the King in Black.

  After the Great War, which took such a massive and aching price from them all, Aon had ceased calling him to his home for such discussions.

  The warlock was sitting in a tall, wingback chair in front of his hearth. The amber firelight cast flickering reflections off the man’s black metal mask and matching prosthetic gauntlet. He was leaning back, his chin resting on the back of his hand, one ankle on top of a knee. Aon very well might have been here for hours, by the look of things.

  Lyon approached, bowed, and waited to be spoken to by the dread king. There was a chance Aon may not know he was yet here. The warlock was prone to becoming lost in the corridors of his mind.

  “It is done,” Aon finally said.

  Lyon had trouble believing it. “You have released Lydia?”

  “Lydia released herself.” Aon’s tone was unreadable. Lyon had once been proud of his ability to discern the moods of his former friend. Regrettably, those days, like all the others, were dead and gone.

  There was a matter he hated to ask over but knew he must. One that his wife had brought to his attention earlier that day. “Do you know where Nicholas may be? Kamira reported he came here once more to visit his friend.”

  “He is dead.”

  Lyon could not hide the shock from his face. “My lord, please tell me you jest.”

  “He is dead. Furthermore, I killed him.”

  Lyon let out a long, heavy sigh. It was not just for the boy’s death that Lyon was concerned. Aon had committed a grave sin in killing another in cold blood. Kings were allowed to commit the act if there was suitable need. But Aon, as part of the treaty signed ages ago after the Great War, was banned from such a thing.

  Once more, they found themselves balanced on the brink of war, this time not in a bid for Lydia’s freedom but revenge for Aon’s act of murder. Edu would not require much to challenge the warlock, and this was undoubtedly worthy enough a cause.

  That Aon seemed utterly indifferent to the act to which he was confessing was also cause for concern. The warlock was a sadist and took great glee in his schemes and games, but he was a staunch opposer to any death sentence since repenting from his acts during the war. To see him so apathetic…worried Lyon. Now less so for the world, but perhaps for the man who had once been his friend.

  “Why?” Lyon asked finally.

  “I needed to break her of her fear. I had to free her of her dependency upon me.” It was only then that the warlock shifted to look down at his clawed hand. “The methods I find more personally enjoyable were not proving to be efficacious or lasting in their impact. Lydia is stronger than perhaps even I gave her credit.”

  “I would question the truthfulness of your desire to remove from her any need of you.” Lyon kept his tone gentle as to avoid angering him. “But for that, I know how you feel for her.”

  The warlock let out an exaggerated, irritated sigh. “Yes, Priest, very well. Will it please you to hear me say the words?” Aon snarled. “I love her! There. Are you quite happy?” The warlock leaned farther back into his chair. “It is meaningless now, regardless. And your overwhelming desire to witness romance unfold around you is sickening and childish. I do not understand how Kamira puts up with you.”

  Lyon bowed his head with a faint smile. “Neither do I, my king.” Aon’s jabs at his expense were not unfamiliar to him. The warlock had often spent as much time tormenting and teasing Lyon as he did confessing to him his most profound thoughts. The man was now, and would always remain, a double-edged sword.

  The moment of strange humor was gone. Aon’s tone darkened once more. “She did not desire to use her gifts and instead would have remained happily within my care. All this has been thrust upon her. I knew there was little I could do to push her far enough for her to leap from that cliffside. Understand that I wished deeply to keep her by my side in such a fashion. My proclivities are no mystery.” He paused. “But to keep her my prisoner would trivialize what she could become. To do so would be a crime against our nature not even I could commit.”

  Lyon pieced together the depth of the situation and sighed heavily. He moved to stand closer to the fireplace and leaned his hand upon the elaborate, ornate mantel. It weighed on his shoulder like a palpable, heavy force.

  Aon had sacrificed the boy to force the girl to spread her proverbial and perhaps literal wings. The warlock had done so, out of love for her. To keep Lydia in chains, cast in gold as they may be, was to do her a deep injustice. Now she was freed of him, and if the death of her friend did as much damage as he suspected it might, she might have shirked her bonds to the warlock in full.

  “Ziza came to me with a prophecy, when I went to the Pool of the Ancients during the rainstorm. She told me where to find Lydia. Told me she would be lost and helpless. She warned me that another king would rise to destroy her. Most troubling, that…a friend would prove to be her undoing. I could not let it come to pass, Lyon. I could not. I love her.”

  “Does she feel the same in return?”

  “Does she, or did she?” Aon huffed a sarcastic laugh at himself. “As of this morning, I believe she was on the cusp. If her situation had not turned so dire, most certainly I could have had her heart. Now, I have committed against her a sin that I do not know if she can forgive.”

  Lyon shut his eyes and bowed his head as the weight of the situation settled further down on him. This had all become a cruel joke played by the Ancients that even Aon could not find the strength to speak out loud. Lyon understood, all the same. Aon needn’t draw the conclusions for him.

  Lyon knew the truth of the Great War, after all.

  So very long ago, Aon found his world lacking in only one way: he was alone. No one had ever come to love the warlock king in all his thousands of years of life. All those who stood at his side in such a fashion were only liars and seekers of influence. Rxa, Dtu, Ini, Vjo, and Edu all found companionship when they desired it, and love bloomed for them like flowers in their seasons. But they no more mourned the fading of their affairs than one might mourn a rose. It would come again in time.

  But no such thing grew for the warlock, not once. And Aon was ever desirous of that which he could not have.

  In thousands of years, never Fell to Under a soul that had become enamored of the King in Black. He sought to find a bride in the only way the twisted man could devise—he would make his own.

  For centuries, he had fashioned puppets and automatons to sculpt a creation. But to create a soul was beyond even the warlock’s dark powers. All his manifestations were empty of such things.

  There was only one creature who could mold from the ether creatures that seemed to live under their own will. King Qta. The father of all the monsters that had not been born of the Ancients. Even those who dwelled within the House of Dreams could not sculpt a soul from cloth such as did their king.

  Lyon did not know what transpired between Aon and Qta the day the House of Dreams fell to dust. All he could get from the warlock was that he claimed he had been given hope, only to have it dashed away from him. That the Ancients saw fit to mock him once more in his agony.

  And now it seemed they had decided to do so once again.

  For only when Aon had surrendered all hope—only when it seemed that their very existence would cease to be—would they give him a child with the capacity to care for him. A fragile glass rose. A mortal in a world of cruel and bloodthirsty monsters.