The sins?
I shook my head. I didn’t believe that. I believed in reason and logic. I believed the Shivers was an illness to be cured, not a penance to be endured.
“I have not sinned,” I tried to whisper, even as a moan of ecstasy closed my throat. Leopold’s hands roamed over me without restraint, finding parts of me I never even knew existed.
The world moved in strange lethargy as I watched this in the mirror. So much Brilliance had spilled out, and I couldn’t stop it. This was a moment I couldn’t undo. Some part of me had irrevocably broken. There was no fix for this, no going back.
In the mirror’s reflection, I spotted a figure approaching me and wanted to cry. It was the king, dressed in russet velvet, a blackdomino obscuring half his face. I didn’t want him to see me like this. Didn’t want him to see me in the arms of his son, my lips swollen and cheeks flushed, and covered in gold, so much gold.
“What’s this?” he asked, eyes darting from Leopold to the Brilliance. His nostrils flared. “What have you done?”
His sudden anger bewildered me. “I—nothing!”
“Something,” he insisted. He cast the prince aside, wrapping his arms around to pull me into our own dance.
When our hands met, his were red, not gold.
Red and slick and slippery.
I looked back into the mirror and my shimmering dress had turned crimson as great blooms of blood spread across it, staining the fabric, staining the ground, staining me.
“Your Majesty?” I asked before the world spun sideways.
My mind was muddled. I was bleeding. I was bleeding a lot. Why was there so much blood? Dizzyingly light-headed, I fell into a swoon.
We were dying, my body and I. I felt my essence slipping from me, slipping away in the blood, in all that blood, and I knew this was the end. The end of me, the end of my body, the end of everything.
But the candles…,my body reminded me.
The candles!
I had the candles.
I rested my head against the king’s chest, waiting for whatever was to come. Would it hurt? Would I feel Merrick transferring my flame? My mind felt weighted by too many questions and spinning with not enough blood.
I closed my eyes and danced with Marnaigne as the last of my life poured out of me.
He spun me with sudden force, and when I opened my eyes it was Merrick who held me, looming larger than I’d ever thought possible. He looked manic with distress. Tears filled his eyes, falling in black streaks down his dark face. They fell onto my dress, staining the now-red satin black.
My heart thudded, pumping in vain to circulate the remainder of my blood. Why didn’t I have enough blood? There was something wrong. My next candle had not been lit. This wasn’t a fresh start. This was…
This was the end.
I began to shake, chilled yet feverish. My limbs jerked and jumped. I was powerless to stop them. Black sludge welled from my pores, thick and viscous. More and more came out, ripping me open as it tried to escape. It was darker than the night, darker than my godfather, darker than even his tears.
It was absolute and unending and it was about to consume me, no matter how many candles my body and I had left.
I shut my eyes, for there was nothing left to do but welcome my certain death. Merrick’s voice echoed after me as I fell down the darkened tunnel, a snarl of helpless rage.
“What have you done?!”
Chapter 27
I woke with a start,gasping for breath and fighting against the sheets tangled around my limbs. It felt as if a terrible weight was holding me down, as if the nightmare had somehow followed me into waking life.
It was too dark to see the room around me, but I had a vague memory of returning from the Between, of being taken to the palace.
The palace,I thought, trying to sort through all the unfamiliar shadows of the room. I was in the palace. I struggled to roll over, remembering there’d been a candlestick on the little table beside thebed.
