Or I could put him to sleep. Reserve a little of his blood, and then drink it when the others arrive, to keep him submissive while Locke tattoos him. I could make my brother speak a vow that will shut away his magic forever. He can return to Ravensbeck with us and live there, and perhaps we can find help for his mind.
Or maybe, even if we take away his magic, he will simply find another way to kill.
The image of the half-naked woman sears my brain. Mordan did something unspeakable to her before she died, or afterward—and he killed those children.
I hold the images of the murdered family in my mind, a totem to strengthen my decision, my resolve.
Throwing Mordan the brightest smile I can manage, I seal my lips to the wound in his arm, and I drink, more deeply than I ever have from anyone. My brother’s blood fills my mouth, slides warm down my throat. Something wakens inside me, shifting and vibrating to life.
I lurch backward, swallowing convulsively, the back of my hand pressed to my lips. “Mordan.” My voice is thick with blood, my tongue slick and bitter. “I love you.”
Mordan cocks his head. “And I love you.” But like every other time he’s said it, the words echo, hollow and meaningless. This brother of mine, my first friend—he doesn’t know what love is. Maybe he did briefly, with his Wessa and Gil—but he doesn’t truly love me or anyone else now. His only love is himself, and whatever he wants in the moment—pleasure, revenge, control.
Death.
“Take the knife,” I say gently. And then I command him for the last time.
When it’s over I collapse, weak and weeping, into the blood pooling from his throat, and I press my hand to his forehead.
After everything—after theWending Willowand theArdentand Locke—this feels wrong. Too simple and too cruel at once. I can’t fathom that it’s over, that he’s really gone, that I don’t have to endure the eternal gnawing dread in my gut, the horror of who he might be hurting.
The relief is sharp agony, so sharp I can’t bear it—and the guilt is a matching blade piercing my heart, because I shouldn’t feel relieved.
It feels as if the air should scream with the keening wails of my soul, but instead the island is quiet. The breeze has died to a mere breath of soft sea air, tinged with salt and the sweetish stink of rot. Pale bands of sun slant over Mordan’s slumped body, and flecks of dust and pollen glimmer in those hazy shafts of light.
It is perfectly, torturously quiet.
What have I done?
What have I—
What did he make me do? Gods, what did I do?
I sit there, immobile and silent, while my heart bleeds and my power churns inside me, shifting, changing.
When the pirates clamber over the lip of the ledge and enter the cave, they stand wordlessly around me while Locke drops to his knees at my side. I’m not crying. I can’t cry. My eyes are salt and bone.
“You ended it,” Locke says quietly. “My good, brave girl. My queen.”
But I don’t feel like a queen. I feel—broken. I feel like a piece of the horror Mordan wrought lives inside me, like his blood in my stomach has poisoned me forever.
Twisting toward Locke, I hold out my wrist. “Tattoo me,” I whisper. “Keep me from ever using my magic again. Please, Locke.”
He frowns, concern and love pooling in his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“If I change my mind, you can remove it, right?”
“Only with your consent,” he says.
“Good. I’ve never wanted this power, and I’ve never liked what it does to me. I think it’s growing, and I have to stop it before I turn into someone I don’t want to be.”
He nods. I know he might be disappointed—he wanted to use my ability for questioning prisoners in Ravensbeck, and for who knows what else. I’m doing this as much for him as for me, to protect him from someday using me for my power in a way that would wreck our love. Right now, he is noble enough to do as I ask. One day, neither of us may be strong enough to resist the lure of ultimate control.
Locke cuts the weatherproof seal on his satchel and opens it. Two of the ink bottles have cracked and leaked, but the third is intact. With needles, ink, and magic, he writes my spoken vow into my skin—a vow to never use my magic again. And the pirates witness it, silently. I’m not sure how many of them knew about my ability, if Locke explained to them exactlyhowI’d be subduing my brother—but now they all understand. And they know I have given up this part of me, locked it away so I can truly become someone new.
When Locke is done, I have a black rose circled by thorns on the tender flesh of my inner right wrist.
79
