Cruel Beauty

Ignifex looked at me, all laughter suddenly gone from his red eyes. “He knew very well who I am and how my bargains work. And yet he came to me of his own free will, to have a man killed so he would not have to risk his life or dirty his hands. Tell me, my kindly wife, what part of that deserves mercy?”

I stared right back at him. “And if he deserves justice, do you think you deserve to give it him?”

“We all must do our duty.”

Ignifex caught my hands as I was about to leave; his fingers, warm and dry, wrapped around mine.

“Nyx Triskelion, do you want to guess my name?”

I stared back at him—his shoulders, his lips, the pale skin of his throat that I had once (however briefly) longed to kiss. I felt nothing.

“What’s there to guess? I already know you’re a monster.”

I hunted the house for hours, until my feet ached and my eyes felt gritty from exhaustion. I kept moving, even after my stride had dwindled into a shuffle and I barely noticed the rooms around me. But I couldn’t bear to stop, because that would mean admitting defeat for another night, and Astraia might be crying right now and Damocles would be infected tomorrow. How could I rest while they were hurting?

Finally I opened a door and walked into Shade.

I stumbled back, heart jumping from surprise. “Shade!” I gasped. We met each other’s eyes and instantly looked away.

“I’m sorry—” We both spoke at once, then fell silent.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated softly. “I couldn’t stop it,” and there was naked shame on his face. Like his smile, the expression was so human that it stabbed right through me.

“I know.” I grabbed his hand. “You can’t disobey him. I’m sorry I was angry at you—I wasn’t angry, I was—” I drew a breath. “I knew what he did. But I’d never seen it.”

He took my other hand. “Come,” he said, and drew me through the doorway, into the Heart of Water. The lights swirled over the surface of the water, just as I remembered.

“You need to rest,” said Shade.

I shook my head. “Damocles is dying right now because of—of my husband.” The words felt like rocks in my mouth, but they were true. “I can’t just sit here and enjoy the house made by his powers.”

“You can’t help people when you’re exhausted.”

Then he sat down, still holding my hands, so I had no choice but to sit with him. And once I was off my feet, it was such a relief that I wasn’t sure I could get back up again. The lights swirled away from us and then swooped down again, their reflections dancing on the surface of the water in counterpoint. It was just as beautiful and peaceful as I remembered. But the memories of Astraia and Damocles stuck under my skin like splinters.

I looked at Shade. He sat straight and still, watching the lights. Their reflections glittered in his blue eyes and cast glimmers on his colorless face, peaceful as a marble statue. He looked like a prince, not a slave.

“How do you bear it?” I asked. “All these years—” The question suddenly seemed childish and insensitive, and I snapped my mouth shut.

But Shade didn’t look offended. “Because I don’t imagine I can stop him.”

But I have to, I thought. Damocles will die because I didn’t stop Ignifex fast enough.

As if he knew what I was thinking, Shade said, “Whatever you do will be too late. He should have died nine hundred years ago.”

I laughed shakily. “That’s comforting.”

“You’re still going to save us.” His blue eyes met mine. “You are our only hope.”

“Hope.” I looked away, because I couldn’t keep the childish resentment out of my voice. “I don’t even know what that feels like.”

He touched my cheek to make me look back at him. Then he held out his hand, cupped upward. Some of the lights drifted down to nestle in his palm, where they lay still and contented. Then he turned to me.

“Take them,” he said.

Holding my breath, I cupped my hands, and he poured the lights into them. They felt like a handful of seed pearls warmed against skin—but they trembled as if stirred by a breeze, and fizzed against my palms like drops of beer. After a few moments they started to drift upward; Shade clasped his hands over mine, and captive light danced between our palms.

He smiled again—his real smile, the one that had made me kiss him—and again I couldn’t help smiling in return.

I could see the movement of his shoulders as he breathed, and the slight shift of tendons in his throat. I could feel every fraction of his hands that touched mine. He might be pale as a ghost, but his body was real. For one moment I wanted nothing but to lock my fingers in his pale hair, to kiss him until it was his breath that moved in my throat, until his peace was mine. I wanted it like breathing.

But I couldn’t bear to risk shattering the peace in his eyes. And I couldn’t bear, either, the risk of making him reject me.

“You have heard of the stars?” said Shade. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. “These lights are the nearest thing we have left.”

“But . . . they’re so small,” I said, my voice wavering. The poems said that the stars were a distant beauty, not a glimmer you could trap between your hands.

“The nearest thing we have left,” he repeated. “And they were the nearest thing I had to hope.”

My breath caught. He said the words easily, as if we were discussing the weather—but to think of him alone in this house, no comfort but scraps of light, his daylight body a shadow, his nighttime body a parody of his captor’s—

“Then you came,” said Shade. “And now I have true hope.”

“You say that,” I muttered, “as if I’m a hero.”

“You are,” he said.

“A hero would have saved Damocles.” My throat ached. If I had only said the right words—

And people were dying like this every day. Every day, and I wasn’t saving any of them.

“You can’t save them all,” said Shade. “Any more than I can.”

I let out a laugh that was nearly a sob. “That’s comforting.”

“But you can stop him,” said Shade. “No one else can. That makes you our hope, even if nobody knows about you.”

I sighed. “Say that when I’ve actually managed to hurt my husband.”

“You will,” said Shade.

“I’m not so sure,” I whispered.