Cruel Beauty

Ignifex let go of me. I blinked at his moving lips and realized he was speaking.

“Are you all right?” When I didn’t answer, he slapped my face lightly. “Listen to me! Can you speak?”

“Yes.” The word came out low and rough.

He inspected my arms. “I do believe you’ll live. Tonight.”

The tone of his voice sparked my anger back to life, and the rest of me with it. I raised my head, teeth bared—

He poked me in the forehead. “But is there any limit to your idiocy?”

“You mean my idiocy of not being told your demons are ru

“I told you that some doors in this house were dangerous. And I tucked you into a nice, safe room for the night. It’s not my fault that you snuck out of bed.”

“You locked me in a tomb!”

“Safe and snug.” Ignifex’s voice was still light, but there was a strained note to it. “And now it’s past my bedtime.”

Abruptly I realized three things: He was wearing dark silk pajamas. He was swaying as if about to collapse. And the darkness was eating him.

Not shadows. It sounds strange, but the little dark tendrils that lapped at his skin, leaving behind red welts, were nothing like the unca

My skin still crawled at the sight.

Ignifex steadied himself with a hand against the wall. “You will help me to my room,” he said through his teeth, and there was a sudden strained note to his voice. Almost as if he was afraid.

The same way I had been afraid of the demons when they crawled out the door, and afraid of the dead wives when he locked me up with them, and afraid every day of my life because I knew the Gentle Lord was going to possess me and nobody would ever save me.

The cold swirl in my chest felt like an old friend.

I crossed my arms. “Why?”

He blinked as if he had never considered the question. Or maybe it was only dizziness, for the next moment he fell to his knees. The darkness swirled and swelled around him. Red welts bloomed across his face.

My heart scrabbled to beat faster, but I wasn’t afraid anymore. For the first time, I wasn’t the one who was helpless.

My voice felt cold, lovely, and alien as crystal in my throat. “Why should I help you anywhere?”

Though he was slumped against the wall now, he managed to look up at me. His catlike pupils were so dilated they looked almost human.

“Well . . . I did save your life.” Then he doubled up in pain and slid to the floor.

As long as I could remember, the anger had writhed and clawed inside me, and no matter how much it hurt, I had choked it down. Now at last I hated someone who deserved hatred, and it felt like I was Zeus’s thunder, like I was the storms of Poseidon upon the sea. I was shaking with fury, and I had never felt so glad.

“You killed my mother. You enslaved my world. And as you pointed out, I will live here as your captive till I die. Tell me, my darling lord, why should I thank you for my life?”

He was gasping and shuddering with pain, and he didn’t seem to be seeing me anymore as he whispered, “Please.”

I knelt over him and smiled down into his face. My body was wrapped in ice; my voice came from somewhere very far away.

“Do you think you are safe with me?”

Then I stood and walked away, leaving him all alone in the dark.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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12

I felt strong and proud and beautiful as I strode down the hallway. Let him be scared and helpless and alone. Let him taste what it was like for those eight dead girls to lie alone in the darkness, for Shade to be a slave in the castle where he had once been prince, for me to know that I was doomed and nobody would ever save me.

Let him taste it and die—if he could. I wanted to believe that the darkness would kill him, that it would burn flesh down to bone and bone to ash. Because then the impossible would come true: my duty would change. I wouldn’t need to collapse the house with myself in it. With the Gentle Lord dead, the Resurgandi would have all the time and freedom they needed to undo the Sundering without sacrificing me. And I would be able to go home, to tell Father I had avenged my mother, to beg Astraia’s forgiveness to her face instead of whispering the words to a mirror.

But I remembered all the tales of people who tried to kill the Gentle Lord and failed. This burning darkness might be a more fitting weapon than a knife, but I couldn’t believe it would actually work, that the demon who commanded all other demons could die so easily. Most likely Ignifex would only suffer until dawn and then recover.

There were stories of people he’d tricked into such terrible fates that they had begged for death but lived on. Even if all I had managed was to give him a few hours of that pain, at least it was some measure of revenge— for my mother, for Damocles, for all the people he had tricked to their deaths and all the people he had allowed his demons to destroy. And while he was occupied, perhaps I could find a way to kill him once and for all.

I threw open the doors in front of me and looked out on the Heart of Water.

“Shade!” I called eagerly. Maybe he knew what had become of my knife, maybe he knew what I needed to do next. Maybe Ignifex could die tonight, and I could be free.

But he was nowhere to be seen. I wandered out to the center of the room, but he didn’t come. I was alone, and this night the lights couldn’t hold my attention; I kept staring at the still water, where my face was faintly reflected. It made me think of Astraia’s face, pale and wide-eyed as I left her.

She is avenged now, I thought, but that just reminded me of Ignifex’s face, full of the same blank horror as the darkness closed over him.

I shook my head. They were nothing alike. Astraia was kind and gentle and deserved nothing but my love, while Ignifex kept his dead wives as trophies and deserved nothing but my hate.

The Heart of Water, always so beautiful, suddenly felt empty and wrong. I strode out, blindly unlocking doors and turning corners until suddenly I was back in the dining room. The sky was pure, velvety black except for the silver crescent of the moon; chandeliers hung from the ceiling and cast warm, flickering light over the table, which was set with clean, empty dishes. I stalked forward, glowering at the table as I remembered Ignifex’s smile flashing at me over his wineglass.

I do like a wife with a little malice in her heart.

I picked up one of the wineglasses and flung it across the room. The other one followed. Then I dashed the plates to the floor and flung the silverware after. I threw the silver candlesticks at the wall; I seized an empty silver platter and started to beat it against the table.

That was when I realized how ridiculous I must look. I dropped the platter. Tears stung at my eyes; I scraped them away, but more came, until I was sobbing in front of the di

I had done what two hundred years of the Resurgandi—what every person in Arcadia, what even the gods themselves—had found impossible. I had taken revenge on the Gentle Lord. I had made him taste the pain he handed out every day, and even if it was but for a few hours, that made me a hero. My heart should be singing.

But I was inconsolable. No matter how many dishes I crushed, no matter how I thought of generations crying out for revenge, I couldn’t forget the fear in Ignifex’s eyes, or his harsh, panicked breaths as he begged me.