lunged forward and grabbed for her arms, attempting to wake her. His hands passed right through her, hitting the cushion back of the wood bench. His fingers curled into fists as panic and anger coursed through him.
“Quinn,” he said. When she didn’t stir, he said it again, and again, and again.
Leviathan’s eye descended into the horizon, and only at the first inklings of a new dawn did she change.
His blood ran cold as a thin line of crimson traced her neck.
He reached for her once more, and this time, she gasped.
Her eyes flew open and her form became corporeal. It took her all of a second to calm and him all of a second to become enraged.
“He hurt you,” Lazarus said, his dark eyes zeroing in on the cut. “He marked you.”
“I hurt myself,” she said, lifting a hand to the line. She seemed absentminded and unaware of his anger.
“Did you kill him?”
He waited for her answer. Eager but uncertain. He’d started this war. He’d vowed to kill his only brother. He wanted him dead . . . but something loosened and tightened in his chest when she said, “No.”
Quinn looked away, and Lazarus frowned.
“No?” he repeated. “You didn’t kill him?”
Instead of answering him, Quinn said, “You didn’t tell me you tried to kill him that night. That you stabbed him and then threw him into the ocean.”
Lazarus stilled, and while the carriage rocked, the windowpanes shuddered, neither of them moved.
“He told you that?” Lazarus asked quietly.
“No,” Quinn replied, watching him carefully. “I saw it.”
“Saw it?”
“In his dream.” She unfolded her arms and dropped her legs away from the bench, turning to face him fully. “He was dreaming of that night when he killed his son and made the offering. I saw your fight and how he threatened to sacrifice you.”
“And me stabbing him,” Lazarus added, flatly.
“And then trying to drown him,” she continued. “You left after that. Ran. I saw what happened then too. Did you know?”
Lazarus’ eyebrows drew together. “Know?”
“He died, Lazarus. Just like me. Except his soul hadn’t left the realm yet before the gods decided to step in.”
He opened and then closed his mouth. He certainly didn’t know.
Lazarus ran that night and only looked back to be sure he wasn’t followed. He never returned to Triene after that. The edge of Norcasta and Bangratas had become the edge of his world as far as he was concerned. That was before Nero had Quinn killed.
“He made a deal with the gods?” Lazarus asked, his eyes dropping from her shrewd face.
“Not just any deal,” Quinn said. “They saved him from death, and he bargained for power. They gave him the means to become each of their heirs. Do you know what this means? There are no other light heirs. He is all of them.”
Lazarus shook his head. “Every god has one champion. You said—”
“Yes, one champion,” Quinn said. “There’s nothing in the rules that says they can’t all choose the same champion. It’s never happened before, and it won’t ever happen again. This is the end. They knew that. They’ve always known that it would end with you and me and him. The dark heirs never made it so far in the past, and the light heirs were never strong enough. But if he is all of them . . .”
“He’s stronger than any Maji,” Lazarus said.
God among men, the title ran through his mind.
Isn’t that what the messenger had said?
He thought it was pure hubris. Arrogance. He hadn’t thought, ritual or not, that Nero truly could rival any of them. All of them.
He was just a healer . . . that could now bring back the dead.
Lazarus cursed.
“How did you get the mark?” he asked, turning over this information in his mind. There was more. There had to be more. Quinn was all powerful in dreams. She was a true nightmare that only waking could extinguish.
“I held my blade to his throat, and it cut both of us.”
Lazarus froze and lifted his head. Their eyes met, and he saw the terrible truth there.
An eye for an eye, the same messenger had said.
Nero loved games as much as Quinn, and that single head had been all the clues he needed.
“Any harm done to him will also be done to the one who causes it,” Quinn continued softly. “I don’t fear death . . . but I hesitated. I went to kill him, not to die as well.”
Lazarus laughed, and it was harsh and grating and swaying that dangerous