EMRYS

EMRYS WOKE TO HAZE. His mouth was cotton, his ears were cotton, and his head was cotton; it felt criminal that the room around him was not a matching white but instead drenched in shadow and lamplight.

As he blinked, he no longer found the grand staircase he'd left behind. Much like the great hall, the room was made of solid onyx, with ornate gold and white embellishments. He laid upon a plush king bed, draped with a silk canopy that stretched to the vaulted ceiling. Fluffy, tasseled pillows kept him propped in a reclined position. Brilliant hellfire lamps illuminated the space, casting ominous shadows in their flickering light.

For a room so large, it felt so painfully empty; not a single piece of artwork adorned the walls, and the furnishings were minimal. In fact, the lack of personal touches made it feel as if it had remained uninhabited for an indiscernible length of time.

Despite its oddities, Emrys couldn't help but find familiarity in its walls. He didn't believe he'd ever been there, nor the mausoleum that had sucked them into Hell in the first place, but everything about it felt as though it had once been—as the Demons had said—his home.

And, at the center of the luxurious bedroom, was Thana. Her blurred form swayed back and forth at a long wooden bar, humming a staccato tune that reverberated off the walls. She poured from a bottle that was darker than night itself. Slowly, carefully, she filled two glasses with midnight green Ambrosia.

Emrys could almost taste it on his tongue, despite never having consumed it in this lifetime: sweet and smokey and bitter all at the same time. Something that contradicted itself just as much as its pourer. Something that went down too smoothly—a poison that was easy to consume too much of and find death's embrace before the glass was finished.

It was fitting.

"There's something breathtaking about being yourself for the first time in centuries." Thana turned over her shoulder, smiling as if she knew he had woken without him making a sound.

When she corked off her bottle, Emrys forced his muddled brain to focus. There wasn't much clarity in his memory, but he recalled how he'd been frozen in place the moment the Demons were banished. Voices had swirled in loud, bitter tones that sliced his expectations of what their reunion would be. There was a blur of action: Eva with the stone, falling to the ground, and being beaten with swift kicks from Thana's boots.

Emrys' blood boiled. Raw emotion forced definition into the world's fuzz. His anger rose as he flashed back to Eva vanishing into smoke, succumbing to the same fate as the Demons, and sent somewhere in Hell's bowels. Somewhere that wasn't with him.

"Simmer down." Thana's voice, which had brought him peace in the midst of every catastrophe, was anything but comforting.

Her undertone was almost slimy. Unsettling. Enough to make his skin crawl.

It wasn't her. It couldn't be.

"Where did you send Eva?" Emrys' words were slow and slurred. Panic rose through his anger, twisting and spiraling with conflicting emotion. "What happened to you? This... this isn't you."

His voice fell, but she turned with a grin wide enough to tell him she'd heard him loud and clear. He blinked, trying to force clarity to her approaching form. It was like attempting to see a whisper, with spinning vision and colors fading in and out of shadow.

The next thing he knew, she was upon him, sitting atop the bed and handing him a chalice. Emrys raised his hand out of habit, but his fingers only brushed the stem. Taking it was not an option.

"I know you're afraid," said Thana. "You've never met the real me... not in this lifetime. But I promise, I will change your mind about my true self."

Thana's expression shifted rapidly from malicious amusement to a more gentle, kind smile. Her eyes returned to the same hue as the Astraelan sea—a shade so easy to be lost in that it could drown someone who stared for too long. As she reached out for him, he recoiled.

He couldn't let her touch him again. Not with the dwindling life her curse had already stolen.

"Oh, honey." Her voice was sickeningly sweet. "It's okay. Nothing can save you now."

Before he could resist, her fingers trailed down his thigh until finally coming to rest atop his knee. He refused to look at her. Instead, he stared down into her chalice. Ripples of dark emerald distorted his graying features.

"Enjoy the luxury while you can. After tonight, you will be placed in a room of your own until you return to ash."

Emrys tried to open his mouth to protest, or cuss her out, or do anything but remain silent, until he was stopped by her finger against his lips. The moment her skin brushed against his, a soothing effect enveloped him in mind-numbing calm. Its warmth bled into his aching muscles, relieving tension that had built up for far too many weeks... and adding to the constriction of his throat. He was rendered speechless by her magic, and when he noticed his hand still hovering where the goblet had once been, fingers bent in perpetual hesitation, he realized he couldn't move. Once again, he was bound and frozen—only, this time, he was conscious.

And he was terrified.

"Emrys, Emrys..." cooed Thana, patting his cheek. "Stop denying it. You're going to die, and no one can stop it."

Though he wanted to assure her that, come Hell or high water, Mystia would find a way, he could not. He only watched as Thana brought her goblet to his lips. As the liquid sloshed against his skin, he fought it, thankful for his statue-like state. But her hand on his thigh grew warmer. More pleasurable. It was coercing, and before he knew it, he was drinking in the oddly familiar liquid. It burned all the way down—nothing like the smoothness of his favorite Nectar. If it hadn't been for his frozenness, he would have winced.

As the liquid slid down Emrys' throat, it clouded his brain. It was part intoxicating, part convincing—and overall the horrifying opposite of anything he wanted to feel.

Thana set the chalice aside and gripped the hem of his shirt with a teasing tug. "Fighting will do you no good. A little pleasure never hurt anyone... and it might even help you remember."

When she lifted the shirt over his head, he was powerless to stop her from slipping his arms through the sleeves. Tossing it aside, she ran her hands over his shoulders and rested them at the nape of his neck. Her fingers slipped back and forth across the scythe tattoo that spanned his back.

Her most trusted weapon.

The sadistic grin widened across her lips. "Hello, old girl..."

Thana drew her hand away from his skin, and a sharp tingle radiated down his spine as she pulled the scythe from its enchanted ink. She brought it around him to hold the weapon close, running her finger along its curved blade. With a soft laugh, she shifted its hook around his neck. The blade dug into his skin with too little force to cut him, but enough to compel him closer.

Emrys' chest pressed against Thana's firmly as she caressed his face. Shivers raced across his body while her touch tripped involuntary pleasure. It was as if every part of him hungered for her, creating a deep yearning that he couldn't fight.

Clearly, Thana noticed as well, judging by the wideness of her smirk.

"I will miss you, you know." Her free hand trailed his back in slow, methodical patterns. "A thousand years without my darling is a very long time."

As her hand lifted, his wings unfurled, spanning wide behind him before nearly falling limp.

At first, he almost didn't feel it: the sensation of one wing torn beneath her blade. It should have been immensely painful. Scarring. The kind of pain that made one crave death.

Instead, he felt a gentle tug upon his wing, and when he turned, saw the spray of ash coating Thana's wrist.

"When you return, the gods will surely strip you of your memories. A shame, really." Thana placed her free hand upon his back, leaning in so far that her lips brushed his ear. "But I won't be lonely... even in your absence, our heir will remain."

A second tear split his wing. This time, with more force—enough to make him wince. Thana came away with a fistful of ash, and her delighted smile showed more lust than it ever had when she looked into his eyes.

Emrys' heart sunk. She hadn't wanted him; she had wanted a part of him. Wings that held power. Immortality. Ones made of the very ash that granted him the abilities that made him... himself.

Thana turned back with a gleeful expression, one drunk on possibility and wonder and everything that made Emrys' insides wrench.

"Our Child of Darkness will reign forever."

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