Page 17 of All Hallows Fate

“No.”

The tightness in my chest stabbed deeper as she pushed my hand from her cheek. “That’s why I’m here. I came to kill him. That’s why I need to find everything on this list.” There was a small leaf of paper clenched in her fist, crumpled. “This is how I can kill him, and get justice for myself. So no, you will not be killing him. I will.”

Her words were like a kick to the stomach. “Cat, killing someone… it leaves a stain. Follows you forever.” I opened my mouth to tell her that those she’d killed while she was alive had haunted her, but she was already speaking.

“Good. I never want to forget how it feels to exact his final judgement. He deserves death. I won’t rest until those who killed me got what they deserve.”

“Let us do it,” I tried to argue, but her brows slammed down over her eyes and a flutter of power went through the air. This wasn’t just my wife; this was a goddess, and the magic crackling between us was a punch to the gut. I didn’t care that she had power, didn’t even care if she was more powerful than me. I cared that she bled out in the space of seconds, her life ripped away, and now she was a woman driven purely by cold-blooded revenge. I cared that she didn’t know us, didn’t know how loved she was.

But right now, she wasn’t terrorised by Nightmare’s curse and Cruelty’s mind games. She didn’t remember it, wasn’t crushed under the weight of everything that had happened, and I’d be damned if I let killing Violence bring that weight back.

“You’re trying to steal my kill,” she accused, her eyes as sharp as daggers, voice as honed as razorblades. “You want it for yourself, you don’t want me to be the one to end him.”

“No, because—”

“So you admit it,” she laughed, harsh, shaking her head. “Wow. I thought you all wanted to help me, that you wouldn’t let me do this alone out of some protective honour because we were married—”

“We are married—”

“But you won’t let me kill him, full stop.”

Her eyes combusted like fire, violent grey lit from within. I staggered back like I’d taken an arrow to the chest. She was so beautiful, so dangerously beautiful, so alive despite being dead. A lump pressed against the thin skin of my throat, trapping all my words.

Cat’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “I know you’re struggling, and I’m sorry I can’t remember you, but you don’t get to dictate my actions.”

I blinked. “Is that why you asked to borrow my clothes?” I asked in a gravelly voice. “Because I’m struggling.”

She took a beat to answer, and I heard my answer loud and clear. Here I’d been thinking some part of her remembered me, knew I’d give her the entire fucking mortal realm on a silver platter if she only asked.

I spun on my heel, trailing dark power like cracks in the valley until I tightened my grip on my magic and choked it off. Everyone else felt miserable enough; they didn’t need me making it worse. That didn’t stop me storming across the valley, past the cluster of horses that lazily ripped up flowers, to where Tor stood, kicking at a mound of grass. Pretending he hadn’t been watching. Pretending he hadn’t sent Cat over to talk to me. The only fucking reason she did.

“I don’t need you interfering,” I barked the moment I was close enough for him to hear.

“It’s called giving a shit, Miz,” he replied calmly. His eyes met mine and held, as if he could cool the raging wave crashing hurt into me over and over. “You’re not the only one who’s in pain.”

“I know,” I snarled, the wave crashing out of my bones, my skin, until I shook. “Why do you think I’m keeping this shit to myself? Do you think I don’t know you’re all back there with me, on that chessboard, with our dead wife? I know. Just leave it, Tor. Stop pushing. That’s what you do. You push and push until something snaps, and I don’t want to snap. So leave it.”

I walked away before I could say something else, something worse.

13

Cat

An atmosphere gnawed at the spaces between our horses as we rode across a plain entirely buried in mist. The churning white fog had steadily gathered around us the further we travelled from Death’s castle, and I kept expecting the ground to fall away but Pain’s magic scouted ahead in tendrils that wriggled like snakes, traversing the opaque carpet of fog. So far, the ground was solid.

We barely spoke, that tension in the air killing any attempt at conversation. I wanted to know about the past I’d shared with these men, wanted to tease out details about the person I’d been and compare it to who I was now. Instead, I kept my gaze forward as Fuzzball picked a confident path through the prairie, giving her a nudge when she contemplated stopping to gnaw on the wildflowers scattered around the golden grasses.

It was partly my fault, this atmosphere. My mind had cleared enough to know I overreacted, that the revenge-hungry beast in me had snapped its teeth, possessive over its prey, when Miz had only been trying to spare me the trauma of murdering someone. The problem was I knew I’d killed before. I didn’t know who, didn’t remember why or how, but the knowledge was immutable. I was already a killer.

Even if I hadn’t been, I’d have broken that particular innocence to enforce final judgement on Violence. The other was already dead, his sister I’d discovered by listening to the conversations of the men. My men, even if that still felt entirely too strange to give much thought to. But there was no denying they knew me. They seemed to sense my needs and desires before I even spoke them, sometimes directing their horses in the direction I was tugged before I’d had a chance to issue new instructions.

Trust your bonds. This was what that note at the bottom of my list meant. These bonds, the connection linking me to each of these men. These death gods. They were certainly devoted to me, possibly a little too devoted given their tendency to crowd me between them the second a threat veered into our path, be it a wild animal or the rare wandering spirit. I had enough magic to defend myself, but maybe that hadn’t always been true. Maybe I’d once been mortal and vulnerable. If only I could remember that.

Irritation eroded my temper bit by bit, until I needed to know my past. I needed the black hole in my mind to be packed full of memories and truths and identity. I was so sick of these gods looking at me and seeing someone else. Why should they get to know who I’d been when I didn’t know? It was unfair.

“Which way now, little bride?” Death asked, glancing across at me as he rode beside Fuzzball and I. Every time he called me that, it was like my mind ached to remember. Like I’d heard it so many times before, the memories were an avalanche waiting to hit.

“Straight forward,” I replied, hoping he hadn’t noticed my pause. I looked over, a leap and crash in my heart as our eyes locked. His were the dark, unfathomable grey of a storm, and the eye contact hit me with the force of a typhoon. “Over the hill,” I added, my voice a surprise rasp.