No, I was wrong. That hadn’t felt like a stone in my stomach, because now it felt like Dajana had chucked a boulder into my belly. I gasped, my chest unable to draw the breath necessarily to ask. To demand she deny it.
I swallowed, and finally inhaled. “What are you saying?”
“Jem is the vessel. The Dark God’s being is unwrapping itself inside him as we speak. If you kill him—”
I didn’t wait for her to finish before jumping off the ledge and dashing out the door. The firefly called after me, but I ignored it. Dajana wasn’t important. I had to find Jem. I had to hear it from Jem.
But he wasn’t in the coffin room, only an old woman wrapped in a shawl who jumped at my abrupt appearance, but like with Dajana, I didn’t wait for her to babble out her shock. Hurrying down the corridor, and the next, and the next, searching for him without a single word, or a single thought of where Jem might go. Searching empty room after empty room.
Until I found myself back at the tower room, the door open and no sign of errant fireflies. But Jem was there, standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed, as he stared at where I’d been sitting when he’d left.
That ashen grey scarf was wrapped around his head and neck. It only took three steps to cross the room to him, but in that time, he had already started to turn, his sapphire blue eyes widening. His lips parted to lie to me again.
When we’d first arrived in Lumi, Jem had pranced around in the bare minimum of clothing, outside or inside. I suspected he’d only worn the coat and hat trekking from Sentei to Lumi to hide from onlookers.
Then he’d worn the scarf around his neck. Then longer sleeves. And now he’d wrapped the cloth around his head.
I grabbed the scarf. Jem clawed at the fabric to hold onto it, but I yanked it free. I let it drop to the floor, pooling between our feet. Jem made a keening sound.
He turned his head away, the right side of his face as clean as an untouched snowfield. But I grasped his chin and turned his head back to me. He tensed, jerked his chin away, but when I kept up the pressure, he gave in.
For that split second, my throat was thick and my loins warmed at his reaction. I leaned forward, as if to capture his lips. Exactly as we should have been, months ago in Nuriya.
But then I guided his chin to the left, and when I stopped pressing, he continued, the arch of his neck straining as he hid his eyes from me. Or perhaps protected himself from seeing my expression.
Just as well. I sucked in a breath, and even to my deaf ears, it rattled in my lungs.
The left side of Jem’s face and neck was covered in black, swirling rot.
A sweet scent like bruised flowers twisted into the rotting stench of meat emanated from the black marks and churned my stomach. I pressed the back of my hand against my nose.
Rot. It was the only word I could think of to describe the rot, even though it wasn’t actually rotting. The skin underneath remained firm, the exact copy of Jem’s other cheek. Just black, black as the obsidian obelisk in the square, like a tattoo.
But the twist in my gut said ‘rot’. With my fingers underneath the clean side of Jem’s jaw, I twitched my thumb over the black swirl. My thumb hovered an inch from his skin, and I pressed down, but my thumb refused to close the distance. Jem still didn’t dare to look at me.
I cleared my throat. “Is it true?”
He pursed his lips. The bump in his throat shifted as he swallowed, the rot rising and falling with it.
“Is it true?” I demanded. “Are you the Dark God’s vessel?”
For a moment, Jem was still. I waited for him to deny it. To say he wasn’t the thing his Dark God would slide into when it slipped into this world, he wasn’t the body that would smirk down on me, as I was tied to a table. To laugh at me while I struggled in vain against the ropes. To lie to me again.
Hemi had died, and Jem replaced him.
“Yes.” His voice was soft.
“Yes, what?”
“When the Dark God comes, I will cease to exist.”
I slammed my hands on Jem’s shoulders. He tensed further, as if trying to decide whether to allow me to attack him or to intervene. I shook him. “What the hell do you mean?”
“What else could I mean?”
“Stop being you!”
He smiled wryly, and the emotionless gesture made me choke. “Soon enough. Just wait.”
I made a half-growling, half-crying sound. Just wait? Just wait for him to stop being him? “This is idle fancy. Backwater superstition. A charlatan coming down from the mountain, tricking you into believing this.”
He shook his head, but used no words to convince me. The evidence was written on his face, on his body. I tore at his robe, ripping the sleeves down his shoulders while Jem stopped breathing.
I dropped the cloth, and the robe hung from the sash, sleeves brushing the flagstone. My palm hovered over his flat and angular breast, his nipple tightening, and I doubted it was from the cold. The black rot glided down his collar bone and around the nipple, descending over his stomach and dipping below the sash and trousers. If the tattoo had been ink pressed underneath his skin, I might have spent days following the swirls with my fingertips, until Jem squirmed with need for me.
I forced my finger to rest against the swirl over his heart. His heart thudded against my touch, the muscle underneath strong and hard. Definitely not rotting. I might have touched a real tattoo if it hadn’t been ice cold, and I followed the curving lines. Maybe if I followed them long enough, I might tickle Jem into admitting the tattoo was a joke, just another one of Jem’s plots.
His skin rippled under my fingers, his breath choked. His body shivered like a virgin, which I very well knew he was. I slid my hands over his body, both black and white, the short white hairs standing at attention, reaching for me. Wanting me. My fingers drank in the feel of him.
Jem pinched his arms to his side, allowing me to touch him when he most likely wanted to jump up, to pull the robe back into place and hide himself. I jerked my head, a black lock dangling over my eyes. The lock appeared brown compared to Jem’s tattoos.
I shouldn’t be doing this. Jem was the enemy and he was not a eunuch, and as my hands approached the band of his trousers, the bulge beneath the knot in his sash made that fact very apparent. In Nuriya, my brothers would crow at the knowledge, spreading rumours that I had lain in bed with an uncut man, that I’d allowed myself to be taken like a pleasure slave. I’d done the same to Mehdi.
But we weren’t in Nuriya. Such things were acceptable in Lumi.
And such things were acceptable in Nuriya if we were bound to each other, tawam rohi to tawam rohi.
Jem turned his cheeks to the side, either unable to watch me or embarrassed by his quivering. Yet still he didn’t push me away, but remained very, very still. I could do anything I wanted to him.
Why wasn’t he shoving me away? Was he merely distracting me again? Or did he actually want me to touch him?
I clenched his shoulders, my fingers wanting to rove again but held taut there. I inhaled, inwardly whispering to my loins that if they did not die down, I’d shove them into a snow bank. Much more was at stake than whether my loins got petted. I shook him again. “You can’t be serious. You’re just going to die? You’re going to let that thing carve you up inside?”
He batted at my hands, but I shook him again. He narrowed his eyes, annoyed. Good. “What choice do I have?” he asked. “Either I die, or I’m swallowed by the Dark God. And only one of those will save my people. You will save my people.”
“Fuck them!” I turned my head to the window. “FUCK YOU ALL!”
“Ilyas…” He sounded resigned to his fate. Well, I wasn’t resigned at all.
“And you! Just giving up. Oh, it’s fine if people who won’t even look at you hand me to the Dark God — who by the way, is fucking vicious. It’s fine if you pretend you’re dead for years and years, waiting in a mortuary. You won’t even start a game because who knows if you’ll even live long enough to finish it!”
He pursed his lips. “That does sound like me.”
I shook him again, and again, and again, waiting for words that never came.
He furrowed his brow. “Why do you even care about me?”
I yanked him into me, wrapping my arms around him. Those Lumians didn’t know. They didn’t understand. Jem wasn’t just some body they could throw around. He could be someone’s tawam rohi. He could make me truly happy.
But of course the Lumians didn’t understand how special he was. Their prince just bonded with whomever he wanted, male or female, peasant or lord. If they even had any lords. They didn’t know what it was like to have to play a part every single moment of every single day, then to find the one person in the entire world who didn’t put himself first, the one who had put me first even though I was his enemy, only to lose him in days?
I clutched him to my chest, and pretended I shook from rage, and not from anything cold and wet sliding down my cheeks. He couldn’t see my expression, only felt my cheek and neck pressed against his. Pressed against the rot that felt even colder than Jem’s already chilled form.
“I don’t want you to disappear,” I whispered.
Jem didn’t say anything, but remained stiff in my arms. A moment passed, then his arms jerked up, brushing my sides, and hovered. I breathed in deep his glorious scent, fields of snow and decaying flowers. With the care normally reserved for delicate vases and blown glass, Jem curled his arms around my back. His hands touched me last, rigid and still, like ice. Like he expected me to wrench away from him if he put too much pressure and I suddenly realised he was there. Because no one had ever hugged Jem. Because all they saw in Jem was the dead prince. I hugged him all the harder.
“How can you accept this?” My voice was thick, and it made me angry. I clawed at his back, at the muscle still cushioning his bones, thanks to his extended stay in Nuriya.
“I…” Unlike mine, his voice was thin, as distant as that careful touch on my back. “I’ve always known I would die. I’m only the slave left to care for this body until the Dark God claims it.”
“Bullshit!” I spat. “You’re the man who toppled the Nuriyite prince heir. You like playing that board game, and can’t bear to leave a game unfinished. You like the view, although only the gods know why, and — and you love to eat those biscuits, although even the gods have trouble understanding that. And you’re the most powerful magic user on the peninsula. Dajana said so. A snowmancer. That’s who you are. That’s you!”
“My abilities are the Dark God’s power spilling over.”
I clenched him harder. “No. That’s you.”
“Everything I am is to be His vessel. His power spills into me, over me, to make me into a strong enough host, and protect me until the time comes for Him to take rightful possession of me.”
“And so you’re going to ignore who you are? You’re going to believe you’re already dead so nothing matters?”
“Why do you even care?” Jem pulled back, but I was stronger, and kept him trapped against me, where I could keep him safe. The Dark God couldn’t climb into his skin if I clutched him hard enough, right?
“Because you’re…” I started to answer, but I couldn’t tell him that. He could not be my tawam rohi. “I don’t want you to disappear. Why don’t you even seem like you care?”
“It’s your life that’s precious.”
I growled into his neck, and he shuddered with a choked moan.
“It’s your life that’s worth something, and I’m stealing that away. But I’m not you. I’m only worth something once I die.”
Because his people were dying. Because he’d devoted himself to the prince heir. Because the prince had a responsibility to the people. Because he thought this was the only way.
“It’s too late, regardless,” Jem whispered. “I can’t stop the Dark God from coming.”
I blinked, and held him harder until he struggled to breathe, as if that would stop everything. But that was only a vain dream. Once again, I was completely powerless. I couldn’t save myself.
And I couldn’t save Jem.
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