Page 119 of These Vile Hearts

My heated conversation with Castor resurfaces in my mind. Just before he lifted me onto that piano and everything fell apart. And at the same time…pieced together.

Would you die for the cursed prince?

If I loved him, I would.

“It’s embarrassing, really,” I say to Durian after a moment. “To think that the whole reason you’ve done all of this is because you’re jealous of your little brother.”

Disgust and a glimmer of bitterness darken the king’s eyes until they’re the color of tree poison. “Why would I be jealous of an adopted abomination everyone despises?”

“Because people don’t despise him, do they? They love him. In fact, even after you invented your little curse, theykeptloving him. How many people did you have to kill to convince Castor he was cursed? Over and over and over. All those people willing to die for the cursed prince. But no one is willing to die for you, the golden king.”

His upper lip curls, but I can tell by the set of his shoulders he still thinks he’s the winner of this game. “Shame the one person he needed to love him was trying to murder him instead.”

“A person can both love someone and want to murder them. The fact that they don’t go through with the act is the proof.”

Durian visibly tenses.

All I can see of Castor is his shadow in the lamplight, his head now hung. It tilts at this. “If that is true, why did you not murder me?”

“Because Ididfucking love you, Castor.” There is more agony in the words than I’d like.

His shadow goes utterly still, head turning toward me. “And now?”

“Now, I hate you.” His head starts to bow again, and Durian’s shoulders relax. My heart thrums. “And yet…I love you still.”

Several things happen at once. A loud crack splinters the air. Both Sempervirens brothers look down at their wrists, then over at each other. A pact completed. The bars to Castor’s cell slide open just as Durian pushes through mine—moving between the wooden bars as if they’re nothing more than dangling vines.

“You really shouldn’t have said that.”

Like a prowling lion, he slinks forward, then lunges, clasping my wrists and slamming them back against the wall. Vines erupt from the floor, slithering around my legs as Durian holds my arms above my head, pinning them with his hands clamped just beneath my wrists. His breath burns hot on my neck, his nose dragging along my jawline. “I’m going to enjoy killing you the most, I think.”

“Get off her,” Castor warns from the other side of the bars, looking more murderous than he did the night he killed the blood nymphs. He holds out his hands, a dangerous cloud of rot and decay billowing between his palms. But it crashes against the bars of my cell like they are a wall of glass. Solid again.

Without releasing my wrists, Durian turns to lay eyes on his brother, a laugh rumbling in his chest. “You may have been liberated from your prison sentence, but I have one final kill to make.”

Yeah. So do I.

I twist my wrist back, my fingers wriggling into my hair, piled on my head and tied in a bun. My fingers root around until I grasp the base of the syringe I tucked there yesterday, expertly popping off the cap with one hand. Like I have a million times before.

With a flick of my wrist, I bury the needle deep in Durian’s neck and push down on the plunger. Dark red blood pools around the needle, pumping his carotid with the tree poison I filled it with.

It takes the Redwood King two seconds too long to realize what I’ve just done. His green eyes grow wide. Durian releases me and claps a hand to the syringe in his neck, ripping it out. Blood follows the needle in a spurting stream. He blinks up at me, the vines sliding from my legs. Veins of black spread from his wound, spiderwebbing across his neck and up his face, darkening the whites of his eyes and turning his lips a purplish gray. He opens his mouth as if trying to gulp down air, but instead, a rattling gasp turns into a strangled cry.

Then he crumples to the ground, neck twisted at an unnatural angle, eyes staring at nothing. The bars to my cell glide open and the empty syringe falls, rolling to rest beside the dead king.

38

Castor

For years, Durian made me believe I was plagued to be unlovable. That I was a revolting, cursed thing. So I became what I believed I was. What Durianconvincedme I was. After I was adopted, I believed the people who loved me were doomed to die, so I kept everyone at arm’s length. Embraced the darkness Durian brought out in me. Because he hated that Cyperus chose me over him. So he found the best way to punish a lonely, adopted boy. Keep him lonely forever.

I suppose, in a way, Iwascursed, having him as my brother.

Looking down at his body now, I keep expecting him to pop back up. To remind me that he always wins the game. But he doesn’t. He just keeps lying there like a shiny new toy no one ever got to play with.

Labyrinthine emotions thrash in my core, twining together until I can’t identify any single one of them.

Relief takes hold of Happiness, which latches onto Pain, who grabs hold of Regret, which turns into Anger, which settles into Numbness. Then I remember what Maddox said,I love you still,and the emotion that comes next is unnamable. Perhaps it is all of them woven together. Without thought, I reach for her, an invitation.