I crossed slowly to a window, bracing my hand on the frame, but the Chainlings were right. The garden was enclosed in a courtyard within the arena. A massive tree with drooping branches blocked out most of the sight, but from the small slivers I could see, the blood-red tone of the Brightside had crept in to stain the indigo darkness of the Nightside like spilled watercolors.
I was too tired and numb to be alarmed, and left the window, sinking onto the bed.
Everything felt so cold and dark. The pain radiating from my palm was no longer sharp, but had become a dull burn that ate at my veins like fire.
“Belial.” I whispered his name past dry lips. If we were still bound, even the tiniest fraction… he would hear me. I thought his name as hard as I could, every cell in me calling for him.
If he heard, he gave no response.
I curled up on the bed, surrounded by the emptiness I’d won, and stared out the window until the burning in my veins had died away completely.
Once the pain was gone, there was only an emptiness that swallowed everything in me.
2
Melisande
“You’re avoiding him, aren’t you?”
My fingers tightened on the balustrade of the balcony overlooking my new arena even as I forced a smile for Vyra.
“I’m not avoiding anyone,” I said archly. “I’ll go over to the Brightside whenever I damn well please.”
My succubus friend joined me at the balcony, her pale hair glimmering like diamonds in the ghostly light that filled my Nightside arena. Since I’d taken up residence here, she’d hardly left my side.
Below us, my Chainlings toiled over the arena floor and stands, sanding the obsidian until it shone with a polished gleam and sweeping dust down the tiered stairs.
Even with their relentless work, it paled in comparison to the life and vigor flowing through Belial’s arena.
My lips tightened at the memory of his shadowed eyes. He’d barely spoken to me that night, handing me the reins without a backwards glance.
It’d felt like my heart was being shredded. I still felt that way, every empty day without him like a fist squeezing my chest.
I had no choice but to make the Nightside my new home. I’d spilled my own blood on the walls, keying them to my essence. The Cult of the Divine Chain had immediately gone to work after settling themselves in, and it was nearly impossible to walk down a hall without running into one of them.
I still wasn’t used to the way they sometimes reached out to me with almost reverential hands.
Vyra called me out of my memories with a touch on my shoulder, making me jump. “Your lover is fighting tonight.”
I tore my eyes away from the working Chainlings and glanced at her. Her rose-pink eyes were full of hope.
“Then I’ll go see him.” As the other half of the Seventh Circle, Belial had given me an open invitation to visit his arena whenever I pleased, only days after I’d left like nothing had happened between us. It was the only way I was able to see Tascius. I still wasn’t sure if it was a kindness on Belial’s part, or if he just enjoyed watching me silently yearn for my Nephilim. “Why are you so invested in whether I see Belial or not, anyways?”
Vyra gave me a secretive smile. “I’m a sucker for a happy ending?”
“Mmhmm. I’m sure that’s why.”
She blew out a breath, her glossy lips pursed. “You haven’t been yourself since you left.”
“It’s been one week. How am I supposed to be acting?” I left the balustrade, heading through the dark halls back to my new chamber with Vyra at my side. The Nightside arena was so like the Brightside’s, but so… empty. The halls lacked the same warmth, and it wasn’t due to the constant lack of sun.
It was because it wasn’t Belial’s. It wasn’t the place I’d begun to think of as home.
“You’ve been crankier, for one thing,” she said, pushing my ebony door open. “Crankier than you were when you first fell, and that’s saying something.”
So I might’ve refused to let her paint my chipped nails. In Vyra’s eyes, that was a grave offense.
“Is this because of the nail polish?”
“No,” she snapped, pushing me into the chair. After the Chainlings had cleared out the vast room with the windows overlooking a luminescent garden, she’d had them move in furniture. Most of it seemed designed to please her aesthetic sensibilities rather than be functional, like the little velvet-covered purple pouf she sat me on. “Look, Melisande. I’ve been friends with Belial for many years.”
“I’m sure he’d disagree,” I muttered, and she shot me a glare as she braided my hair.
“See? There’s the bad attitude I’m talking about. But I can say with absolute certainty that I haven’t seen him in this shit of a mood since the last time he had a battle go badly. You’re his battlefield right now, but this is one he doesn’t know how to siege.”
I raised an eyebrow as she draped a chain of silver and amethyst over the crown of my head. “He can take his siege and shove it up his-”
“You’re both furious. You worked well together.” She dabbed glitter on my eyelids. “I’m a succubus, so I’m sensitive to these things. I felt the sexual tension from miles away.”
The last thing I wanted to admit was the odd emptiness I’d felt in my chest since Belial’s brand had vanished from my palm. She’d just push harder. “I’m not apologizing until he frees Tascius or trades him to me.”
“Why would he? You tricked him with that bet.”
I glared at her in the mirror. “So I was supposed to be happy with being a captive for the rest of my life? I was
