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“So dramatic.” I grin, then rap my knuckles over the statue, listening for resonance. A ripple of fire ants scuttle over my hand. I knock again, expecting another wave, but I receive a tsunami. The sharp sensation hurtles me back into Fox.
“What happened?” he asks, catching me.
“The magic latched onto me.”
He scoffs. “Maybe Styx knows you’re here.”
“Maybe.” But I’m not sure. That sensation was... “It felt familiar, like my old magic. Like the wards and the seals. But the gods took back my magic as punishment for what I did. How can I feel it here?”
Fox stares at me. “You think the gods did what?”
I pick up my sword and clang it against Styx’s thigh, annoyed Fox is making me repeat it. “They punished me for raising an army of the undead that killed half of Elphyne.”
“Willow,” he intones, “The godsnevertake back what they give. They can’t. It’s the reason we’re in this mess.”
“What mess?”
“Me, him—” He gestures at Styx. “Our hive and the Wild Hunt. The gods can’t take back the power they used to make us. Unfortunately for them, how we feed increases it.”
My jaw drops. “Then who stole my magic?”
The answer hits us at the same time.
“Titania,” we say.
“When I felt my power being ripped away,” I quickly add, “the taint still poisoned the Well. I always wondered if maybe I had something to do with this civilization waking up. What if I raised everyone when I just wanted to raise the dead?”
“Will you show me?” he asks, frowning. “Will you allow me to relive the memory?”
I nod. “How do we do that?”
He lifts his hands to my head. “Just think about that day.”
Chapter
Forty-Seven
WILLOW
Five Years Ago
Across the battlefield, someone wants me dead.
The hand of fate reaches into my soul and pulls out an insatiable urge to dominate. My wolfish fangs elongate. My ears flatten. My hackles raise. My fist plunges into soil soaked with blood. I claw at the essence of creation and then do what Nero has trained me to do, what I vowed never to do.
I violate nature.
And it feels good.
Freeing. Cathartic. A rite of passage. This is what I am made for.
A slave to my instincts, I pump the world’s veins with my almighty, churning soul.
Rise.
Wake.
Like the birds I have summoned from the other side of death, fae corpses twitch with life, rising stiffly with jilted movements.
