He crouches, his voice dropping to a hiss. “Zema haunted you, didn’t she? All these years. Her death. Your guilt. Do you want to know the truth?”
He leans closer, his breath a hot whisper against my ear. “I barely remember her. But sometimes in my sweetest dreams, I’m reminded of how wondrous her face looked after I smashed it against the rocks.”
A snarl claws from my throat as I writhe against my bindings, the cord biting into my wrists.
Modok laughs.
“Easy now. Be patient. Vashar should return any moment with your beloved in tow. And then,” he straightens, his smile feral, “then the real fun begins.”
My heart hammers against my ribs, each beat a brutal thud echoing through my chest.
No.
Not Amara.
I led her straight into this trap.
How long has it been since Modok took Baev’kalath? Since he murdered my father and Ilyra?
The last time I heard from her spies was just after I found Amara. She must have still been alive then. And I… I hadn’t thought much of the silence that followed. I was too consumed with my wife. With our child. With foolish hopes of normality.
Why didn’t I check in?
Did she call for me?
I look up at her body, and the thought rips through me. I left my ally isolated. Exposed. She is dead because of me.
My gaze drags across to my father’s corpse.
He is truly gone and with him any hope of redemption.
He will never find the salvation I once, in my weakest moments, wished for him. Never atone for his ambition, for the carnage he wrought in the name of the Father Below, for the love he bore Lanneth, who murdered my mother and stole my sister into shadow.
And I… I will never know why he did the things he did.
I will never get to forgive him and I will never, not truly, get to hate him as I once swore I would.
But I will not hang beside him and my wife, my fierce, furious light, will not hang beside him.
Because it is not our time to die.
If Vashar is with Amara now, it will not take long for Modok to discover the truth. To find our daughter and I will not allow him to take one more thing from me. Not tonight. Not ever.
But then I hear her cry, splitting the storm open. The sound stills everything. I close my eyes, and for a moment I drift, weightless in dread.
No. How did I let this happen?
When I open them again, Modok’s expression is one of disbelief, his face a mirror of the horror cracking me in two.
A Mor’Thravar Fae steps forward, holding my daughter. Rain streaks down her tiny body, pooling in the delicate curve of her neck. She wails into the night, limbs flailing, and then Modok takes her.
“What is this?” he mutters, his voice overwhelmed with disgust, shock. “A half-breed?”
He brushes a callused, vile hand over the pointed tips of her ears.
I thrash against my restraints with a roar, the sound torn from the deepest part of me. I snarl, teeth bared. But I don’t know if he even hears me. He’s too consumed by her. Bymydaughter.
Nyraxes lingers nearby, revulsion twisting her face.
