“What’s wrong?”
“Where. Are. You? I can’t sense where you are. These rotting Farasees…Safah, where in the Hèls are you?”
“What did you find in the villa, Safah?”
My attention snapped to Farasee Asarah. How had she known…
Wait. If she knew about the villa, then shehadto know about the dungeon.
My eyes narrowed to slits.
“Did you send them?” I asked her instead.
She flinched. “What in the stars are you referring to, child?”
“Did. You. Send. Them?”
“Sendwho?” she snapped, losing the reins on her self-control.
“Our entire villa has been destroyed,” I screamed at her.
My rage flared, exploding around the chamber, while also flooding the bond.
“I’m coming to find you.”
Good luck.
“Did you send them, Farasee Asarah?” I looked her in the eyes. Dared her to say anything but the truth. “Are you the reason our family home has been destroyed? Every chamber, every portrait, every tapestry, theentirevilla, in ruins and on fire. Did you send your little demons to rip our home apart, you miserable wench?”
One moment, she was perched in front of her throne. The next she was in front of me. I was already spinning before I registered that she’d slapped me. Hard. I flew across the chamber, my head slamming into the wall.
“I’m going to teach you the lesson Cassandrel failed to.”
I coughed up blood.
“Why don’t you just pluck my feathers and forfeit my Ascension,Granmanmi?”
Before I could roll out of the way, she was on top of me, slapping me over and over with her wings, cutting me twice with her talons. I moaned, reaching for Quazar down the bond without realizing it.
“This temple will burn,”he growled.“What do I always tell you, Starling? Do not yield!”
His voice wavered, as if he was mid-flight.
Farasee Asarah snatched me by my throat and yanked me up to my feet. She shook me with a ferocity that made my head knock. I grumbled, growing lightheaded as she spun and launched me across the chamber with a strength that shouldn’t be possible for a female her age. I collided into the stone pillars, tumbling to the floor.
“Farasee Asarah!” Presbitari Davithius barked. “This is out of order! We don’t care about your personal, familial feelings. You willnotthrash around my Disciple like she’s some wild animal. Another hand laid on her, and I will have you tried before the Empràr. I will ruin you myself.”
I opened my eyes, my vision crossing. I found Asarah hovering stone still on the other side of the chamber. Her face was colored with fury. She looked at me with disgust. Like she’d disown me. Hèls if I cared. I was never claiming her again. I wondered if Ezekiel, Hosea, or even Jael had ever seen this side of her. And why in the stars they didn’t warn me if they had.
“I’ve had enough,” Asarah said, gathering herself.
She straightened her shoulders. And just like that, she was back to the Farasee that was feared across the empyrean. I was beginning to understand why.
She snapped her fingers.
At the center of the chamber, Evanae surfaced, tumbling to the marbled floor on her hands and knees.
“EVANAE!” I screamed.
