“Your end,” I growled as shadows began unspooling from both palms and wound up my arms in the same way they did with Rian. They were not the inanimate shadows Ciaran collected to hide in and listen through but pieces of me that could feel and taste the world. They smelled just like Rian, of lavender and clove, as they kissed my skin and raised gooseflesh all over me.
I heard Ornella suck in a breath, and the crowd began to utter shrieks of absolute terror. Geera could not seem to believe her eyes as her mouth fell open.
“Rian!” she screeched when the hungry tendrils lunged and seized her like vipers sinking thousands of fangs into her flesh. Her pretty skin split and peeled in smoking and blackened strips as her lifeforce and magic coursed into me through the devouring shadows.
Geera’s screams grew steadily more hoarse and filled with such terrible anguish. I closed my eyes to indulge in the symphony of someone else’s pain for a change until her voice finally died on one final wail.
There was a long silence once her husk burst apart and scattered across the marble floor like ashes.
“Holy fuck,” breathed Ornella, and then she began to laugh loudly in the otherwise silent room. Ciaran was far better composed, but his gaze ricocheted back and forth between me and Rian with a growing concern.
Ignoring everyone else, I turned to face the only one whose opinion truly mattered to me and raised my chin at him in a subtle defiance.
Rian stared back, his face completely unreadable as he stepped toward me slowly. The entire room seemed to be transfixed as he looked down and ran his hand along my arm through the wisps of magic still wafting off my skin. The shadows did not harm him any more than his magic harmed me, and I watched his expression soften when they clung to him as if drawn home. He lifted his hand, his gaze finding mine as he gently gripped my chin and leaned closer to trace my mouth lightly with his. He was outwardly calm and confident, but I could feel that he was shaking slightly with barely restrained fury.
“Tell me that you have not been using some kind of blood magic to steal my power,” he breathed too softly for anyone else in the room to overhear.
I could hear the threat as well as the regret in his voice. He may not relish the task, but Rianwouldkill me if I had abused the Tithriall with dark magic.
“It isnotblood magic,” I reassured him in frustration that he was still too stubborn to see the truth even now.
He gave a nod, his relief obvious even as his grip on my jaw tightened authoritatively. “Youwillexplain later. No more teasing or cryptic diversions,” Rian ordered me, and I could tell that his patience had well and truly run out this time. “Mypower isdangerous, Nuala. It is not even fully in my control at times!”
“That is because you are still at war with yourself.”
Rian did not answer as he lifted his head so we could both turn to face the room. The horrified Chancellor had fallen onto her backside and was staring up at me with so much shock and uncertainty that it made me smirk.
I certainly had her full attention now.
“I believe the people in this room have made the error of mistaking our restraint for weakness,” Rian called out. “Allow me to clarify that the only reason the Wild Hunt has not seized your city was because you were behaving tolerably enough.”
Rian paused as he looked at the spy who trembled so hard that the sweat began dripping off the tip of his nose.
“Now you betray Autumn Court. You threaten me and my family. That willnotgo unpunished,” Rian finished.
“Please have mercy! Not all of us have betrayed you!” cried a waifish woman in the crowd.
“I suspect Nuala already knows who among you must be culled. Loyalty to Autumn Court will not be punished, but Mionlach is now under my command,” Rian declared loudly enough for the whole room to hear him.
I opened my senses, allowing my instincts to guide my magic as it was unleashed into the air over the crowd.
“Submit peacefully and there will be no unnecessary bloodshed here,” Rian called calmly over rising screams as the fey reacted to the news they were being conquered. But they still did not even dare to try and escape through Ciaran’s shadows obscuring the exits.
My shadows churned above the room and blotted out the torchlight, forcing fey to cower in the dark. But there was no hiding from the fatal strikes that lashed down at them to satisfy my intuition’s demand for guilty blood.
And within the half hour, every traitor in the room had been dealt with. Including Chancellor Aujaara.
Chapter twenty-four
ARCHIVE OF THE AGELESS
Orion
Stamos was getting his damned wish, and we were going to the archives beneath Ergastiri to research weapons we could use against Rian.
Even though I personally would have preferred to stay right where I awakened that morning in Riordan’s bed.
My heart still felt raw from the night before when all my deepest and darkest secrets had all too suddenly been out in the open for all to see. I felt like I’d been torn open and my insides had been scraped clean of the rot that had festered there for so long.
