I look into wide, inky eyes, to the reflection bouncing off their surface, and all I see is the face of a monster staring back.
Everywhere she goes, death follows.
Everything she touches turns to ash.
Suddenly, I don’t see Rhordyn holding his sword at all …
I seeme.
My upper lip peels back as that creature continues to flap.Continues to scream up my throat, tilling up shards of emotion that rip me apart from the inside out.
I shake my head and laugh—a wild, untethered sound that kneels to the strings of my tangling insanity. “I hate you,”I snarl.
A smack of lightning ignites the gloom, cleaving across that violet stare—so stark against the dark abyss.
“You do nothing but destroy everything you touch,” I scream through the pummeling rain, blinking away a swell of tears. “Everything youlove.The world would be so much better if you justdisappeared.”
“Orlaith—”
Yes.
Her.
I bare my teeth andlunge.
Iblock her savage blow, the sound of metal on metal clashing through the jungle like the toll of a war bell. “You’re amonster,” she snarls, the battering rain rinsing the blood from her face and hair, her features ripped with the pure, undilutedhateshe just threw at me.
“Yours,Orlaith.”
Another swing, and she almost guts me, the tip of her sword whipping past my navel—so close a hiss of breath powers into me.
Fuck.
I block her next blow that cleaves straight for my throat, a snarl punching up from deep inside my chest. “That was close, Milaje.”
“You killed her,” she whimpers, hacking at me with a shot I block, breath catching.
My heart stills.
“Who, Orlaith? Who did I kill?”
“Her!” she screams, her voice an anguished lash.
Another hack at my abdomen, this one nicking my hip—a hairline graze too shallow to bleed.
Just.
But I’ll take her sharpened blows until she’s empty of them and then we’ll start from scratch. Work out whatever it was that tipped the tide on her hatred back in my direction. If it’s a never-ending cycle that goes on for all eternity, so fucking be it.
She spins, whirring, slashing at my legs. I leap back, so tuned intoherI don’t notice the basilisk carcass behind me until I’m stumbling over it, spine slamming against a tree. Her blade notches my throat, and she snarls, her warm breath assaulting my face.
I let my sword hang to the side.
Chest heaving, on her toes, she leans into me, sodden hair dripping the remains of bloody residue down her edges.
Brow buckling, I search her amethyst eyes.
She presses the blade deep enough that I feel my skin threatening to split, her eyes glazed, potent wrath staining the air.“And you’re going to killhim,too.” Her face crumbles, and I feel my heart mimic the motion. “You’re going to try and take him from me again, aren’t you?”
