“Don’t you fucking dare,” Dominic rasps, but the words end in a hiss when one of the guards hits him across the head.
A whimper escapes me.
“If you die, we die,” Zane says, and despite his mottled face, his eyes are crystal clear, boring into me. “Fight,princesa.”
How can I fight when their lives are quite literally on the line? I know if I push against Aria, she’ll kill one of them to teach me a lesson. I can’t allow her to do that. I won’t.
Landon…
Ryker…
Grief pierces me, ink dripped in water, growing and growing until it consumes me completely.
My shoulders slump. The fight drains out of me, leaving a hollow, aching void.
“What do I have to do?” I whisper.
“Ellie, don’t!” Beckett roars.
“Don’t you fucking dare give up,” Dominic bellows.
Zane screams at me, but I zone them out, trying to ignore the pain tearing me apart from the inside out, the grief slicing at my skin repeatedly like a serrated blade.
Aria’s triumphant laugh echoes through the silent ballroom. She positions me in the center of the dais, facing the crowd. “Just repeat after me.”
“Ellie, please…” Tears cascade down Dom’s face as he begs me.
I can’t look at him, at them. I won’t.
“Paragons of Prosperity,” Aria begins, her voice booming. “Children of Cassia.”
I swallow the bile in my throat, my voice a flat, dead echo. “Paragons of Prosperity. Children of Cassia.”
“I am the vessel. I am the key.”
“I am the vessel. I am the key.”
“I am the blood that will bring her home.”
“I am the blood that will bring her home.”
As I speak, I look out at the sea of masked faces, their bodies leaning forward, hanging on my every word. They actually believe it. They believe I’m this reincarnated goddess, this sacrificial lamb. They arenotpeople. They’re a…flock. A mindless, devoted flock waiting for a shepherd.
A new kind of cold settles in my bones. It’s not the cold of fear or grief. It’s the cold of clarity. Of rage. If they want a goddess, I’ll give them one. If they want a savior, I’ll show them what salvation truly costs.
Aria gives me a subtle nod, ready for the final line. “And I offer myself?—”
“And I offer you a final command,” I say, my voice suddenly ringing with an authority that isn’t mine but feels more real than anything I’ve ever known. The shift is so abrupt, Aria actually blinks.
The crowd stills, their adoration turning to confusion.
I let the silence hang for a moment, letting my power wash over them. I look at their blank, waiting faces, at the bloody altar, at my broken men on the floor. My grief and my rage forge themselves into a weapon, and I raise my hands.
“As your goddess,” I declare, my voice clear and strong, “as your one true leader, Icommandyou to prove your devotion.I command you to shed your mortal coils, remove your masks, and join me in the eternal. Kill yourselves.”
For a heartbeat, there is only stunned silence. Then a man in the front row pulls a dagger from his belt and removes his mask. He looks at me with tears of joy in his eyes, and without a moment’s hesitation, he slits his own throat. A woman beside him, her mask already discarded on the ground, smiles beatifically as she plunges a letter opener into her heart. It’s a wave, a horrifying, beautiful tide of self-destruction, all in my name.
All for me.
