Page 82 of The Bonds of Indigo

“Uh, yeah, no. You won’t be treating me like I’m some weak woman.” She releases me and spins on her heel. “I can already feel Vendra. She wants to use me to help them. I’ll be fine.”

Then… she’s gone, running through the people. Her long white hair like silk as it bounces off her back.

She can feel Vendra… She wants her to help them? What?

Chapter 22

“Hurry, my child.”

Energy pulses through my veins, and for the first time since the night I arrived in Sylverton, I feel powerful again. Not a burden. Not a mistake. But the woman I was born to be.

“Why are they suddenly appearing so often?” I ask.

I don’t mean to sound harsh toward my God, but irritation definitely threads through the words. Yes, the gates have opened for centuries—but rarely, and never like this. And creatures crossing into the mortal world? That’s a surefire way to get the Gods involved.

And the last thing Belial should want is the Divine meddling in his business.

“A shift has occurred. A deal was made that altered your world’s trajectory.”

“A deal?”

The crowd finally breaks as my feet hit the soft patch of grass, now coated in soot. I kick off the shoes the establishment insisted I wear and curl my toes into the soil.

“It does not matter. Send them back to where they belong.”

Lifting my thumb to my mouth, I pierce the skin, drawing blood. Even after all this time, it feels like second nature to drag my thumb across my palm and sketch the rune for the Dyaus. Wind bursts outward, tearing through the space and scattering the smoke that had choked the scene.

The fire still rages at the front of the crushed regional train. Blood is splattered across the remaining cars, a violent red against twisted metal. And then I see them. The bodies.

So many bodies.

My eyes widen, vision flickering between the carnage in front of me and that night seven years ago. The night I failed. The night I couldn’t stop what happened.

“Listen to me, please just listen. You have to end my life if you refuse to run!” They looked at me like I was absolutely bat-shit crazy. “There isn’t enough time!”

“We can handle this, Witch. There will be no succumbing to your tricks! You’ll curse us in your demise!”

“No! That… You’re all fools!”

“Foolish to have ever trusted you!”

“We all failed that day, Amarah, you least of all…”

Vendra’s voice cuts through the shattering edges of my reality, pulling me back into the present. I inhale sharply, the air thick with blood and burning metal. Beneath it all lingers that unmistakable scent of the Beyond—pomegranate from the gates themselves, and beneath that, the rot-sweet stench of the creatures that crawl through them. Carcass and sunbaked trash. Death ripened.

The grinding of metal snaps my focus south. A Pyrehound claws at the crushed train car, its talons screeching as they dig into steel. Another leaps up behind it from the opposite side. Their black, spiked fur bristles, vibrating with each growl as they snap their jaws toward me.

I’m not built for hand-to-hand combat—no muscle for punches or kicks. Vendra can lend power to my strikes, but my bones aren’t suited for that kind of fight.

From a distance, though?

I’m as lethal as Kayn is up close.

One of the beasts launches itself from the train car, darting straight for a bystander.

I raise my left hand and level my finger at the charging creature. It’s massive—close to six feet tall even on all fours—but I have no intention of letting any of them get near enough to measure.

Bright gold energy surges through my veins, gathering at my fingertips. As if holding a bow, I draw back an invisible arrow. Only the moment I pull, it stops being imaginary. Flecks of magic spark and scatter as the string forms, taut and humming. I release.