Page 185 of The Reaping Rose

Her black eyes meet her brother. “What have you done?”

“Put you back together.” Malachi grins.

She holds out her hand, watching as something climbs the shadows that are a constant black glove on her fingers. This darkness is different. It’s liquid. It’s endless and ancient and empty.

The void twines with Hazel’s shadows as if her soul stitched itself back together. But it does not form the light like Malachi said she once was. It becomes so dark that there is purple in the depths. The void and shadow bind, and to simply look at Hazel is to stare into the deepest parts of night.

Hazel stumbles back, clutching her stomach.

Malachi grins. “I have given you back what our mother took. The piece of you she stole for our brother.”

“And the void?”

“It cannot be unbound from a soul. Not when it likes where it is.”

Fear floods her eyes.

“He talks about the void like it’s still sentient.”

“It might be,” Wilder whispers. “Then again, so are shadows, I’ve heard.”

“So what does that mean that both are comfortable with Hazel?”

“Nothing good.”

“Whispers, whispers, whispers.” Malachi turns his attention to us. “I feel you thinking. Wondering how you can defeat me when I hold all the power.”

“Do you?” My eyes narrow. “It seems to me Hazel is a greater threat than you are right now. So much for being a god.”

It might be foolish to mock him when he’s clearly unhinged, but Esen lies lifeless at Atlas’s feet, and I’m the one who did this. Who promised her something better than death on a bloody beach.

I refuse to sit and bow down to Malachi’s rants. I’d rather die fighting.

“You are not the most powerful one here anymore,” I taunt him.

“Oh, but I am.” He grins, lifting the orb. There is no heartbeat. No swirl of color or flicker of light. There is nothing. He waits for something, like the emptiness will ignite. It’s a long moment before his expression falls.

“You promised,” he whispers, but I don’t know who he’s talking to because it’s clearly not anyone on the beach. “To break the seal on the orb is to unlock the gods. Spill blood to summon blood. You promised me.”

Beneath my feet, the realm quakes. A shiver runs the length of the beach. An answer to Malachi’s question. His face falls when what he expected doesn’t happen. The orb hangs from his fingers, swaying in the breeze.

“Open.” Malachi grits his teeth, his voice growing louder as something shudders on the horizon. “Open!”

“It seems like we weren’t the only ones lied to.” Wilder’s voice is deathly calm.

But I know my mate well, and I hear the undercurrent of his tone. The boil of every emotion he’s failed to put words to since the Ley Court fell. His magic might be burned to nothing inside him, but his rage is endless.

A hot spark that stirs the sea.

When Wilder moves, he is as furious as a bolt of aether in the night. One blink, he’s beside me. The next, his sword drives through Malachi’s heart.

His teeth grit, nose to nose with his enemy. “For my sister.”

Malachi’s eyes pinch as he processes the strike; blood drips down his chest, painting the orb red. His mouth opens, but he doesn’t get the chance to speak again. Greer steps forward, and with an arc of her blade, she slices it through Malachi’s neck.

“For them all,” she sneers.

Malachi’s head lands in a thump at his feet before his body falls. It rolls toward Hazel, and her scream swallows all light from the realm.