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Their power seeps into every muscle and bone. Their presence is feather light, stretching out as they take partial control of my body.
We face Elizabeth down. This is the moment everything we have done has been leading to.
With a jerk, she pulls her fingers from Alaric’s chest. Elizabeth closes in and toes the glass. She lifts her cold lavender eyes to mine. “I am impressed.”
In the space of a heartbeat, she shoves me against the back wall. My head cracks against the unforgiving surface, and stars explode across my vision. When they clear, her hand is tangled in my hair.
She forces me to my knees. “You should feel it working already, numbing your limbs… slowing your heart.” Elizabeth leans in, close enough for me to feel her metallic breath on my face. “In the end, you killed yourself.”
Varin rises within me. My vision grows sharper and the world more vivid. I feel the bright gleam of their power circling my irises. But unlike the crimson vampires have, this is different, golden, tinting the world in the warm glow.
Elizabeth’s eyes flash with something wild. Fear. Recognition of the demon in my eyes, right below the surface.
“No… that cannot be—that’s impossible” she rasps, the slightest bit of red coating her teeth. Each breath is shorter than the last, rasping. Her face contorts. “Wh-what have you done?”
She releases her grip on my hair and stumbles back. Elizabeth lowers a trembling hand to her side, feeling the white sores. At the contact, they rupture. Sickly yellow pus oozes from them. Her lip curls up as understanding sets in.
My fingers curl around the broken arrow shaft in the folds of my skirt. I drive the arrow into the center of her chest with every ounce of strength I can muster.
Her hands flutter over the broken shaft embedded in her chest.
I straighten and step forward. “Slayer. That’s the name you gave me for defending myself against the vampires you sent to kill me even though I’d done nothing to you.” Another step. “But you still wanted me dead.”
Elizabeth tried to kill me once already with her demon’s blood. I wasn’t about to believe her claims that a potion could break my bond with Alaric. Varin and I thought it safer to assume whatever it was, it was most likely deadly.
I let the arrowhead soak for days, carefully disposing of it. I rinsed the bottle, even boiled it, to eliminate any trace of the poison. Then refilled it with over-steeped tea to get a similar color.
I don’t bother explaining all the reasons I have for acting against her, for deciding to end her life, because she is incapable of empathy for all the pain and suffering she’s inflicted on others. She thought to use my crimes to frighten me into submission, but now I have used the status she forced on me to show her thatsheshould have fearedmeall along.
Varin curls my lips into a cold smile, listing my head to the side. “So a slayer I will be.”
At first, I don’t know if it is the demon or Elizabeth that makes the horrible noise that rents the air, only to realize it is both.
Elizabeth gasps and flounders woodenly for a moment, then pitches back with wooden movements, fingers clawing, scratching angry lines into her chest. Her eyes roll back, and she collapses. The crown slips from her head, tangling in the mess of wild golden hair.
Kharis lands on her chest, claws digging deep gashes and tearing at her skin in an effort to remove the arrow. The sight of torn flesh is horrific. Dark, viscous blood oozes out from the edges of her wounds.
The raven rears back as if struck and takes to the air. Their flight is erratic, rising into the sky. Then, they plummet like a stone. Gone.
I lower my gaze to Elizabeth’s unmoving body. White patches of rot break out from the wound, spreading in mottled patches identical to the ones on her side. The stench of rot is immediate and overpowering.
The bone crown cracks. Piece by piece, it flakes away until it reveals another underneath. Night-forged silver, shining like liquid moonlight surrounded by a pile of ash.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CLARA
Varin releases all control,sinking deeper and deeper, retreating within me. Their strength wanes, and with it, I can feel just how much I’ve been relying on them. Every muscle in my body aches and trembles with weakness.
A vicious wave of dizziness rocks the ground beneath my feet. I gasp, staggering back into the wall. I can barely hold myself upright with the violent tremors wracking my body.
Elizabeth lies in the middle of the room.
Unmoving.
Not breathing.
Something deep down inside my gut doesn’t trust this.
