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39
ANARIA
Ithought I’d understood terror, but I’d never felt fear like this, being carried a mile above the world in the claws of the Soul Reapers. Two of them, actually, with their claws cutting my newly healed skin as they ferried me through the air, bearing me over the now-verdant plain.
Everything mixed together as they juggled me between them, nearly dropping me over and over again. Up was down and down was up and I was going to vomit.
I caught glimpses of the bright blue sky, the ground, the city of Tempeste looming closer and closer as the air was ripped from my lungs over and over again.
Fear became my only constant when I realized just how cut up I was, both from the fighting and the Reapers’ sharp claws. I had so many wounds, so many places the Reapers could get in and yet so far…they hadn’t.
Not that I could tell, anyway.
What if Icouldn’ttell?
What if they’d already infected me and I had no way of knowing? I lashed out with one foot, then the other, but they were too much like the wind whistling by, the city getting closer and closer.
A cold, silent city.
From this distance, there was no sign of life, only the faintest hint of smoke still trailing out of the top floor, as if the fire had burned itself out. Or all the Reapers had escaped.
Perhaps the city’s inhabitants were hiding, driven under cover by the battle and the ensuing horror of what came after.
Perhaps they’d all been down on that field, and I’d killed them.
Then I had no time to wonder about anything but the ground rushing up to meet me as the Soul Reapers dropped me.
I spun through the air and landed badly on the stone steps in front of the palace, my ankle snapping before I tumbled down and down, coming to rest in a scraped-up heap at the bottom.
I swore I heard fell laughter as the shadowy creatures sped toward the top of the tower and disappeared into the windows still belching smoke.
My ears were ringing and my head ached. I tasted blood. I’d barely shoved myself up when skittering claws bore down on me and I stared up into my father’s ruined face.
Gods, he was a mess.
Half his face was a twisted nest of black vines and thorns, an opaque white eye, exactly like Torin’s, staring blankly from the tangled wreckage.
His body was no better, one arm so heavy it dragged on the ground like a gnarled tree trunk, his legs bent and warped and shiny like a beetle’s. He hadn’t even bothered with clothes. Not when there was nothing Fae—or civilized—left.
“Welcome home, daughter.”
“I would have preferred never to set foot in this shitehole again.” I forced myself to grin and took some small delight in the fact the king could not grin back.
My eyes flicked upwards to the smoke. “My plan was to make this city burn, you along with it.”
“I have no doubt.” His one good eye flicked over me in cold, calculating interest. “But it is time you return what you stole and restore me to what I once was.”
I snorted. “Nothing’s going to fix that disaster.” I looked him up and down for emphasis, my lips twisted in disgust. “Didn’t you hear me before? The magic is mine.”
Lying there, helpless, ankle cracked, my grin widened, even as I searched desperately for some scrap of magic, anything to defend myself.
Every bone in my body groaned as I pushed up, enough to spit out a mouthful of blood at his feet. “It’s mine and you will never know that kind of power again. You will die in that form, as hideous on the outside as you are on the inside.”
I kept grinning, blood running down my chin.
“As you will be, by the time I am finished with you.” Horror shivered down my spine even as I kept that grin pasted on my face, my father leaning closer until we were nose to nose. Black veins ran beneath his pale, papery skin—the scant few inches he had left.
“We shall be quite the pair, daughter, though you shall not live long enough to become accustomed to your new form.”
