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His curt nod had four vacant-faced soldiers lunging for me, then cold, cruel hands gripped me beneath my armpits and hauled me up the stairs toward him, to where I finally saw who stood behind him.
Three mages in plain brown robes stood solemnly, hands clasped in front of them, Reapers staring out through their glittering eyes with a voracious hunger.
And behind them the Mistress waited, her rail-thin body taut, her expression one of consuming rage. Her long, black hair was loose, but those dead eyes were the same, burning in a too pale face, sharp teeth visible between parted lips.
Fear, instilled into me since birth, slithered through me in an oily river when her mouth curved in a triumphant smile.
As if she’d finally won our two-decades-long battle.
Bet me on that. This wasn’t over yet.
“The Oracle is not the only one who can harvest the magic.” The king jerked his head at the mages. “We shall get my power out of you, even if we have to take you apart bone by bone.”
I focused on my breathing, the cruel bite of the hands that gripped me, lifting my face to my hateful father. “I never broke for Solok. And I’ll never break for you.”
“We’ll see,” was all he said before he scuttled away, black, thorny legs jerking as I was dragged behind him, the mages and the Mistress falling in behind us.
Even the air in Caladrius was different now, charged with energy and wild magic. This realm was ripe with burgeoning power, so thick I could have run my hands through it if I was free to do so.
No one else noticed the change.
Not Carex, so intent on reclaiming the power he was blind to everything else, or the Mistress, so focused on her revenge. The mages and soldiers…they weren’t capable of noticing anything at all.
But I noticed.
I was the moth…and the flame was all around me.
I was bathing in fire, and I was not getting burned. Once, I’d dreamed of what it might be like to plunge into a magic so powerful it could destroy me.Thiswas what that felt like.
Like I was being broken apart and remade into something completely different.
Something glorious.
And I was healing. My mouth tasted of magic, not blood.
My iron bands were in my pocket, and without them the wild magic slammed into me, like it could fill me up fast enough. But I didn’t know if even that was enough to save me.
Carex’s smug, triumphant attitude spoke volumes. He had two mages with power of their own. And if they bound me in iron…All the magic in the world wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t access it. He had everything in place to reclaim the magic, and all I had was the promise of a lying old spider saying that the power was mine.
Not that the Oracle’s word meant anything. And once they began carving me apart, it didn’t matter what happened. Whether the king found his magic or not, I doubted he’d stop cutting until I was flayed alive.
My bare feet dragged through broken glass and wreckage as more magic flowed in, enough that my shattered ankle ground back into place, the king laughing when I whimpered in pain.
There were no bodies left in the palace, only long smears of dried blood.
I wasn’t sure if that meant Soul Reapers could inhabit a dead body, or if Carex had them carted away before they began to stink. We approached the curving staircase to the upper floors and the two hounds posted on either side bared their fangs with a low, rumbling snarl.
There might have been a hint of Reaper malevolence in their pitch-black eyes, but I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps the creatures were evil enough on their own. Then I was hauled up the grand staircase. Down the long, riot-ravaged wing toward Torin’s chambers.
The Mistress prowled behind us. I couldn’t see her, but I smelled her pent-up frustration, waiting for Carex to peel me apart.
Just the thought of my nemesis watching my torture had my spine hardening to steel, cold resolve prickling through me. The bitch could watch all she wanted. I didn’t break for her fucking brother, I didn’t break for her, I wouldn’t break for the king.
Gods, the skin-crawling reek of this place sank into me like a stain I’d never scrub away. As if I was still locked in that cold cell, waiting for the rats to gnaw off my fingers. Every room, every corridor took me back to the weeks Ember and I had spent here as prisoners.
Pampered and well-fed, two sacrificial lambs waiting to serve their purpose.
The once magnificent palace lay in tatters, courtesy of the freed prisoners’ rage and fury, not a single painting or statue spared from ruin.The truth revealed, at least, I thought as I was dragged past a painting of Carex standing victorious on a hill, cape blowing out behind him. The canvas was shredded, his face hanging in tatters, one eye balefully watching as I was hauled by.
