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I ducked through torn-up books and scrolls, deadly shards of wood and shattered stone suspended midair.
I thought I was beyond surprises, but my heart leapt into my throat when I saw who was on the other side of that strange magic, the cause of the now-suspended explosion.
Raziel was a vision of wrath, his eyes black as night, hair flying around him, that strange, blue-black magic erupting from his hands in writhing ribbons, slicing through everything in its path as cleanly as a knife.
What happened to him and Zor after I’d been abducted?
Had the wild magic transformed—orcorruptedRaziel intothis? And why could I move and no one else? I’d almost reached the stone when I lost my breath completely, finally seeing what I should have noticed before.
Raz didn’t have his collar.
Only a band of white marked his tan throat.
The implications—and the cost—hit me the same time the spell broke.
The explosion roared, my eardrums bursting. Wood splinters and books flew overhead as I crawled over and swiped the stone away from the king’s scrabbling grasp. One of the mages screamed before he was crushed beneath an enormous chunk of stone, debris raining down around me with deadly aim.
The temperature in the room plummeted, frost crackling over every surface, stinging my bare legs, turning my cheeks to ice, but I stayed flattened to the floor through sheer terror.
Those ribbons of power were everywhere, slicing like razors, and the room became a bloodbath, soldiers and mages going down, blood misting the air, someone screaming behind me.
The Mistress.
Screaming not in fear but in anger.
Because she could not break through Raziel’s magic, though she was trying.
But his deadly power was a gauntlet of death, shredding soldiers and mages alike before a long spear shot through the air, piercing the Fae King’s body with a black, glimmering sword, pinning him to the wall like a bug.
So much blood poured from Carex, it splattered on the floor like a waterfall, his desperate hissing making him sound like a trapped, desperate animal.
I didn’t recognize Raziel, not the emotionless rage twisting his face, nor the blue-black power seeping from him like ink as if he walked in some darker dimension. My breathing was shaky as I backed carefully away, knife in my hand, white stardust flooding out of me unchecked, twining with Raz’s magic, putting stars into his midnight power.
The king writhed like a serpent, mutilated legs kicking like an insect’s. I pocketed the stone and cowered against the wall when Raz stalked past, but even hidden deep in the shadows, he never took his eyes off me, that dark gaze making everything inside me go quiet and small.
Whatever his magic, I wanted to hide from it.
This was…A tendril of black touched me and I closed my eyes, the sensation almost more than I could bear.
With every deliberate step forward, Raziel drove that sword deeper, the stones behind the king’s mutilated body shuddering as the blade pierced ancient stone as easily as it did flesh.
But Raz never broke our stare as he smiled.
That arrogant, toothy smile was otherworldly, him…and yet not.
Raziel was somethingmorethan I’d ever imagined. Darkness personified. Power poured out of him, and whatever this was, I’d never experienced anything close. He was glorious. He was devastatingly powerful…He took my fucking breath away.
He frightened me down to my bones.
But…I couldn’t stop looking at that white band, couldn’t stop my breaths from heaving in and out. I clutched the stone so tight my palm ached, the truth too terrible for me to bear.
The cost…oh gods, the cost of him not having his collar…
“You always were a pitiful excuse for a king.” Raziel hoisted my father higher, black blood trickling down the shimmering spear of his magic, dripping off the ends of Carex’s feet.
“Your brother would have been a good king if he hadn’t been twisted by revenge.” Raz lifted the king even higher, his low, pitiful groan horrible to hear even though I loathed the bastard.
Outside of the whirling magic, the Mistress stalked, looking for a way in, her hateful eyes pinned on me. Mouthing something over and over again, rage spilling from her eyes, running like blood down her white cheeks.
