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But I had to free Tavion.
Then my path was blocked. I dragged my eyes to the female before me. Not the Oracle. Someone I didn’t expect but should have.
“Surprise, Anaria.” The Mistress’s mouth curled.
“I told you I’d see you again.”
52
ANARIA
Pain exploded when the Mistress plunged her knife into my side and dragged the blade down through my flesh, opening me up like a gutted pig.
I doubled over, blood soaking my side, burning numbness spreading through me, Tavion’s roar ringing off the ceiling like a battle cry.
“You killed my brother.” She pulled her arm back, and all I thought to do was put my hands up and twist away. Her next strike went right between my outstretched palms, the blade slicing a furrow down the length of my arm before she spun away.
“You killed my king.”
“Anaria. Use your fucking magic.Protect yourself.”
“I’m fucking trying.” I retreated, blood pouring from my arm, blinking the pain away, trying to wrangle my power into something useful. But my weakened magic slipped through my fingers right when I needed it most.
“Delicious,” the Mistress crooned, her tongue flicking out to lick my blood from the blade. “I’m going to fucking eat you, Anaria, just like I ate Julian. I’ll make him watch.”
Tavion’s roar shook the entire palace, his face a contorted mask of rage.
The Mistress shivered in pleasure.
“Get out of here, Anaria,” Tavion screamed, fear breaking through his rage, the acrid stench of burning flesh filling the air as he fought to get free.
The Mistress just grinned and raised her knife, stained red with my blood.
“Enough.” The Oracle slithered from the shadows, beautiful and deadly, but rotting beneath all that, nonetheless. Her cold, amused smile told me neither Tavion nor I would be leaving here anytime soon. She turned to the Mistress. “You can play with the wolf later if this goes to plan.”
“If you touch him, I will kill you.” The words slipped out like water, smooth and cold and fast. That protective fury came over me again. I would have called it jealousy, but this was too tame for jealousy. This was something that had only needed a spark to ignite.
And now that it had, nothing would put out this fire.
“I will make your death hurt, and I will make it last.” I grinned at the Mistress through the blood bubbling on my lips, and for one second, doubt shone in the Mistress’s eyes.
“Search her,” the Oracle snapped. “We have to find that keystone before my brother does.”
I laughed wetly, spraying blood all over the Mistress’s pristine dress like drops of rubies, which served the bitch right. “I lost it.”
Now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop, even if I’d wanted to. “It’s somewhere out there in those trees. Good luck. If you start digging now, maybe you’ll find it in a thousand years.”
“You lie.”
“I wish I did. The last time I saw the stone was in the forest. Now it’s buried in the river or deep underground.” A rush of dizziness hit me as blood kept streaming from the gash on my side.
“You’re to blame, you know. If you hadn’t taken my friends, I’d still have it.” I spread my bloody palms before her. “Now you’re shite out of luck.” The Mistress cuffed me on the back of the head, just like old times.
“Entertaining as usual, Anaria. But you’ve ruined my fun twice now and you will pay. Those miserable Caladrian Fae were mine, just as the Reapers were mine, to do with as I wished. But they’ve fled into the forest. And I’m in the mood for a hunt.” Her smile gleamed in the darkness.
“You may have rid the skies of Reapers, but there are bigger monsters out there.” Her grin widened. “They are hungry, and you sent the people of Tempeste straight into their jaws.”
Tavion was screaming something I couldn’t understand, but she’d gagged him with a band of black across his face, his skin burning and burning and burning. I dragged my eyes away, my heart filled with more hate than I’d ever felt before.
