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Her gaze drifted to the caved-in skull, her eyes darkening. I couldn’t stop looking at the jumbled pile of bones along the wall, while Tavion stared transfixed at the only complete skull, garishly displayed on a plinth, bigger than any creature I’d ever seen in the three realms, even north of the mountains.
I shivered, something Anaria didn’t miss.
There was definitely something drawing me—all of us—to the bones. I tied my horse beside the gelding and crossed the enormous crypt, dust coating my boots. Tristan dismounted, his keen eyes tracing every inch of this place before he casually unslung his bow, pulling an arrow from his quiver.
These bones called to me, begged me to come closer, to touch them. Out of the corner of my eye, I monitored Anaria’s slow, cautious approach toward the damaged skull, her lips twisted into a slightly pained expression.
I didn’t like this place, and I didn’t like feeling this way, but I reached out, running my hand over the smooth bone—a rib, from the curved shape. Magic rippled inside me, the first real appearance of my nulled-down power in nearly a hundred years, and I closed my eyes, swaying beneath the sudden onslaught.
Shadows stained the air around me black, Dane’s eyes widening slightly, but I yanked my hand back before anyone else noticed my slip. We shouldn’t be here.
I didn’t know how I knew that, but we were never meant to see this place.
“Anaria. Are you all right?”
She made a faint, noncommittal sound, hands clenched together behind her back as if she was restraining herself from touching these bones. Tavion rounded the largest skull with a predator’s intent, eyes as dark as those gaping, empty sockets, as I flattened my palm against the rib bone once more.
I threw back my head as magic was yanked up out of me, impervious to the iron collar, the nulling spell, even the tight leash I kept on myself. For one glorious moment, I plunged deep into the depths of my power, drinking down everything I’d been denied for a hundred years.
Glorious.
This was glorious, like diving into a cold, bottomless lake, sound and sight and smell disappearing until I was consumed by my magic.
My power called to me, crooning its malevolent song of death and destruction. I hated how much I loved that music, even when I remembered what atrocities it was capable of.
In that split second, with perfect, horrifying clarity, I saw the trap. Whatever these bones were, they had the ability to circumvent iron and nulling spells and personal control.
One touch, and they would take us over.
I whirled to Anaria. “Don’t touch—”
12
RAZIEL
The words were barely out of my mouth, when Anaria froze in place, eyes glazed, fingers resting lightly on the crushed skull, and I thanked all the gods in the skies those iron bands were holding.
Otherwise, we’d all be dead.
Well, Dane would be dead.
Tavion, Tristan, and I would be monsters.
I crossed to her, went to touch her before I decided that would be a mistake. “Anaria.” Her eyes were blank, as if she’d turned inside herself…or was watching something none of us were meant to see.
Dread shuddered down my spine and landed in my gut.
“Anaria. Take your hand off the skull.” There was nothing in her face, nothing but that horrible emptiness, nothing left of the girl I loved. “Anaria, listen to me, wherever you are, come back.”
Her entire body shivered from some unseen force rippling through her flesh, her hair lifting as if surrounded by a phantom breeze. A bite of freezing air swept through the crypt, not from the tunnels…but from the portal, now glowing brighter.
“What the fuck is this?” Dane looked from me to Anaria, then over to Tavion, who hadn’t so much as moved from in front of the enormous skull. He was so still I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.
And his hand, like Anaria’s, was splayed flat against the skull.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Lower your fucking voice,” Tristan hissed as he knocked an arrow in his bow. “Trust me on this, you don’t want to startle her. Not unless you want to end up a prickly monster.”
