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Revenge was a hollow ending she no longer had the desire to pursue. She couldn’t allow Cirel’s plan to succeed. While her kingdom might have fallen, Denoden still remained intact, teeming with lively shadows.
The first splashes of cold, metallic rain struck her forehead and cheekbones.
“The answer is no,” she said.
Cirel merely blinked back at her. Rain plastered his dark red hair to his sharp features like dried blood. If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. “I understand.”
Air slipped from her lips in a sigh of relief. Her attention was snagged by the crunching of bones under hundreds—no, thousands—of Scourge funneling over the crest of the ruins. They carried black flags, the red outline of a winged beast stitched into the fabric.
Her heart stopped. Cirel had spent a long, long time assembling his masses. She should know—she’d helped him gather them. Horned welkins descended from the storm clouds. Creatures that had to be older than the isles. Their wingspans stretched the length of forty Scourge. Chains dangled from their necks and front legs as if they’d just broken free of eternal imprisonment.
“I understand,” Cirel repeated, stepping on the skull of what looked like a child, pulverizing it under his boot. “However, I’m not accepting no for an answer.”
Chapter41
Tenah
Chaos lurched Tenah down the rattling bone mountains against her will.
Acidic rain soaking into her clothes as robed casters peeled from the front lines of Cirel’s armies, their faces obscured by hoods but exposed hands stained with markings progressed far beyond hers. Lightning flashed as Tenah was forced to line up beside them at the gate arms, ready to perform a miracle for their king.
How did Cirel control all of them? Sure, some of them had probably pledged loyalty in hopes of a better future. But to sacrifice their bodies like this?Insanity.
She clenched her jaw as Cirel mounted his welkin and took off into the soupy, low-hanging clouds. The drumming of water on bones was the only sound that filled the valley. Her eyes raked over the silent armies, picking out the glint of Ashen dust among their ranks.
Damn it.She’d never trained in the art of Ashen blocking. Would the damaged pockets in her Chaos-riddled mind be enough to hide the makings of a plan?
If she could spread the darkness…
Tenah invited Chaos into her channels. Blood pumped hot and thick through her veins, enticed by the sheer volume of dark magic streaming into her. It was enough to fry the nerves in her hands. At least at this rate she wouldn’t be able to feel the cold soon.
She slowed her heart with focused breaths. And when the casters unleashed their dark magic upon the gate arms, illuminating runes and slivers of crystals embedded in the ancient stones, Tenah followed suit.
If Cirel wanted a fucking doorway, she would give him one.
Boots splashing through murky water collecting on the stone platform, Tenah marched to the base of the gate and smacked a hand onto its smooth, wet surface. She sucked in a breath as her vision dissolved into blue—her astral body instantly drawn into the Void.
If she’d ever explored this particular space before, it was lost to her. A dozen sets of stone arms surrounded her in a wide ring, all different shapes and heights, some spread so far apart they were but a distant mirage in her bad eye.
There were elegant, detailed gates and crude, black gates woven from dead trees. Tenah recognized the fluttering of blue lights surrounding one wrapped in vibrant moss.Tree lights. It was the gate to Hathrowyn.
What foolish entity would grant her this power?
Her mouth parted in awe as she spun around and identified the gate for Firesteep etched with flames and Denoden adorned with rays from a central sun at the peaked top. There was a gate with twisted vines and carved eyes for the Boglands. Spikes like a bear trap for Duskhallow—Ames wouldnothave appreciated that nightmarish artwork. Wings joined at a point for the Jagged Rocks, home to the welkins.
And solid black marble for Adra.
The other gates she could not place on the isles. She chose to focus on these, beelining for the farthest one that thrummed with a current of energy she’d never experienced before.
She might not have the means to defeat Cirel, but she did have the ability to remove him from the game temporarily. Concentrating all the dark magic in her channels, she imbued it with her will and siphoned power from the other casters. Then she touched a charged hand to the mysterious portal in the Void.
The tether forming between the two gates might as well have sucked the marrow from her bones. Too much Chaos was blazing its way out of her body. The power coursing through her very molecules arched her backward.
Tenah lurched back into her physical body and watched as black lightning snapped from her hands, zigzagging up the stone arms. Her magic branched out to fill the opening between the pillars. The energy churning there expanded like a living, breathing thing.
Heart racing, she let her gaze drop to her ruined hands. Layers of skin peeled away from her fingers all the way up to her elbows. Scales began forming over her raw flesh, accompanied by tiny, curved spikes that protruded along the backs of her forearms.
Great. Her Corrupt form looked a hell of a lot like a welkin.
