Текст книги "Born of Blood and Ash"
Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout
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Текущая страница: 41 (всего у книги 63 страниц)
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Death was everywhere.
It was all I could smell when I shadowstepped to different parts of the kingdom. All I could see. All I could hear amid the wailing of those who remained. No matter where I looked. No matter where I shadowstepped. Death had come in the moonlight, during the quietest, softest hours, and reigned with supremacy over Lasania’s capital. Neither wealth, power, nor age protected them.
And even though I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I knew. Gods, I knew whose screams I had heard first.
But I couldn’t believe it as I kept moving throughout Carsodonia and saw every one of their faces, each with waxy, stunned expressions. A bone-deep fury sparked.
Bodies hung from blown-out windows. They lay in their gardens in pairs, faces forever frozen in horror, and crowded the narrow streets of Croft’s Cross, having fallen one atop the other. They choked the Nye River and washed in with the tide, some getting snagged on the rocks while others got pulled back out to be forever lost in the Stroud Sea. Bodies dotted the beach’s white sand, their arms and legs twisted. They bunched in scattered heaps along the battlements, forms broken from the fall.
And all the while, shadows moved silently through the city like wraiths, seeking to hide. But I saw them. I saw all of them. And I felt others I hadn’t yet seen. I was not alone here.
My gaze lifted to the towers and turrets of the castle, and I knew. Gods, I already knew what I would find when I shadowstepped beyond walls that had done nothing—absolutely fucking nothing—to prevent the horror that had come this night. Still, what I saw in the courtyard brought me to my knees.
I saw them between the flashes of lightning—silver-and-gold strikes that tore through the night sky. Impaled to the walls of Wayfair just as the gods had been on the Rise outside the House of Haides, staked through the hands and chest with shadowstone. Their heads were tilted back, forced into unnatural poses that exposed their faces as if they wanted to be seen. Needed to be.
I didn’t want to look. A tremor started deep within me, and I made myself see them—see the faces of the servants and guards, maids and stewards I recognized. I saw the dark-haired, pale-skinned serving girl who’d baited me into a trap the day I returned from assisting Ezra at the Healers. I saw the cook Orlando, the mountain of a man reduced to nothing but lifeless flesh and bone.
I saw Lady Kala.
My mother’s most trusted Lady in Wait, who’d made that long walk with me through the corridors of the Shadow Temple upon my seventeenth birthday. Who was always with—
Long, blond strands danced in the wind, tangling with Lady Kala’s brown hair. My chest compressed. A citrine hairpin glittered in the sunlight. A pretty, once buttery-yellow gown now glistened with streaks of red, but I heard her voice as if her lips moved.
I would like that…
I would like that very much.
A spasm jerked me forward onto my hands. There would be no future meetings. No desperately needed conversations. No attempts to try to understand each other. To forgive. No moving forward. Allowing time to tell new stories. No—
I rocked forward, lowering my head and squeezing my eyes shut. It did nothing to stop the rush of raw emotion. My cheeks dampened. I sucked in a metallic-coated breath, opening my eyes. A teardrop fell from my cheek and splattered off my hand.
Red.
It was red.
Another fell. Then another. The blood tears were no longer coming from me but from above.
I lurched to my feet, mouth and throat dry. I stumbled over a prone guard’s legs—a Royal Guard. And there were more. They’d died quickly, their necks broken, as had those I’d seen in the city.
Eather throbbed and pressed against my flesh. I searched faces through the crimson-tinted rain, feeling pieces of me break away with each sight of mouths stretched wide in silent screams. Beige and brown faces. Pale and pink ones. Olive-toned and—
My throat constricted. My steps faltered, and I fell to my knees once more. My vision went black and then came back as I stared up at a jaw that was no longer stubborn. An awareness pressed upon me, but more pieces of me broke away when I saw none of the compassion and cleverness in her beautiful, once-warm brown eyes. I shook when I saw the pinstriped waistcoat, now black-and-red instead of black-and-white.
Beside my sister was her wife, her head turned slightly to Ezra as if Marisol had turned to see her love in the very last moments of her life.
They’d died side by side. Together. And I hadn’t been here this time for Marisol. I hadn’t been here for any of them.
Everyone at Wayfair was dead.
All of them.
And more than half the city now rotted in the rapidly forming red puddles. I couldn’t comprehend the senselessness. Never in my darkest nightmares could I have imagined this kind of horror. This kind of—
Movement from the castle caught my attention. Too-dark and thick shadows filled doorways and moved in the breezeways. They were no longer seeking to hide.
They were how so many had been killed so quickly. Because what I saw weren’t shadows. They were Cimmerian—senturion warriors that could pull from the darkest hours of night to cloak their actions. And they would’ve done just that, sweeping through the city like a plague of nightmares, leaving indiscriminate ruin and despair in their wake. Most had served Hanan but defected once Bele Ascended.
I knew exactly where they had gone.
The air around me charged, reacting to the energy sparking from my pores. A bolt of lightning struck the coast of Carsodonia. The night deepened, and my attention shifted to my kind, smart sister. At the Queen and Consort Lasania had needed. And then I thought about what Callum had said. How he’d wanted to visit with my mother one last time.
He’d known.
I’d told them all they had to do was call my name. Why didn’t Ezra do that?
Electricity rolled down my splayed fingers as I stared at the loss of hope. Of a future. Eather seeped from my fingertips. I couldn’t breathe, but that was okay. Grief gave way to fury.
The distant howls of the living faded, and awareness thudded in a hollow echo through me. The storm inside me spilled into the realm. Wisps of eather crackled around my arms.
“Kolis has come to a decision regarding the deal you offered. You now have his answer.”
Muscles locked all along my spine. My heart stopped. My mind clicked off. Wind heavy with salt and blood whipped through the courtyard, stirring the stained silk gowns and mauve banners. Thick, dark clouds rolled in, blotting out the moonlight. I forced my stare from the faces of the dead and looked over my shoulder at Kyn.
Our eyes locked across the field of dented armor, bent shields, and still-sheathed swords. He’d finally gotten what he’d wanted, even though this wasn’t the Shadowlands.
Vengeance had been unleashed.
And it would continue.
“He apologizes for not waiting until the eirini ended but he has grown rather impatient.” Kyn’s bronze helmet dulled underneath the clouds the starlight couldn’t penetrate. A long spear was embedded in the ground beside him, its blade a milky white. “What did you think would happen? That he would accept your deal? That you would somehow rule? Win? You cannot win against Death. He is inevitable.” Through the drenching blood rain, Kyn’s lips formed a cruel smirk as he chuckled. “Life is not.”
That laugh ended me.
I was no longer who I once was or was now. I was made of the anger and sorrow of my sister’s tortured expression and my mother’s forever-silenced voice. I was nothing but the fury and wasted hope of those small bodies left in gutters like trash and the souls lost at sea. I was nothing but a vessel of rage and the anguish of the great, unforgivable loss of all those who’d perished.
I rose, not as the true Primal of Life but as a Primal of devastating ruin and wrath.
That combustible mix poured into every fiber of my being. I turned to see Kyn and the Primal God of Wisdom, Loyalty, and Duty flanking him. An aura of silver and gold pulsed as a shockwave of ruinous wrath erupted from me. The ground began to tremble. Fissures appeared in the battlements. Dust clouds rose from streets and homes, and roofs peeled back, shattering in the wind, and walls collapsed. Flashes of vibrant orange, yellow, and brilliant, flickering red flames funneled into the sky above the capital. The earth beneath my feet cracked as I took a step forward.
“And you will soon learn that for yourself,” Kyn promised, wrenching the bone spear from the ground.
The land stopped trembling. The wind ceased. Blood rain no longer fell. The very air itself contracted. I saw the flash of unease loosening the corners of Kyn’s mouth, erasing his fucking smirk, and Embris’s eyes widened. All the violent, devastating energy came roaring back to its creator. Me.
My head jerked back as the pressure built and built, joining my will.
“Shit,” Kyn growled, launching the spear.
Eather streaked from my hands, slamming into the ground and then lifting. The energy rammed into the spear, shattering the bone.
“Fuck,” Embris rasped, moving fast. His hands were a blur.
Hot, stinging pain erupted in my shoulders, causing me to stagger back. I looked down to see two hilts vibrating from where the daggers were now embedded.
Reaching up, I pulled the first dagger free, wincing as pain radiated down both arms. I tore the second one out. The midnight blades were slick with shimmery, blueish-red blood. I lifted my head, breathed in the pain, and let it become part of me.
I laughed.
And the wall around Wayfair turned to dust.
Stepping forward, I threw the shadowstone daggers. Kyn cursed and spun. Embris lurched to the side. One grazed Kyn’s arm. The other struck Embris in the chest.
Too bad.
I’d been aiming for the head.
“Fates,” seethed Embris, yanking the dagger free.
“Well, now I think you just pissed her off,” Kyn spat, his head jerking to the right as he shouted a command.
Cimmerian peeled away from the walls and raced from the now tomb-like halls of Wayfair. More ran past where the wall had once stood. Hundreds of them. They rushed toward their end as the two Primals stood back.
Cowards.
They were fucking cowards.
Blood dripped from my arms when I thrust them forward. Bands of eather rippled out and split as I pictured the essence forming tendrils. They snaked across the ground, glancing over bodies before rising like vipers, striking their targets to my left and right.
Screams once more tore through the air when the streams of eather funneled through the Cimmerian’s chests and heads. The cloak of night fell away from each of them, and I raised my arms, lifting them into the sky. The warriors squirmed, shouting as strips of their flesh burned off.
Kyn’s glare met mine.
I smiled and closed my fists.
The screaming ceased when I crushed their throats. The sound of cracking bones radiated over the capital like thunder.
I stalked forward, bursts of eather appearing over the courtyard like dazzling, silvery fireworks. Blood dripped from my fingers, splashing off the soil. My chest throbbed with echoes of death. I didn’t falter as what remained of the Cimmerian fell to the ground in clumps and pieces.
Ancient instinct fueled me, and a great howling wind picked up. I pulled the essence from the very air itself, as well as the deepest parts of the ocean. All across the land, dots of silvery essence appeared. The realm contracted.
Kyn started backing up, lifting his hand to blow me a kiss. “Later.”
Shooting forward, I willed the eather toward him. Primal mist poured out of Kyn. The realm split open, and streaks of eather whipped out, slicing through the thick mist.
The essence slammed into nothing as Kyn shadowstepped back to Iliseeum.
I turned to Embris.
A thin, silvery line tore open behind the Primal, and he shadowstepped. He was fast, but my rage was unending—madness pouring from a bottomless well deep inside me.
I rushed forward, grabbing Embris’s arm just as Lasania fell away. Violent power tore through the empty air with a scream, collapsing the mist swirling around Embris’s legs.
I fell from the sky into a field of corn, landing on my knees. I didn’t feel the pain as I rose, though. Looking around, I saw the green, rolling hills of the kingdom of Terra.
Ahead, stalks of corn shuddered, and Embris staggered to his feet. He whipped around to face me. I prowled forward, and the energy ramped up, building as stalks of corn bent sideways.
Embris shouted, and the air opened behind him once more, this time revealing the stunning violet clouds surrounding the lush green hills of Lotho. Staggering, high-pitched draken calls could be heard.
The ground cracked under my feet, golden wisps of essence rising from the fissures. Eather as brilliant as the summer sun streaked out, searing the ground. The eather stretched between us, closing the distance between Embris and me. Essence rose, wrapping itself around his legs.
The tear in the realm flickered and then sealed, silencing the draken calls.
Embris’s head jerked around, his eyes widening. “You can’t do this!” he roared, flesh thinning. Tendrils of eather snapped around his wrists, stretching his arms out until his back bowed. “You can’t—”
I lifted my hand, silencing him with a twist of my wrist, shattering his jaw. “You will die in this realm.”
My words set fire to the corn, and the hills lit with an orange glow. The sky above me cracked open just as my heart had done when I saw Ezra’s face. Eather rushed down my arm, crackling and spitting.
All around me, the realm screamed, and I thought I heard my name in the loudest of them.
The valley shuddered when I rose from the ground, gripping Embris’s boyish curls. I twisted his head back and then struck, sinking my fangs into his throat.
The Primal shouted, and his energy lashed out at me, stinging me through my shirt and breeches. But I didn’t care. I drank deeply, taking in his blood—the very essence of the realms. I didn’t care that I had never really spoken to this Primal. I drank until I felt him weakening, felt his breaths becoming labored, and his heart falter. Only then did I tear my fangs free.
Silvery eather lit Embris’s veins, but it quickly turned golden. Blood leaked from the Primal’s ears, nostrils, and mouth, then seeped from his pores.
“You will not pass into Arcadia.” My lips brushed his cheek, peeling layers of his skin back. I dragged him into the air and away from the trembling walls surrounding Masadonia, the capital of Terra. I took him as far from the city as possible—from the bells I now heard ringing within the city’s walls. “There will be no long rest for you. No peace. You deserve nothing. You will cease to exist.”
The flesh of Embris’s throat had begun to flake off, golden eather flooding the rest of his body. I forced him to his knees.
“I am the One who is born of Blood and Ash, the Light and the Fire, and the Brightest Moon, the true Primal of Life and the Queen of the Gods and Common Man. I will give you what you deserve,” I whispered, but all in the realm, from the west to the east, heard my words. My skin tightened as I lifted my right arm. “I condemn you to the final death.”
Lightning erupted from the sky, striking my right palm. A jagged bolt formed, as hot as the Pits of Endless Flames of the Abyss. Guided by instinct, I jerked his head back and slammed the lightning bolt through the underside of his jaw.
The end of the Primal of Wisdom, Loyalty, and Duty wasn’t instantaneous.
Embris’s flesh tore away, and what was left of his blood fell to the ground, boiling until it eventually evaporated and his muscles and tendons dried out. He experienced the disintegration of every fucking inch of his body, starting with his lower half. I left his head—his eyes—for last, making sure his very last second of existence was just as terrifying as Ezra’s and Marisol’s had likely been—as my mother’s, the servants’, the guards’, and all those who were now gone were.
I let go, and his head shattered into a cloud of shimmery dust that spread across the cornfield.
Embris was gone.
And it did nothing to assuage my rage or sorrow. It only grew.
I stepped back as particles of eather began pulsing and expanding where Embris once knelt, coming together to form a ball of softly glowing energy.
Something was happening.
Tiny hairs rose all over my body, and energy pressed down, forcing me to move back even farther.
The ball of energy drifted into the sky and climbed until it was among the stars, throbbing all the while.
Everything stopped.
My breath.
My heart.
The realms.
Eather seeped from the top and bottom of the orb, then from its left and right. What remained of Embris’s essence shuddered—
Then erupted in a blinding light, streaking to the north and south, then the west and east of the realms.
In the distance, half the Masadonia Rise came down. I could hear windows shattering as a scorching wind blew through Terra. For a brief second, I saw pink trees similar to those lining the Golden Bridge, as well as the moonlight-kissed thatched roofs of farmsteads and villages. I saw people running in the hazy glow across the fields. Women. Men. Children. They all ran in a desperate attempt to escape, but then it all went up like they were nothing but dried-out tinder. The trees. The farms. Villages. The people. The orange-lit hills—the lower mountains of the Undying Hills—that stretched all the way to the city of Masadonia crumbled into the sea, sending out a thunderous shockwave. A great wave rose, one as high as any mountain and as wide as the entire coast of the mortal realm. It blocked out the stars and moon—
A flash of intense silver cut through the night sky, and the arrival of another Primal thudded in my chest. In the shadow of the still-rising, deadly tsunami, I saw Phanos’s silhouette. He thrust his essence-lit trident into the wave with a shout, calling forth a roar of powerful wind from all directions. Eather erupted from the trident, exploding into a silvery web that pushed the wave down.
The ground trembled where I stood once more, making me drag my gaze from Phanos. Where the villagers had fallen, shells of packed, hard ash now encased them. Hundreds of them were forever frozen, some sprawled on the ground in clusters. Families. Others were alone on their knees, their arms shielding their heads or raised as if they’d spent their last seconds praying to gods who would not answer.
Because we had brought this ruin upon them.
Fine fissures appeared where Embris had knelt and spread all the way into Masadonia. Small saplings wiggled free of the cracks all around me, growing, expanding, and rapidly becoming thick trunks with glossy, bleeding bark. Hundreds of trees. Thousands. Limbs sprouted like bony fingers, misshapen and bent. Buds sprouted from branches and unfurled.
From where the lower mountains of the Undying Hills once stood to the half-shattered Rise of Masadonia, a forest of dark crimson leaves and glistening bark rose forebodingly in the stark moonlight.
The once bountiful fields of Terra were no more. In their place was a forest birthed from soil drenched in Primal essence and mortal blood. A tomb.
The temperature dropped until I could see my breath, but it did nothing to cool my fury. Dark, choking rage rose like a seething storm, swallowing me. It was like a tempest of darkness roaring through my veins, consuming everything in its path, urging me to crush. Obliterate. It was in every heartbeat, like an echo of wrath with a name as I opened a tear in the realm.
Kolis.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
I walked along the sun-streaked golden road, the scent of blood and death clinging to me.
Ahead, the polished marble and diamond Rise stood tall.
Through the mist shrouding what lay beyond, guards in golden armor rushed along the top of the wall. Several lifted gold-plated bows, aiming shadowstone-tipped arrows in my direction. Others exchanged wary looks. They inched back, their attention shifting to the dark clouds above them. It was almost as if they had been expecting me.
“Halt!” a guard shouted from above the gate.
That would not happen.
Eather swelled inside, and I lifted my hands. Gold-laced essence streaked out from my fingertips and raced across the ground. The clouds above continued to thicken, blotting out the sun. Some guards ran. Others fired arrows.
But it was too late for them all.
Wisps of eather rose, shattering the arrows as the thicker strands of energy poured into the diamond-encrusted Rise. Gold-tinged silver light spread, forming a network of veins that traveled the length of the wall surrounding Dalos.
I snapped my hands into fists.
The crack was like a blast of thunder, freezing the guards where they stood. All across the Rise, gold-winged faces contorted in shock and disappeared. The Rise exploded into fragments of stone and ash.
Lightning struck the ground as I walked forward, the diamonds beneath my feet shattering. Wind tore the purplish-pink trees from their roots and twisted their limbs until they broke. The smaller wall around Cor Palace came into view. It, too, turned to dust. I toppled the trees that bodies had once hung from.
The palace went next as I called for Death to show himself. I shattered the glass doors and peeled back roofs. I brought the walls down, and all that answered was a chorus of short-lived screams.
Chest throbbing, I closed my eyes and shadowstepped farther into Dalos, appearing just outside the sprawling fortress and before a line of ready guards.
Several arrowheads hit their marks, but I didn’t care. I welcomed the pain and gave myself over to it because it was nothing compared to what I felt inside. I stalked forward, sending a crackling web of energy ahead of me. The lines of guards fell. I lifted my hand, ripping the heavy, gold-plated doors from their hinges.
“Kolis!” I shouted, entering the Sanctuary and ripping arrows from where they were stuck. This part of Kolis’s domain had remained unscathed after I escaped.
It would not stay that way.
He’d taken my control. My sense of self. My family. I would take all he had taken from me—threefold.
A bolt of eather came at me when I passed the gold-adorned archways. I spun to the left, spotting several armed gods.
I sent one through the glass and another through a wall as I shot forward, dipping under a raised shadowstone sword. Catching the god’s arm, I rose behind her. “Where is Kolis?”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“No, thank you.” I tore into her throat, drinking deeply. Hot, thick blood poured into my mouth, and footsteps pounded.
Still latched onto her neck, I spun around just as a shadowstone dagger tore through the air. The blade struck the goddess between the eyes. Catching her sword as it fell, I released her body.
And locked eyes with another god. The stupid fucker charged me. Deflecting the blow, I landed a vicious kick to his knee, shattering it. He shouted, going down. I drove the sword through his skull and threw out my left hand. Streams of eather hissed through the air, hitting another guard as a pale-eyed Revenant took his place.
I yanked the shadowstone sword free as the Revenant came at me.
I didn’t have time for their shit.
Twisting, I swung the sword in a high arc, cleaving the Rev’s head from its shoulders. Remembering what I’d been told about Callum’s head reattaching itself, I kicked this one down the hall.
“Kolis!” I screamed. The door to my right opened.
A blast of eather knocked the sword from my grasp, spinning me back a few feet. I caught myself before I went down. My skin smoked, my flesh charred, and I couldn’t feel my blood-soaked hand. I lifted my head.
A god stood before me, breathing heavily. I thought he looked familiar as he lifted both hands and took a tentative step back, a lock of brown hair falling across his forehead.
“I’m not going to fight you,” he began.
“Shut up,” I said, snapping forward. I gripped his throat with my ruined hand. It hurt, but I drowned myself in the pain and sent a rush of eather through him.
The god’s head kicked back, and he screamed, eather pouring out of his open mouth.
I dropped him, throwing out my hands. Eather spread across the interior wall. “Kolis!” I yelled. “You wanted this! Face me!”
He didn’t appear, even as I moved deeper into the building, leaving a path of ruin in my wake. Panting, my steps slowed when I entered a windowless hall. I’d been here before.
I stopped and listened. The fingers of my good hand twitched, and my head tilted. There were sounds. There had been noises the entire time. Quiet ones. Moans. Whimpers. Some louder. But I didn’t hear the rumble of a draken as my stare fixed on the wall.
Kolis wasn’t here.
The son of a bitch likely suspected I would come for him and took his draken and most of his Revenants.
But I knew what he didn’t take.
My chin lowered, and I pulled the essence to the surface. It pulsed and then crawled over the wall. I tore the innermost wall of the Sanctuary down, block by fucking block, exposing what Kolis kept inside to the sun.
There were many of them. Hundreds of Ascended. Most started to run, their skin smoking. Some came at me. Others headed for parts of the Sanctuary that still stood. None made it, their flesh catching fire. My gaze collided with the fine features of one not much older than me.
Jove.
I couldn’t look away as his face contorted in pain—the same features I’d seen fear in not that long ago.
He’d been a Chosen.
But he hadn’t chosen this. He hadn’t chosen any of this.
The throbbing in my chest intensified. I staggered sideways and turned. Jove fell in a fiery heap. My gaze landed on the path of destruction I had left as the smell of burnt flesh filled the air.
Through the smoke and crumbled stone, I saw a section of the Sanctuary still standing with strips of white rippling in the wind. I walked through the smoke, jerking to a stop.
A group of Chosen stood huddled together, pressed against one of the walls. Most were veiled, but others were not, their faces masks of fear and horror as they…
As they stared at me.
“It’s okay,” I assured them, lifting a hand.
They shrank back, some even screaming. My gaze fell to my hand, where eather still swirled around my bloody, charred fingers, wisps licking the air. Through the gore, I saw the still-shimmering golden swirl of my marriage imprint on the top of my right hand.
Every muscle in my body locked up as patches of shiny new pink flesh appeared. What…What was I doing?
My gaze flew back to the Chosen—to those I would give a real choice to once I’d dealt with Kolis. They could serve as intended without fear of exploitation or return to the mortal realm. I would set them free. Not harm them. But it was clear they were terrified of me. And this time I…
I had given them a reason to be.
I reeled back, inhaling sharply, and shook my head in disbelief. Of course, Kolis wouldn’t have taken them. He’d known I would come. All the guards were proof of that. Yet he still left them here. He didn’t care about life.
Did I?
The strips of white billowed as the clouds overhead began to break apart. The sight of them cowering in fear was startling, but the realization of all that’d led me here was monstrous.
I’d taken lives. Countless lives.
Oh, gods.
I stumbled, my heart thumping. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my chest seizing. In my mind, I saw the villagers, their arms raised to a sky I’d brought down on them in an act of justice.
An act of vengeance.
I kept walking backward, hands and arms trembling. My thoughts raced. I had to fix this. I had to. I could. I would.
I returned to Terra. The bells of Masadonia had ceased ringing as I walked into the blood-drenched forest. Slivers of moonlight filtered through the heavy canopy of crimson leaves, reflecting off the ash-hardened shells of the fallen villagers.
I knelt by one and saw there were two. A man or a woman with another beneath them—a desperate attempt to shield a child.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, lightly placing my bloody hand on the shell. “I’ll fix this.”
I put my other hand on the ground. I didn’t know what I was doing—it was instinctual. I summoned the eather, and it responded in a hot rush. My skin tingled with warmth, and gold-laced eather seeped from my pores and dripped onto the ground beside drops of blood that had fallen from me. I lifted my head and stared at the forest floor through strands of pale, bloodied hair. Tendrils of eather rolled out, casting a glow as the essence swirled under and over the shells of the dead, leaving glittering daylight in its wake. My fingers dug into the soil. Wisps of Primal mist seeped beneath them, curling and spreading across the ground.
Beside me, the shells shuddered, and the ash flaked off. Patches of pink flesh and ragged clothing appeared. Singed blond hair. My eyes locked with wide, blue ones full of fear and awe, reflecting the golden glow of eather. I pulled my hand back, and ash mixed with blood, smearing my fingertips.
“Momma?” a small voice trembled. “I had a bad nightmare.”
The woman’s attention immediately shifted to the small one in her arms. A sob shook her body as she held the little boy close.
I rose slowly, my body aching. Villagers stood throughout the forest, their faces pale or marked with confusion as they shook ash from their hair and clothing. They moved slowly, helping others stand, and some stood transfixed as the gold-laced silver tendrils disappeared into the mist, still gathering along the forest floor—
“Thank you,” a man whispered, dropping to his knees, the weathered skin of his jaw slack. “Thank you, my—”
“No.” I flinched as the man looked up at me how that guard Wil Tovar had. Others followed suit. Like I was a blessing. A miracle bestowed upon them. A benevolent Primal Goddess of Life. But I wasn’t. I was the opposite. The nightmare the boy had spoken of. I had not earned their praise or worship. I deserved their fear.
“Rise and leave,” I said, pushing with my voice—with my eather—until all were standing and backing away from me. “Leave this place.” The corners of my vision were filled with silvery, golden light. “Leave this place and never return. There is nothing but death here—in the Blood Forest.”
