Chapter 32 #2
And I… I will never know why he did the things he did.
I will never get to forgive him and I will never, not truly, get to hate him as I once swore I would.
But I will not hang beside him and my wife, my fierce, furious light, will not hang beside him.
Because it is not our time to die.
If Vashar is with Amara now, it will not take long for Modok to discover the truth. To find our daughter and I will not allow him to take one more thing from me. Not tonight. Not ever.
But then I hear her cry, splitting the storm open. The sound stills everything. I close my eyes, and for a moment I drift, weightless in dread.
No. How did I let this happen?
When I open them again, Modok’s expression is one of disbelief, his face a mirror of the horror cracking me in two.
A Mor’Thravar Fae steps forward, holding my daughter. Rain streaks down her tiny body, pooling in the delicate curve of her neck. She wails into the night, limbs flailing, and then Modok takes her.
“What is this?” he mutters, his voice overwhelmed with disgust, shock. “A half-breed?”
He brushes a callused, vile hand over the pointed tips of her ears.
I thrash against my restraints with a roar, the sound torn from the deepest part of me. I snarl, teeth bared. But I don’t know if he even hears me. He’s too consumed by her. By my daughter.
Nyraxes lingers nearby, revulsion twisting her face.
“You couldn’t just slake your lust with Fae, could you?” she sneers. “You had to pollute your bloodline with that.”
She spits, the glob landing inches from me.
“Kill the baby first, brother,” she screeches. “Every breath it takes is an offense. A stain. An abomination!”
I barely have time to process the words before I hear a heavy thud.
Amara.
Her body is dropped without care onto the stones.
I stop breathing.
My eyes lock on her. I scan every inch, searching, begging for a sign of life and then the Golden Son is hurled down beside her. He groans, drops to his knees, head bowed.
He glances my way, but only briefly before turning to her. Reaching out. Touching her arm like he has every right to know the feel of her skin.
Rage burns through my veins.
I would tear the flesh from his hand if I could.
But she stirs.
The smallest shift. A twitch of her fingers.
Relief crushes me like a tidal wave. She’s alive.
Vasheeth paces nearby, her eyes scanning the Mor’Thravar ranks. Then she halts.
“Where is Vashar?”
Silence.
One male shakes his head, then nods once…toward Amara.
Realization takes a breath to land and when it does, I see it ripple across Vasheeth’s face. Vashar is not coming back. Killed. By my wife.
That grief... that fury... that blood vow begins in her eyes.
Her hand drops to her hip. The dagger there is already whispering for vengeance.
She draws it, slow and sure, steel gleaming beneath the stormlight.
Modok and Nyraxes don’t even glance her way.
They’re still lost in their sick fascination with my daughter.
They don’t see Vasheeth cross the stones toward Amara, dagger poised to strike.
“Modok!” I shout, the word ragged. “Nyraxes!”
But both ignore me.
All I can do is watch helplessly as Vasheeth reaches Amara and hovers over her.
The Golden Son lunges to intercept, but he’s too slow. She kicks him hard, and he flies backward, skidding across the stone.
No.
Not like this.
Not when I’ve just gotten her back.
Not when my life had finally started to mean something.
Not when I had purpose.
When I’d started to believe I could have something pure, something perfect, something beautiful, even with the curse upon my soul.
I close my eyes. Shadows press against the edges of my vision. I try to blink them away.
But I can hear it now…the darkness. It sings to me.
It tells me I do not have to be helpless. That there is power waiting. Terrible, ancient, endless. All I need do is call to it. Summon it. Let it in, and I can make this all go away. I can make them suffer. I can make them pay. I can tear them into pieces and feed them to the void.
But I know what else it brings. What waits inside me. Something monstrous.
And still… I have no choice. Because I swore I’d only call on it if my life depended on it.
But this isn’t about my life anymore.
This is her life.
Smoke slithers between my fingers. Shadows pour from the edges of the courtyard, rushing toward me like a dam breaking. They swarm me. Swirl in a furious, hungry vortex. The air hums with the echo of a thousand ancient voices, speaking in unison, welcoming me back.
I feel him. His hand presses on my shoulder, and when I open my eyes, they are black.
Death Singer manifests in my grip, inch by inch. As the blade finishes its descent, my bindings melt into smoke and then, with a roar of shadow, I walk the void.
It is cold, suffocating, endless, but I cannot deny the way my skin hums at its touch. White eyes flicker in the dark, demons watching from the depths. Then I walk again, tearing through space and shadow to appear at Vasheeth’s side.
She gasps when she sees me. They all do.
They realize too late what they’ve forced me to become, what they’ve unleashed.
But I give her no time for regret. I drive my blade between her shoulder blades, the steel erupting through her chest. Vasheeth chokes, blood dripping from the corners of her mouth, her limbs trembling, her eyes wide and glassy with the knowledge of her death.
I watch until the sounds she makes bore me, then yank Death Singer free.
Her body is swallowed by smoke, devoured before it ever hits the ground.
But even in death, she leaves behind her dagger, slipped from her grip before the void claimed her. The blade spins slowly through the air, landing beside Amara’s face with a sharp, ringing clang and her eyes flash open.