41. Basten
They killed my little violet.
It can’t be real. This beautiful girl in my arms whose pulse is painfully absent. Whose lungs don’t rise and fall. Whose half-open eyes don’t blink.
A roar builds inside my skull.
This can’t fucking be real .
A visceral pain slams into my chest. My jaw locks. My muscles clench so tightly that I fear they might snap, but I don’t care. I want the pain. I need it. The pain drowns out the bottomless pit of fear that yawns at the edge of my vision. There are few things in my life that have scared me.
Losing Sabine?
This fucking blows them all away.
My skin burns hot as the churning rage inside me comes to a boil, ready to erupt and scorch the earth around me until Drahallen Hall is nothing but a pile of steaming rubble. The fae were worried about Tòrr bringing this place to the ground? Wait until I unleash everything I’m capable of. I might be human, but I have nothing to lose .
And the only thing now I want to gain?
Payback.
Someone is going to die for this. For killing my little violet. Payback won’t bring her back, I know, but it will damn sure answer the rage shredding up my heart.
Damn the fae.
Damn this fucking castle.
Damn every last thing in this wrecked world except for the heartbreakingly quiet girl in my arms.
An anguished cry tears from between my teeth as I howl up at the ceiling.
When my pain finally has no other place to go, I slowly lower Sabine to the floor, taking care to set her pale body down gently, and wipe a bead of splattered blood off her cheek.
“I swear to you, little violet,” I vow, lips shaking. “They will pay for what they’ve done to you.”
I stroke her cheek one final time—and leave my last drop of tenderness in that touch. When I push to my feet to face the fae court, it’s without a shred of mercy in my soul. My body is nothing but a weapon now.
“You never fucking deserved her!” I shout.
I charge at Vale. King of Fae. I have nothing but my two fists, so I’ll make them be enough. With adrenaline and heartbreak simultaneously pushing me forward, I feel like I could rip the heads off these glowing bastards.
Vale opens his hands palm-down to release bursts of blue fey toward the floor. It’s just a warning, which is his mistake. He should have struck me dead when he had the chance.
“Fucking fae .” As I get within a few feet of him, one of his eyes twitches a second before he aims his fey at me. That twitch is enough of a tell that I have time to duck, sliding on my knees past his left side. With a flick of my wrist, I unlatch one of his battle axes from the holster on his back. When I come up to my feet behind him, it’s with his own axe swinging.
My senses pick up the sounds of the other fae scrambling to their feet with astounding speed. The air crackles with the smell of a coming storm as they ignite their fey—but they aren’t fast enough to stop me.
“This is for Sabine!” I bring the axe down toward the junction of his neck and shoulder. My lungs scream out all my rage, my pain, my heartbreak as I bring the axe down.
Five inches away.
Three.
One.
And something happens. Something is—wrong.
My arms are locked. My legs, too.
Fuck .
I throw all my strength into trying to move, but I can’t so much as blink. I’m a damn living statue. I’m the only one—the fae are still rushing in my direction.
“Stop, Lord Basten!” Captain Tatarin comes into my view, her hands extended like she’s holding back a tide, her face awash with desperation. She begins to lower her fingers to count down the seconds until her spell ends.
Eight more seconds. Seven .
“This isn’t the way!” she says in a rush. “You don’t understand what you’re doing!” She throws a desperate look at Vale. “Highness, let me talk to him. You need him, remember? He’ll deliver Astagnon to you.”
Six seconds.
My lungs burn from wanting to breathe but not being able to. While I’m struggling, Vale calmly steps out of my axe’s trajectory.
Slowly, he nods.
Five .
From behind the table, the four other gods approach, their eyes sparking in cold amusement at my misfortune.
As Iyre, Artain, Woudix, and Samaur surround me, Captain Tatarin continues breathlessly, “Lord Basten, hear me out. Human sacrifice is the key to awakening the fae, as Sabine figured out. The fae thrive on our blood and breath and prayers, but to awaken them requires the taking of a full human life.”
Four seconds.
I gather my strength, ready to unleash it the moment I’m free.
Captain Tatarin’s eyes flick briefly to Vale, whose fey bolts surge from his palms like blue lightning, ready to strike me dead. She continues, “But all the fae tales that speak of them slumbering in underground tombs? The scribes got it wrong. There were never tombs. The fae slumber for thousands of years, yes, but not in dirt.”
Three seconds.
Frankly, I could care less what Captain Tatarin has to say to defend the fae. She’s guilty by association. A human who willingly works with demons deserves the same fate as them. The second her spell breaks, she’d better get the hell out of my way, or it’ll be her blood on my hands, too.
Two .
My peripheral vision is nearly 300 degrees, which means I can see all the fae except Woudix, who stands directly behind me.
Captain Tatarin’s hands begin to shake as she lowers another finger, saying quickly, “You’ve heard the rumors that King Rachillon’s godkiss is waking the fae? It’s true. King Rachillon—Lord Vale—has the ability, but to do so, he must?—”
One .
Adrenaline sparks from the soles of my feet to the tips of my ears, ready to unleash hell on these bastards until the floor is polished with their silver blood.
Almost. Fucking. Time.
She says in a rush, “—he must kill the human to awaken the fae inside?—”
Now .
I don’t give a fuck about her explanations. There’s nothing she could say that would spare every one of them from dying as violently as possible for what they did to Sabine. I can taste the crackle of danger in the air. It shoots electricity across my tongue, burns down my throat.
The second Captain Tatarin lowers her final finger, and her spell breaks, I detonate.
My muscles discharge all the coiled rage they’ve been holding under my skin as my axe slams down to the empty space where Vale had been standing. Seamlessly, I continue the axe’s circle to bring it around, using the momentum to build power, and give a battle cry as I aim it at Vale’s torso.
“Lord Basten, don’t!” Captain Tatarin shrieks.
Vale’s fey ignites faster than my senses can pick up. It shoots straight to the axe, whose copper blade conducts the electric current, transferring it to my arms until even my molars buzz. My vision dims. Pain explodes throughout my body.
Artain lunges for the axe. Even weakened, he has nearly twice my strength and easily wrenches it from my numb hands.
Still, I recover fast and, while his hands are occupied, swing my fist straight into his sculpted jaw. Such a strike would send a human male to his ass, but Artain’s chin barely snaps back.
Woudix grabs me from behind, locking my arms behind my back.
With a growl, I strain against his frigid hold.
“You want to rain death upon me?” I shout. “Fine. Do it. I have nothing to live for. You bastards took the only thing I care about. But not fucking yet .”
I slam my head back into Woudix’s face, which surprises him enough to slacken his grip. I drop to a crouch and deliver a donkey kick to his midsection. It off-balances him—but he rightens his stance in record speed.
From the corner of my eye, I see Captain Tatarin lift her hands again to freeze time once more, but Iyre clamps the captain’s hands behind her back.
“No need for that again, Captain,” Iyre purrs.
Eyes wide, Tatarin struggles against the fae’s hold.
Samaur and Vale come at me from either side, sparking orange-gold fey bolts to my left and blue ones to my right. Caught in the middle, I’m about to be a fucking barbeque. The only reason Vale’s fey didn’t burn me to a crisp before was because it struck the axe, not me.
This time, there’s no mistaking their aim.
I widen my stance, braced like an animal, pain racking my ribs. If this is the end for me, so be it. I’ll join Sabine in the underrealm or whatever world comes after this mortal life. Because there is no life without her.
I’m coming, little violet, I just have to unleash hell first…
Woudix comes up from behind to grab me again in a headlock. I slam a kick back toward his knee, but he dodges the strike, bringing his knee up into my kidneys. I wince from the blow as I throw every ounce of strength I have at trying to get free. But the male is fucking strong as marble.
Artain snatches the Serpent Knife from the floor and holds it against my neck.
I go still.
The God of Death pins me from behind. The God of the Hunt has a knife at my throat. The Goddess of Virtue is holding back the only person who can help me. And the God of Day and King of Fae are ready to electrocute me from either side.
A frustrated growl tears at my throat.
“Brother?” Samaur asks Vale, his eyes sparking with anticipation for the permission to end me.
Vale lets out a tightly coiled exhale as his eyes sear into me. I’m supposed to be the key to Astagnon for them. Without me on the throne, they’ll have to wage war. But for all I know, Vale is weighing how much war will cost him over the satisfaction of ending me.
“Kill him,” Vale rasps.
My stomach plummets. I’m sorry, Sabine. I couldn’t avenge you. I tried…
Samaur gives a cruel purse of his lips, but before he can strike me dead, the room goes dark.
It’s as though someone drew the curtains all at once.
There’s a split-second pause where the fae look towards the windows, as confused as I am. The bright daylight has suddenly gone dark. Black storm clouds now snuff out the sun, roiling with a vicious wind as thunder cracks above the roof .
The Hall of Vale shakes from the thunder as rain begins to pelt the outer walls.
Samaur lowers his hands a half-inch as he braces against the next earth-shattering peel of thunder.
This time, when the ground shakes, it doesn’t stop. A tremor runs throughout the floor until cracks open between the polished inlaid stone tiles. The cracks widen, angling the tiles in a cattywampus disarray. The shaking intensifies until the chandelier’s crystals clink together. Vale’s axe on the floor clatters and dances.
“An earthquake,” Iyre murmurs in a hollow voice that almost sounds like fear.
More thunder cracks outside, this time with lightning that briefly illuminates the outlines of dozens of birds flapping at the glass windows.
No—wait. Hundreds of birds. Their wings beat at the glass until it rattles in its panes, threatening to burst open.
Crows. Doves. Robins. Eagles. More species than I can even begin to count, pecking and clawing at the glass.
The closest window suddenly bursts open under the pressure, and the flock pours through like a river breaching its banks.
“Hold him! Don’t let him go!” Vale orders, jabbing his finger at my chest.
Woudix’s headlock tightens around the back of my neck, but I can feel his unsteady pulse in his veins. Whoever is causing this storm, it isn’t one of them.
One of the floor cracks widens into a jagged line down the Hall of Vale. The two halves tip precariously as a chasm opens. A surge of water spouts upward, defying gravity, bringing with it fallen branches and river rocks.
Holy fuck, it’s the damn Ramvik River .
A trout flops out onto Artain’s boot, who jumps back with a cry.
More thunder crashes overhead as the birds break through another window, pouring in to swarm in foreboding circles overhead. A dove swoops down to claw at Vale’s face, and without flinching, he shoots out a bolt of fey.
The dove falls dead to the ground.
Without warning, a twisting tree root erupts from the chasm in the floor. It’s thick as a python, zigzagging across the broken stones to wind itself around Vale’s ankle. Another root shoots out to circle Artain by the waist, hauling him away from the Serpent Knife.
The hall’s doors crash open as loud as thunder itself, and a goldenclaw lopes in, its teeth bared.
Samaur aims a bolt of fey at the bear, but it turns its neck so the blast merely skims off its metallic fur. The creature backs him up against the table with a roar that hurles bear spittle all over his pretty face.
Dazed, I fight to keep a steady stance, grateful for years of military training that have my muscles snapping into a familiar fighting pose.
The storm pelts rain against the blackened windows.
The birds dive down to peck at anything that moves.
The tree roots spread over the floor as the earthquake chasm widens.
And then?
Sabine Darrow’s dead eyes snap open.
END OF BOOK THREE