Chapter 39 #2
He blinked hard. Then shook his head and smiled weakly. “I’m here.” He tore his gaze away and looked over his shoulder, through what remained of what had once been a window. “Well, this will be fun.”
I followed his stare and my heart dropped.
“What the hell is that?” I blurted out, approaching the window before I could stop myself.
Well, perhaps that was the wrong question. I knew what it was. It was the Hegaella temple. This place had been seared into my memory. I would recognize it anywhere. Still, it bore so little resemblance to what it once was.
The temple and the surrounding town had been reduced to rubble, and all of it was falling into the depths of a ravine, as if the earth had opened its jaws to swallow it.
The streaks of light I had glimpsed through the trees, I could see now, emanated from the ruins of the temple below.
The walls still stood, somewhat, and the light that spilled from it was so bright down there that it illuminated every window and door and crack in the stone.
“What happened?” I breathed. “Did the Shadowborn do this?”
“Egrette could only dream of that kind of power. No, Kyrene. You did this. What do you think happens when one slays a goddess?”
My mouth went dry. I looked at the ruins of the building around me—perhaps a home, once—with fresh, horrified eyes. How many people had died here?
“This area had already been vacant,” he said, quickly, as if my thoughts were obvious. “Everyone had fled when the Shadowborn attacked. But now, I hope you understand what I meant when I told you that you were very, very lucky to be alive.”
Gods above. I was lucky. I felt a fresh wave of appreciation for the protection Zefiah had offered me—and then, a fresh pang of complicated grief.
Grief and anger. Thanks for nothing, Zef.
“And yet the damned soulless survived?” I grumbled.
“Easy to survive when you aren’t really alive at all, I suppose.” Septimus’s lips thinned as he took in the landscape. “But I suspect Egrette had some inkling we would come here and has been flooding the area with soulless in case we do.”
Fucking Egrette. The gift that kept on giving.
“So what’s in there?” I asked, nodding to the remains of the temple.
“Whatever is left of Shiket. Including the five blades.”
And the fact that no one had raided them yet spoke to the truth of what Septimus had said—that only the Vindica Ultis would be able to.
I pushed away the knot of anxiety in my chest at this thought.
“Should we wait until the storm lets up?” I said, voice rising over a fresh wave of rain.
He rasped a humorless laugh. “This storm is never letting up, lyri. It has raged since the day Shiket was killed here, and has only worsened since.”
I looked up at the rainbow-tinted streaks of lightning arcing from horizon to horizon. Not a thunderstorm at all. Just the heavens thrashing with Shiket’s final fury.
“Wonderful,” I said.
One last punishment from my scorned goddess. One last spiteful jab. Fine, you judgmental bitch, I told her silently. You’ve sure showed me.
I let out a sigh and took a long moment to survey the landscape, looking for some way around the inevitable. At last, I said, “All right. Looks like we’re taking a long, wet, unpleasant walk. Shall we begin?”
No answer.
I turned. Septimus leaned heavily against the wall, head bowed. Little tendrils of red-black still rose around him, his own blood leaching into the air.
My heart clenched at that sight. Because looking at that blood, looking at the way it moved of its own accord, I realized that perhaps he wasn’t in control at all. And I couldn’t think of anything more terrifying.
“Septimus,” I said.
He didn’t move.
“Septimus.”
His head lifted. He started to turn, and then hesitated, as if stopping himself. As if hiding something.
Cold fear fell over me. I was closing the space between us before I could stop myself. Without thinking, I tilted his chin toward me. “Don’t hide from me, Septimus.”
And I drew in a sharp intake of breath at what I saw in his eyes.
That striking silver-amber that had so captivated me was now gone.
His irises were completely red. Our gazes met for just a breath, and the expression that flashed over his face was pure, agonizing hunger.
His nostrils flared. His lip curled. Those eyes locked on me, and my blood called to him.
He wrenched away, moving across the room.
“Get back,” he bit out. The words were rough, inelegant. Nothing like his typical smooth drawl.
I realized, with rising dread, that something was very wrong with him. That perhaps somewhere in the battle with the soulless, or in pouring his strength into collapsing the doors before we left, he had pushed himself past a threshold he shouldn’t have crossed.
I opened my mouth to speak, but before the words came—
A shadow swooped above us.
My face snapped up. Rain pelted my cheeks, and I blinked away water. Nothing but the trees.
But I knew what I saw. I readied Zefiah. “There’s something up—”
Septimus’s eyes widened, hands raising just as a streak of darkness hurtled down from the sky. I dove for him, but a blast of blue-white light sent me flying back against the stone. I rolled, hit something hard. Consciousness wavered, but I clawed it back.
I lifted my head to see licks of Nightfire surrounding us. Through them, Septimus was up against the wall.
And holding him there, great wings spread, red painted over them like a warning in the darkness, was Oraya, the Nightborn queen.