Chapter 38 #2
Heat rushed over Mora’s face, a burst of fire singeing her skin as it passed. Flames licked up her attacker, his blade slicing her cheek when he flinched away, shrieking his horrors before the fire crawled into his mouth.
He rolled off her, an inferno devouring his body.
Mora pressed her sleeve to her wound, blinking up at a young man who graced her with a gentle smile, flames curling over his shoulder like a pauldron. He reached for her, lips falling open as he prepared to speak.
No words found her ears, a spray of blood and a pained moan greeting her instead.
The fire Elementalist staggered, a sword gleaming with gore poking through his center, the most horrific squelching sound curdling between them as the blade was pulled free.
He fell to his knees, Lord Clairmont’s arrogant son staring down at them.
“Princess?” he gasped, surprise lighting his face.
Sweat-matted platinum blond hair hung past his ears, less elegant than the day he’d presented himself as a potential husband, but Mora knew his snobbish voice.
That was who she’d heard earlier. “Is this where you’ve been? Trapped among Forbidden filth?”
Beads of blood dripped down her face, her dark curls a mess. She pushed up on her elbows, the cold soaking into her tunic nearly as frigid as the look in her eyes.
Somewhere in the distance, Falcrest howled, “My son! My boy! You left him to burn in the manor?”
Mora’s throat worked. The Falcrests’ son was a babe last she saw him, barely learning to stand. A gift from the Gods, according to Lady Falcrest, who’d welcomed their little surprise with so much joy.
And these fucking bastards had killed him.
Furious amber settled on the lord. “Do you imagine yourself the hero, Matthias?”
He stood taller, pride flaring on his face. “Of course I do.” Gore-soaked fingers slid over his leather chest plate until his hand settled above his heart. “Someone needs to save Berwick.”
“From monsters who take innocent lives?” Mora asked, rising to her feet.
“Yes.”
The air Elementalist groaned pitifully, lifting her mangled hand, her broken fingers horrifically bent. Matthias tightened his grip on his sword pommel, but the wind barely moved, the lazy brush of air on his face so dull he laughed, sheathing his blade.
“It’s a shame, the world your parents left behind.” Matthias’s voice gentled to a low, patronizing tone. “But you are not responsible for their sins, Mora. Come with me and we’ll make things right.”
She ground her teeth. “By making you king?”
His smile made her skin crawl. “You were a fool not to pick me.”
“I was indeed a fool.” Mora moved closer, carefully stepping over the fire Elementalist who’d saved her. “For not seeing what you truly are.”
His chin lifted, chest thrust out like he was posing for a gods damned royal portrait, the burning hedges casting an eerie glow at his back.
When Mora neared, he offered his hand. She couldn’t help the way her lip curled, her focus locked on the gore staining his fair skin, but she forced herself to accept it.
“You know what I’ve learned since I was taken, Matthias?”
He hummed, kissing her fingers while Mora swallowed against the burn in her throat. “What?”
Mora pulled him closer, her stomach roiling. But a thrill shot through her when she rose up on her toes and whispered in his ear, “There are no heroes.”
Thrusting her free hand against his chest, over the gore he’d smeared there, Mora called to her dark power.
Obsidian shot through leather, tearing at the dark brown material and burrowing into the padding and thin tunic beneath.
Matthias yelped, but she was too fast for him to react, her smoke tearing through muscle and shattering bone.
“Father!” Matthias cried, feet dangling when Mora lifted him in the air, his flailing body a threat to all who’d spilled innocent blood on these grounds.
“You’re so very brave,” Mora crooned, flexing her onyx-coated fingers. A furious mist curled around his heart, the organ fluttering desperately in its hold. Tugging at memories that made her feel... free.
Squeezing until a blood-rain tumbled down, Mora closed her eyes. A wave of warm blood soaked into her curls, coating her cheeks and painting her clothes, and the pounding in her head quieted. Dother’s voice gone.
“What have you done?” Lord Clairmont shouted, running toward them, color draining from his weathered face.
Mora cocked her head to the side, a feral look in her eyes, Matthias’s limp body floating above, constricted by an onyx tether. A shadowy mass coated her skin, crawling free from its cage to pull her into its frigid embrace. Promising solace.
When she was little more than a dark, glittering creature of fury, she tore through Matthias’s center, bones cracking, his guts splattering on the ground at Lord Clairmont’s feet. Someone vomited, others ran, their cries a haunting song she wouldn’t soon forget. But the lord didn’t move.
His mouth fell open, eyes bulging while he rasped a quiet, “No.”
Mora moved closer, looming over him, a glittering crown of vapor dripping down her brow. “I’d run if I were you.”