Chapter 85
The smell reached Mariah first.
The northern road was worn and beaten, stomped into submission by thousands of hoofs and booted feet. The evidence of Kol’s army was everywhere—dropped banners, forgotten utensils, even the occasional discarded boot.
Every moment spent with those reminders made Mariah want to scream.
The road widened as they approached Andburgh. The Crossroad City, built at the intersection of the northern road—which led to Khento and farther, to Antoris—and Xara’s Road, which connected Kasia all the way to Verith’s golden gates.
Mariah had never understood why her parents picked this place to call home. It had never felt like one; not to her.
Only her family had made it something worth protecting.
The stench of death clung to the breeze. The acrid smell of burned lumber, the rancidness of melted flesh. Rot and decay and fear was thick in the air, pluming into the clouds.
Mariah’s rage was hotter than a forge when Andburgh came into view. What was left of it, anyway.
The circular town square had been reduced to rubble and ash. Shattered glass spread around the bloodstained cobblestones. There were no bodies, but plenty of dark stains to suggest that death had swept through this place.
It was an odd thing, to see the very foundations of her world destroyed. The very things that had made her who she was reduced to splinters and cinders.
The rage in her chest bubbled brighter. Hotter. Vengeance crawled beneath her skin, bloodlust circling around her heart.
The only thing that kept her planted on the earth was that single bond in her chest, woven of silver and gold and shadow, that she could never seem to shut away.
A spear of guilt pressed through the weight of her vengeance and rage. Andrian bringing up her mother and that diary had infuriated her. Mariah couldn’t remember the last time she’d been that mad.
She knew—somewhere, deep down—that the fury she felt wasn’t for him, but at herself.
It was born from shame at her failures, from her weaknesses and faults and all the things that screamed at her that she wasn’t enough, she would never be enough, she would always fail the ones who counted on her most.
Mariah knew exactly what to say to get under his skin, to get him to leave her alone. She also knew saying those things would cut him deeply.
And she knew how incredibly untrue they were.
It had been close to five hours, and she’d wanted to stop and go to him and apologize at least a dozen times.
But what would she even say? A simple I’m sorry didn’t feel like it would be enough.
They needed more time, so she could explain; so he could understand; so they could share all the scars they carried.
Mariah didn’t have that time.
The only thing that kept her grounded and sane was the fact that she could sense him there, riding behind her and Matheo. A quiet, steady presence she hoped would never leave, no matter how terrible she could be.
She didn’t deserve him and would spend every moment trying to make her words up to him.
After Kol was defeated.
“Goddess’s tits,” Matheo muttered. They’d pulled their horses to a halt in the middle of the square, right in the center of the carnage. To Mariah’s left were a collection of tables and benches, most tipped over or smashed or burned. There was one in the center, untouched amidst the wreckage.
Less than a year ago, she’d sat at that same table across from her mother. She’d eaten her lunch and told off a young woman in town for something that felt so impetuous and unimportant now.
Mariah wondered, with a sick twist to her stomach, if Annabelle had survived the slaughter or if she would find her amongst the dead.
She loosened her mare’s reins, sliding from her back. Kol’s army had clearly used this space to keep their horses; a few bales of hay were left under a crumbling awning.
“We’ll leave the horses here and go forward on foot,” she said, her mare already digging into the forage. Matheo and Andrian did the same, rejoining her in the center of the square.
“The army was clearly here,” Matheo said, glancing around. “But…where are they now?”
The same question had been buzzing beneath Mariah’s skin since they’d stepped foot in the town. Despite being at a crossroad, Andburgh was no strategic stronghold. It carried no great wealth or barracked any soldiers.
There was no reason for Kol to destroy this place. No reason, other than to draw Mariah out.
But if that was his reason, why leave before she arrived?
None of it made sense. Yet Mariah’s sick curiosity urged her forward, toward the far outskirts of the town. To the one place in Andburgh where she’d ever felt true happiness.
She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder. Her gaze met one of shadowed tanzanite. Her heart cracked to see the pain he didn’t bother to hide.
“I know it doesn’t fix anything,” she said down their bond. “And I want to talk about it more, when this is all done. But I’m sorry. I didn’t mean the things I said.”
Andrian was silent for a moment, a muscle working in his jaw. “You don’t need to apologize. We’re past that now. I’ll follow you anywhere, nio, no matter where that takes me.”
Mariah was too tired to argue. She just blinked slowly, then turned toward the familiar winding path leading away from the town square.
It took all of Mariah’s remaining strength to hold her tears at bay.
If Andburgh’s town square were ruins, then her home—the beautiful little cottage tucked into the woods, ringed by white-barked birch trees and meadows blossoming with wildflowers—was a tomb.
The house was little more than a pile of rubble. It had been set ablaze, some of the cinders still smoldering. The trees were chopped down and scorched into ruin, the flowers trampled beneath bloody feet.
Beside the ruins of her home were piles of bodies—all the people missing from the square. A towering pyre, piled without dignity or respect.
Those people did not deserve this. They were misguided, victims of a society that had lied to them for centuries, but they were not evil or bad.
Only the being who’d done this to them was.
Mariah forgot her guilt. Forgot her anguish and her fear and her regret. Forgot everything except one singular, consuming thing.
Rage.
Magic bubbled up in her chest, spilling down her hands.
Ropes and coils of light lashed at the blood-stained earth, reaching for the rubble of her home, snarling toward the sun hanging heavily in the sky.
The Marks on her wrists pulsed with the beat of her heart, a war drum against this tormented place.
Mariah slowly sank to her knees, gripped her hands into the grass, tipped back her head, and screamed.
It was a cry of pain and heartbreak and all the broken pieces of herself. The battle sound of her rage, the lament to her vengeance.
She didn’t care what it took, what sacrifices she had to make. Mariah would burn the world to cinders, would shred the very fabric of existence, if it meant seeing Kol dead at the end of her blade.
“What a treat it is to see you again, little goddess. And might I say—the darkness of your thoughts is so very delicious.”
Mariah’s eyes snapped open. She jumped to her feet, hand falling to her dagger. Steel whistled as Andrian drew his blade. Wood clicked against wood as Matheo nocked an arrow.
It was as if her thoughts—and her scream—had been a summoning.
A tall man strode from the shadows of the tree line. Everything about his appearance struck Mariah like a fist to her gut.
The messy, blue-black hair. The sharpness of his jaw. The too-familiar tilt of his lips as he smirked. The casual grace with which he moved, long legs swallowing the distance.
The only unfamiliarity was the glowing red-gold of his eyes.
Kol halted several yards away, sliding his hands into his pockets. Two men followed him out from the woods, their receding hairlines and thick guts and rotting teeth twisting Mariah’s rage into a mangled, ugly thing.
Shawth and Donnet grinned, victory gleaming in their watery eyes.
“I will admit, though,” Kol continued, his voice slightly bored. “I am a little disappointed in how shamefully predictable you are. Is this all you brought? A green Armature and my traitorous son?” Kol’s gaze slid past Mariah.
“Such a shame that you were so desperate to return to your queen that you were willing to sacrifice your brother to do it.” Kol tsked. “How selfish.”
Fear slammed down their bond. “What did you do to Gabriel?” Andrian’s question was low and soft, the seething growl in his words barely hidden.
Kol scoffed. “Whatever happened to him is a result of your actions, my son. Remember that.” His red-gold eyes flared. “But he’s not dead, if that’s what you're asking. Not yet, anyway. As unfortunate as it is, I still have use for House Laurent, even if its head is little more than a charred body.”
Mariah fought to control her breathing. Her mind swirled with images and memories: of Gabriel’s wife, of his infant son, tucked away in a cottage in Leuxrith. Of the promise they’d made, that Gabriel would not be a victim of this war.
No. She had to focus. They were so close. She only had to draw him closer, get a little nearer. Just close enough to sink in her blade and end this.
More footsteps came from the woods. Kol’s smile tipped higher.
“You are being so quiet today, little goddess,” he said. “So different from the last time we met.” He gestured behind him. “Maybe now, you’ll be a little more willing to talk. I believe with the right motivations, there is always the possibility of reaching peace.”
Three more figures emerged from the trees.
Mariah realized just how thoroughly she’d been wrong. About all of this.
A dark-skinned man walked out first. His braided wine-red hair reached his shoulders, and his eyes glowed a deep mossy green. An aura surrounded him, one of rumbling boulders and deep-growing roots and too much knowledge to fill a single mind.
A god. Ydros, God of the Earth, if Mariah had to guess. But he was the patron of Vatha, and—
Mariah bit down hard on her tongue to hold back her choking sob. She tasted copper.
Ydros led them out by a woven rope, tied around their bound hands. Gags were fitted into their mouths, their clothes worn and stained.
A man with once-neat brown hair, hazel eyes filled with defeat and failure and regret and sorrow.
A woman with long blonde curls, tears from her amber eyes staining tracks down her freckled cheeks.
Wings beat the air. A dozen mudae landed in the clearing, serrated claws clicking, as Ydros pushed Sebastian and Ciana to their knees at Kol’s feet.