Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 229266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1146(@200wpm)___ 917(@250wpm)___ 764(@300wpm)
“From blood and ash.” The Atlantian raised the dagger. “We will rise again, my brothers and sisters.”
The hum in my blood grew, the buzz in my skin intensified, stronger than what I’d felt before, and that ancient sense of knowledge rose deep from my pain. The cords I could see so clearly rippled out from me, connecting me to each and every one of them. It gathered all their burning hatred and scorching loathing, their acidic bitterness and thirst for vengeance after years, decades, centuries of pain inflicted upon them. And I took it.
I took it all inside me, letting it pour into every vein, every cell until it choked me, until I tasted the blood, until I drowned in it. Until I tasted death, and it was sweet.
“Enough!” I screamed as the connection to them—to all of them—crackled with energy. The cords that had always been invisible, lit up in silver, becoming visible to not only my eyes but theirs.
“Your eyes,” the Atlantian with the dagger gasped, staggering back.
Moonlight glow spilled out of me, seeping over the stone and rippling into the charged air as I stood. Thunder rolled endlessly, shaking the Temple and the nearby trees.
“Dear gods,” the Atlantian whispered, his dagger slipping from his fingers to fall soundlessly to the tile. “Forgive us.”
Too late.
The cords connecting me to all of them contracted as I threw out my arms. All the hate, the loathing, the bitterness and vengeance intensified, tripled, and then erupted from me, traveling through each of those cords, finding their way back home.
Lightning streaked overhead like a thousand screams as the group’s rancid emotions choked them.
Hair blew back from faces. Clothing pulled taut against bodies. Feet slid over stone, and they went down, one after another after another as if they were nothing more than fragile saplings caught in a windstorm.
I watched as their vileness continued feeding back to them.
I watched as they clutched at their heads, writhing and spasming, screaming and shrieking until the bones in their throats caved in under their contempt.
And then…nothing.
Silence in and outside of me. I was empty again—no hatred, no anger, no pain. Empty and cold.
I sucked in air, staggering as the silver cords connected to them sparked and fizzled out. The rain eased and then stopped, forming pinkish puddles across the floor.
Those on the stone didn’t move, they didn’t thrash and squirm. Red. There was so much red around them that ran in rivulets to the puddles, deepening the pinkish hue. They lay still, their bodies twisted and contorted as if they had been thrown about by the gods themselves. Eyes wide and mouths hanging open, hands clenched tightly around rocks or their crushed throats.
I felt nothing from them.
The bells tolled again, this time rapidly with no pauses between the gongs, and the Temple shuddered. Stone cracked behind me. The scent of blood and rich soil spilled into the air. A shadow fell over me, stretched across the floor like hundreds of bare bone fingers.
Slowly, I turned around, and my gaze crawled up thick, glistening bark and across the bare limbs of a massive tree. Tiny golden buds formed all over and blossomed, thousands unfurling to reveal blood-red leaves.
A Blood Forest tree stood, rooted where my blood had first fallen.
Movement snagged my gaze. My head jerked to the left, and whatever breath I managed to get into my lungs fled.
They were sleek shadows prowling up the wide steps, hesitating there, surveying the bodies on the stone floor.
Heads turned to one another. Pairs of keen, frosted eyes lifted to where I stood before the blood tree, breathing heavily. I tensed.
Behind them, larger ones pressed forward. Two. Three. Four. So many more. There were dozens. Maybe even a hundred. Perhaps more. Each one greater than the one before them, their fur glossy in the sunlight as the clouds overhead scattered, their eyes an incandescent blue I’d never seen before. Their ears perked and nostrils twitched as they scented the air—the blood.
As they scented me.
I recognized the shock of Delano’s white fur and then my heart twisted as I saw Kieran, his unnaturally bright eyes fixed on me, on the silvery light that still glowed around me.
Claws clicked on stone as they came forward, stepping over the fallen, heads down low, slowly moving around me, circling me, making room…
Good gods.
The color of steel, the wolven was double the size of any I’d seen, nearly as tall as me. Maybe even taller, and it stalked forward, paws the size of two of my hands.
It was Jasper. During the battle at Spessa’s End, I hadn’t realized how large he was.
The silver wolven stopped in front of me, meeting my wide-eyed stare with those unnerving, glowing eyes, and I knew if I ran or reached for the fallen dagger to protect myself, I wouldn’t make it an inch.