Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
I would like that…
I would like that very much.
A spasm jerked me forward onto my hands. There would be no future meetings. No desperately needed conversations. No attempts to try to understand each other. To forgive. No moving forward. Allowing time to tell new stories. No—
I rocked forward, lowering my head and squeezing my eyes shut. It did nothing to stop the rush of raw emotion. My cheeks dampened. I sucked in a metallic-coated breath, opening my eyes. A teardrop fell from my cheek and splattered off my hand.
Red.
It was red.
Another fell. Then another. The blood tears were no longer coming from me but from above.
I lurched to my feet, mouth and throat dry. I stumbled over a prone guard’s legs—a Royal Guard. And there were more. They’d died quickly, their necks broken, as had those I’d seen in the city.
Eather throbbed and pressed against my flesh. I searched faces through the crimson-tinted rain, feeling pieces of me break away with each sight of mouths stretched wide in silent screams. Beige and brown faces. Pale and pink ones. Olive-toned and—
My throat constricted. My steps faltered, and I fell to my knees once more. My vision went black and then came back as I stared up at a jaw that was no longer stubborn. An awareness pressed upon me, but more pieces of me broke away when I saw none of the compassion and cleverness in her beautiful, once-warm brown eyes. I shook when I saw the pinstriped waistcoat, now black-and-red instead of black-and-white.
Beside my sister was her wife, her head turned slightly to Ezra as if Marisol had turned to see her love in the very last moments of her life.
They’d died side by side. Together. And I hadn’t been here this time for Marisol. I hadn’t been here for any of them.
Everyone at Wayfair was dead.
All of them.
And more than half the city now rotted in the rapidly forming red puddles. I couldn’t comprehend the senselessness. Never in my darkest nightmares could I have imagined this kind of horror. This kind of—
Movement from the castle caught my attention. Too-dark and thick shadows filled doorways and moved in the breezeways. They were no longer seeking to hide.
They were how so many had been killed so quickly. Because what I saw weren’t shadows. They were Cimmerian—senturion warriors that could pull from the darkest hours of night to cloak their actions. And they would’ve done just that, sweeping through the city like a plague of nightmares, leaving indiscriminate ruin and despair in their wake. Most had served Hanan but defected once Bele Ascended.
I knew exactly where they had gone.
The air around me charged, reacting to the energy sparking from my pores. A bolt of lightning struck the coast of Carsodonia. The night deepened, and my attention shifted to my kind, smart sister. At the Queen and Consort Lasania had needed. And then I thought about what Callum had said. How he’d wanted to visit with my mother one last time.
He’d known.
I’d told them all they had to do was call my name. Why didn’t Ezra do that?
Electricity rolled down my splayed fingers as I stared at the loss of hope. Of a future. Eather seeped from my fingertips. I couldn’t breathe, but that was okay. Grief gave way to fury.
The distant howls of the living faded, and awareness thudded in a hollow echo through me. The storm inside me spilled into the realm. Wisps of eather crackled around my arms.
“Kolis has come to a decision regarding the deal you offered. You now have his answer.”
Muscles locked all along my spine. My heart stopped. My mind clicked off. Wind heavy with salt and blood whipped through the courtyard, stirring the stained silk gowns and mauve banners. Thick, dark clouds rolled in, blotting out the moonlight. I forced my stare from the faces of the dead and looked over my shoulder at Kyn.
Our eyes locked across the field of dented armor, bent shields, and still-sheathed swords. He’d finally gotten what he’d wanted, even though this wasn’t the Shadowlands.
Vengeance had been unleashed.
And it would continue.
“He apologizes for not waiting until the eirini ended but he has grown rather impatient.” Kyn’s bronze helmet dulled underneath the clouds the starlight couldn’t penetrate. A long spear was embedded in the ground beside him, its blade a milky white. “What did you think would happen? That he would accept your deal? That you would somehow rule? Win? You cannot win against Death. He is inevitable.” Through the drenching blood rain, Kyn’s lips formed a cruel smirk as he chuckled. “Life is not.”
That laugh ended me.
I was no longer who I once was or was now. I was made of the anger and sorrow of my sister’s tortured expression and my mother’s forever-silenced voice. I was nothing but the fury and wasted hope of those small bodies left in gutters like trash and the souls lost at sea. I was nothing but a vessel of rage and the anguish of the great, unforgivable loss of all those who’d perished.