Then again, he could hardly be held accountable for her deciding to become an unpredictable fucking cunt lately.
“Here’s how this is going to work.” A new strategy came together as he walked backwards into the center of the space, keeping his gaze on Baldrir. “I made you a promise I intend to keep. You’re going to watch as I slowly disassemble your friends. I’d like you to take the opportunity to dig deep. Remember everything you can. That way, by the time I make it to those who matter most, you fully understand the stakes of any ongoing incompetence.”
“They have nothing to do with this,” Baldrir hissed. “I’ll tell you the Breamwyrm story again, every version I know, and whatever else you want. Just let them go.”
“I don’t think you’re understanding me, so let me simplify. There are fourteen of you here. At least ten will be peeled apart layer-by-layer because I fucking told you what would happen if you let me down, and I’m a firm believer in following through. That said, I’m willing to make you another promise: learn your lesson, give me something I can actually use by the time I’m done with them, and Nyri, Aldiat, and Frida will die swift deaths as a reward. If not, I’ll ensure what they experience is multitudes worse than anything else you’re about to witness.” He raised his voice, spinning in a leisurely circle. “That goes for all of you. Disclose something relevant, and your pain ends.”
“Just kill us and be done with it!” Nyri shouted. “None of us are going to say a word to help you, so you may as well save yourself the effort.”
Night spare him from any more headstrong females. Endellion and Okthana were already exhausting the meager limits of his patience.
He went right up to her, dropping his head to look her in the eye and be sure she was paying attention. “I understand your feelings for me are less than positive. I’d like for all of you to try adjusting your mindsets. Don’t think of it as helpingme, per se…”
Loosing a fraction of his considerable power, he donned Baldrir’s likeness and pinched her chin, tilting her face closer so he could watch the fear take root.
“More along the lines of everyone you know and love.”
Another burst, and he was wearing Hedda’s skin, the hitch in her breath nothing compared to the silent calculation he knew was taking place—that scrambling in the mind while she tried to figure out whether this was the first time he’d done so in her presence.
It was, but she didn’t know that.
“If it fit into my plans, I could bring all of Straelon to its knees.”
When he reshaped himself into Lyriat, her lip began to tremble, that effervescent spark she carried through life fading the tiniest bit.
Beautiful.
“Until now, the triflings of a single realm have been beneath me, the scope of my goals encompassing far more than you could ever dream of. However, if you’d like to continue being difficult, I’m willing to deviate from my current venture for a little while.”
One last shift, just to drive his point home.
“You…”she whispered, the tears in her brown eyes spilling over as realization dawned.
“As you can see, I’d have some finagling to do, but I’d be happy to take the extra time to prove to you that I really,reallydo not fuck around when I want something, Nyriadne.”
Their stunned silence was like a drug, but he knew a way to improve upon the buzz starting up in his veins.
“Now that we understand one another,”—Misting through the ether, he appeared before a grizzled male and thrust the hairpin directly into his eye socket—“shall we begin?”
Stepping into the night-shrouded Evesong—directlyinto its capital—was one of the hardest things Lunara had ever done. Like she was leaving Brand behind with every added inch between her and the portal, though the entire purpose of coming here was to do whatever it took to find him again.
A practice in torture.
A tug at her sleeve, and Lunara looked over to see Fern gaping, mesmerized as her steps slowed. She wished she could see Nachthelliae that way again, through fresh eyes. Could behold Starkeep with none of her history and feel the same awe.
It was a truly stunning place.
Galaxies flowed like a river above them, cutting through the black of night and casting their light down over the cityscape. In answer, the buildings and streets hummed with a vibrant glow, everything crafted of glimmering moonstone that sparkled in rainbow prisms like the skin of her people.
Sharp, needle-like spires shot out from the rooftops and reached for the cosmos, stacked in endless, crowded layers. They stretched higher and tighter with each level of the city streets, thinning out to a single peak at the very center.
The Elder Halls. Illamiata’s resting place.
From the top of that tower, one could look out and behold the Evesong, dark and vast, every acre twinkling with luminescent flora and fauna. It was a dizzying view, even for experienced Sorcerit. Up was down, down was up, the sky and the ground mirroring each other so closely that it distorted perception and twisted the mind.
Others, creatures who’d never been and didn’t know, might climb up to look out for the first time and be utterly petrified when they realized the truth—that Starkeep hovered in thin air, jutting up like a mountaintop missing its base, the entire city suspended miles and miles above the shadowy forests below.
All to be closer to the celestial light the Evesong and its people fed from.
