She’s covered in blood and my bite marks.
Somehow, she’salive.
And I hurt her. Again.
No, no, no, no?—
Kill her!the voices scream.End your pain! Free yourself once and for all!
“Shut up!” I snap at them, my head reeling.
Dark insanity rises from somewhere deep inside me, trying to drag me away from this moment and back to the oblivion of my broken mind. For the first time in months, I fight it for all I’m worth, ripping at my hair as I stare in shock at my impossibly alive keeper.
“Thanafluir?”I whisper.
Maven’s gaze turns to amusement as she cups a hand around her bleeding neck.
“Death blossom?” she translates. “For once, a nickname I don’t mind.”
I didn’t mean to call her that. I can’t speak clearly, much less detangle the mad thoughts feeding off one another inside myhead. She’s here in front of me, the taste of her blood igniting every cell within my body, yet…I don’t understand.
She died. Her soul was reaped. I saw it all.
She’s meant to be dead, someone snarls inside my skull.She is worthless to us. Get rid of her.
The demons in my head have always despised Maven, knowing she would end them along with my curse. That should have been my first clue that she is truly here with me, but I missed it, and now she’s bleeding everywhere. I scramble back until I encounter the stone wall of this enclosure as dangerous hunger continues to hum through my system.
I’m out of control. Treacherous. My keeper shouldn’t be in here alone with me.
Let her be alone with you. You have the power to destroy her now, my father’s voice insists.End her before she uses the scythe!
My attention drops to the ground beside her and I realize that surely enough, to feed me her blood, she cut her hand with a fucking scythe.
And I’ve seen this scythe before. The tip is clear etherium, the snath decorated in runes. It belongs to the goddess of reaping, who used it to collect souls right before my eyes months ago. Just the memory of Syntyche is enough to have fear curdling my gut, but–
Wait.
I look back at Maven, who brought that scythe into this prison and has mysteriously returned. Though living again, she emanates a tantalizing aura of death as she approaches me with determination in her hauntingly beautiful eyes.
Despite the ravaged terrain of my mind, things begin to click together. The overwhelming flavor of sheer power in Maven’s blood that is unlike any other magic I've tasted. Her ability to survive things that the other mortal children taken into theNether could not. And when my old mentor saw her for the first time?—
I didn’t believe that eccentric wizard when long ago, he told me that he sees the face of Death herself almost nightly as she comes to observe his possible demise during the worst hours of his curse.
The fact that he so easily recognized my keeper can only mean…
Maven must understand what I’m trying to puzzle out, because she quirks an adorably uncomfortable smile.
“Do me a favor and don’t treat me any differently.”
My gods.
I’m face to face with Syntyche’s daughter.
No! What chance have we against a demigoddess? This is too cruel, too cruel!the voices in my head hiss and swear, livid about this realization as my surroundings spin.
Throughout known history, demigods and demigoddesses have rarely appeared thanks to the nature of the gods and their inability to conceive easily with mortals. My keeper’s origin is miraculous, but I’m far too fractured for this life-changing realization to sink in fully.
“You shouldn’t be alone in here with me,” I rasp, unable to stop my gaze from slipping back to the delicious red color dripping down her throat. “Keep your distance,sangfluir. My mind can’t be trusted with you.”
