“Kerym, no!”
Pellie’s scream had both Merrick and Lessia freeze. Soria, who’d walked ahead of Lessia, even dropped the books in her arms, dust flying around her as she turned and sprinted to where her sister just halted before Kerym.
Turning his own body entirely to the aisle beside them, Merrick cursed. Even with the shelves and the dusty books that lined them covering parts of Kerym’s body, it was clear that it wasn’t voluntary how still the raven-haired Fae stood, how his hands had frozen with his fingers bent by his side as if he’d tried to curl them before something turned his body to ice.
“His eyes,” Lessia breathed as she came up beside Merrick.
“Fuck,” Merrick swore again.
Because Lessia was right. Kerym’s eyes looked frighteningly similar to how Lessia’s had appeared on that ship when they firstencountered the wyverns; the cerulean blue that usually glittered in his face was now pure white, almost glowing as he stared unseeing ahead.
Not wasting another second, Merrick folded Lessia’s hand into his own and dragged her to where both Pellie and Soria now stood, their faces almost as pale as the Fae warrior’s eyes.
It was quiet for a moment, apart from the soft rustling of pages from the books Soria had dropped on the floor, played with by some strange breeze that felt not of this world.
Merrick wanted to curse again at the damn helplessness he felt staring at Kerym. Something else joined the horrid feeling, something creeping under his skin, twisting deep in his chest with a choking foreboding. He’d trained for fucking centuries, and still… nothing could have prepared him for Lessia’s plea when she spoke his name.
“Merrick?”
Even before he turned to her, fear thickened his throat. Her arm—the one the stone had merged with—glowed in the dim library, and light was breaking through her amber eyes like the sun shining through a dirty window, streams of it brightening her blanched face.
His grip on her firmed before he could stop himself, and that foreboding—the strange otherness—spread. He didn’t need the reflection of his eyes in Lessia’s to know light seeped from his silver swirls too.
“It’s in all of you,” Pellie whispered.
Lessia’s arm shone brighter at that, and Merrick wasn’t sure whether he was about to take her and get the fuck out or swear or just continue staring, when Kerym’s mouth opened.
“My children.”
The voice wasn’t even close to his friend’s.
If it was a voice at all.
It echoed around the room, yet at the same time sounded so quiet that Merrick wasn’t sure if it had come from his friend or merely existed in his mind. Soria and Pellie fell to their knees on the stone floor, their heads bent so far their chins rested on their chests as they bowed before Kerym—or whatever had possessed his body.
“Who are you?” Lessia asked, her voice filled with wonder as her gaze drew from her arm to Merrick and back again. “Or what are you?”
Kerym’s face turned toward them, and even though the movement was slow, all the muscles in Merrick’s body coiled, his nerves sparking with such a strong sense of threat that every limb twitched.
A small smile spread across Kerym’s face. “You guard her well, Merrick Morshold. We knew you would.”
He could feel it. The pride. The respect. The… love this… thing… had for him.
But he didn’t care. The foreign sensation blared within him, and he cast a glance at the door they’d left open, wondering how fast this thing could move.
Lessia’s blinking at him made him believe she felt it, too, and he was about to speak when a soft hand on his cheek stopped him. Whipping his head to the side, Merrick expected to find his mother’s loving touch, but there was nothing there, and he couldn’t help but flash his teeth at the shadows sweeping across the floor.
“To your question, Queen of Death… I am everything and nothing. I’m earth and sky and wind and water. I’m life and death and darkness and light. I’m you and the Guardian of Death and dear Kerym. I’m evil and good and everything in between.”
“Magic,” Soria breathed. “You’re magic.”
Kerym’s soft face turned her way. “Rise, guardians. You do not bow to me. You’re my equals, as it was always meant to be. Keepers of balance. The ones protecting every world from those who threaten it.”
Pellie and Soria rose as one at the command, their faces filled with such awe that Merrick thought that must be what his people had looked like when the gods walked this realm and they still worshipped them.
Kerym’s face snapped his way, and for the first time, something dark glimmered in the light pouring out of his eyes, making Lessia and Merrick take a step toward each other at the same time.
“The gods…” The thing in Kerym almost spat the last word. “They are no deities. They are but a threat that must be quelled, one that has roamed free for far too long.”
