A glimmer of warmth brushed my cheek. The touch was featherlight at first, and then, as if I had stepped out into the summer sun, the warmth spread, chasing away the numbing cold that had invaded my muscles and bones.
A breath lifted my chest.
I smelled lilacs…fresh lilacs. And a strange taste that hadn’t been there before filled my mouth: sweet and slightly floral, almost like a ripe pear but with a metallic edge to it.
It tasted like…blood.
Likelife.
“It’s okay,” she whispered as that sunlight filled me. “You can let go now.”
I did just that.
I slipped into the sun.
And I let go.
HE WHO IS BORN OF THE BLOOD OF GODS
Casteel
Screams filled the air like smog. Some of horror. Others steeped in pain that went deeper than bone.
They came from wherever I heard Kolis’s haunting voice, somewhere inside Wayfair and beyond the inner Rise, lifting from the broad, cobbled avenues of the Garden District and the cramped, dirtied streets of Croft’s Cross.
Death was everywhere.
The sound of it should’ve been enough to reach the part buried deep inside me that recognized things like duty and responsibility.
But those parts were dead now. In their place was nothing but a knot of coldness, lodged deep in my chest.
Fists banged against the sealed doors of the Great Hall.Heshouted, calling my name. Other voices joined in, but his remained the loudest.
“Cas! Let us in!”heyelled, the doors shaking under the force of his blows. “Cas!”
When the doors remained closed, sealed by the inky, overlapping vines, I felt his presence bearing down on me, that woodsy imprint brushing against my thoughts.
Tearing my gaze from the too-still bodies lying in the Great Hall—what remained of my father—I rose. Unused muscles across my upper back twitched, adjusting to the strange weight of wings. A breeze drifted in from the shattered glass dome, carrying with it the iron-rich scent of blood and the lingering stench of stale lilacs. The feathers… They were oddly sensitive.
The shouting continued.
Hekept trying to break through, using the singular pathway forged by thenotamthat now extended to me.
I shut him out, quickly and precisely, as I glanced down.
“Fuck!”heshouted. “Cas!”
The shirt was torn, the edges soaked in blood. Through the ragged tears, I saw that the flesh that had been ripped open was now the bright, shiny pink of healed skin. I could see the dark-gray, crimson-tinged shadows moving beneath. Could see silver bone where patches of skin had faded away. Reaching up, I halted as I saw that the hand was half flesh, and the four fingers were bone and shadows. I gripped a fistful of the linen and tore the ruined shirt free, letting it drop to the floor, then lifted my chin to the dome above and the jagged shards of glass that remained intact.
I summoned the essence, and it responded in an icy rush, flooding my veins with power. My will formed in my mind, and the realms answered.
“Casteel!”heroared, surely feeling the surge of energy.
A crackling ball of silver formed and then thinned, stretching wide as the realm tore open. The briny scent of the sea and decay drifted out of the tear.
My lips curved up on one side as the crackling, spitting tear widened, revealing bare branches and a vast colonnade.
Whatevershe—and I knew it was her—had done to prevent me from leaving Carsodonia no longer held.
