No less than ten acolytes fell upon her as the people milling about the market stared in confusion. Clenching her teeth, she ducked and sliced and fought. While they may have been trained in combat in their youth, they were now out of shape and used tothe luxurious life of the temple. She slowly picked her way through them. The head priest watched as it came down to her and two final acolytes. She moved lightly on her feet, ready to end it, when one of the men threw out his hand in a fit of violent temper.
“Enoughof this barbaric nonsense.”
A blood-curdling scream released from her mouth. Collapsed in the dirt, the bones from her ankle to her knee hung strangely. Tears streaked down her face, but she clawed upright, still clutching her dagger, swiping at anyone who came near.
The bone-worker growled. “Cut me again, and I’ll snap every last bone you’ve got.”
Furious with pain, a filter of black haze overcame her vision. Elysia’s magic roared, flooding and bursting through the dam of her body, hungry for the bone-breaking power torrenting out of the acolyte. In her mindless fury, there was no thought or choice. There was only self-protection and defense.
This wasn’t the soft, beautiful magic that had occurred on the riverbank.
It was the long-buried instinct of a powerful but untrained woman lashing out. Elysia seized the man’s power and ripped until it became hers. Unable to hold or form what she had stolen, she pointed the javelin of force back at its owner. The cracking and shattering of his bones became the song that drove her on. His shrieks layered with the bass of breaking bones until he became silent, his body overcome and no longer conscious.
Dagger still up high, her body wavered as her sight grew unfocused. Whatever she had just done was far beyond her magical capacity. Fingers unable to hold it, the dagger thudded to the sandy ground, and her body slumped as everything went dark.
Elysia came in and out of consciousness, her skin tearing and body thumping as she was dragged the many blocks back to the temple.Maybe this is what the fates wanted.Eyes bleary, she blinked them open to find the sky dark and the streets lit with both flaming torches and the occasional floating orbs. Evenin the firelight, she could see how her ankle flopped limply while the burn of road rash stung the bottoms of her legs and arms.
Suddenly, the air changed. The delicious aromatic scent of herbal torches and food stands changed to the acrid blackened scent of an uncontrolled burn. Lifting her head, she saw the outline of the temple up in a blaze, black smoke billowing out into the night. Except the temple no longer looked like it once did. The golden statues were melted and blown to pieces. The iconic green dome had collapsed, and the once unnervingly white walls were charred and soon to be gone as the flames slowly, steadily consumed the entire structure.
Limbs heavy and shot through with unbearable pain, she still smiled. Topp and Rollie had pulled it off. She knew Rollie had been hopeful it would be enough to draw out the god of the original temple, but selfishly she prayed they were long gone and laughing as they safely sought the next temple. Elysia’s head fell back again as her muscles gave out. She still had one trick left up her sleeve, and it was about time to use it. He had said it was only for emergencies.
Her bloodied hand lifted, but her body was jerked forcefully, cracking her head against the statue she’d been propped against. Head ringing, she blinked slowly.
The head priest kicked her shattered ankle. “One of you search her. Fucking bitch probably still has explosives on her.”
If she hadn’t been fighting the brink of unconsciousness, she would have sighed. Groping hands patted her down, snatching away the small number of igniters and sachets that remained on her person. She barely breathed as she waited for them to take it, but they didn’t, so she lay there, compliant and clinging to alertness.
The head priest’s knee dropped into the ash-covered sand. His dirty fingers grabbed her face, forcing her eyes to him. “We would have kept you as a guest before returning you to Garrison. But the warrant doesn’t say you have to come back whole, does it?” Thepriest slapped her so hard her teeth clacked, but Elysia said nothing as she pulled in a ragged breath.
He stalked away just as the ground began to quake. Tremors swept through the sand, the particles moving erratically against her palms. But that was nothing compared to how the temple shook and swayed as it crumbled. Acolytes who had been futilely pouring water over the burning structure screamed, running haphazardly over the uneven ground, tripping and stumbling as the earth became determined to eat them whole. Down they went, hitting the earth, fingers and nails scraping against the hot, sandy ground as the growing chasm became slanted and they slid into its maw. Their cries grew fainter as they fell, swallowed up by the now temple-sized hole.
Doing her best to ignore the chaos, Elysia finally took hold of the old coin on a chain around her neck. Tarnished silver with a skull and dice on its face, it was warm between her fingers. Rubbing her thumb over its surface, she prayed the reaping prayer before struggling to her feet. Arms clutched around the remains of the statue, she leaned heavily against it, unable to put any weight on her right leg.
She pressed at her chest, coughing on the smoke as she squinted through the ash-heavy air. A remnant of power hung like static, prickling against her unnaturally. Her head swiveled, searching but finding nothing to account for the sudden carnage. Rollie and Topp may have set the temple aflame, but whatever had just happened was beyond their limited strength.
A loud crackling drew her gaze back to the cavernous hole. Dread coated her stomach as green spiky vines slithered out of the temple’s grave. The thick, ropy vines covered every inch of the hole, overlapping and twining together as they sprawled and stretched out into what had been the sculpture garden. Snakelike, the vines roamed the grounds, finding collapsed and injured acolytes and dragging them without mercy into the hole. Their descent seemed to go on forever, their screams echoing in terror and pain.
Elysia pressed her back against the broken statue as if that would help if the vines decided she was next. Above, a storm erupted. The sable smoke-laden sky darkened further with heavy rain clouds and bolts of lightning that shot out in warning. Thick raindrops pelted down, plastering her hair against her head and stinging against her torn skin. Heartbeat tired but fast in her chest, fear took hold as the storm ravaged on, washing away the debris and ash of the fire.
Blackened water streamed past, over the fire-baked sand, flooding the impervious ground. Her body begged her to run, to do anything to get away from the ever-increasing electricity in the air as she stood now calf-deep in water, but she couldn’t. Her ankle hung awkwardly, and she knew she couldn’t make it more than a few hopping, hobbled steps.
She gripped the statue tighter. Grim had said he could be here in moments. And yet, there wasn’t a reaper in sight. Once again, the fates’ demand that she come here flashed in her mind. A sick taste filled the back of her throat. She’d walked right into this.
Her fear contorted into a silent buzzing as a hand the width of her body slapped against the cavern’s edge, grasping the vines, and heaved. Hand over hand, the most enormous man she’d ever seen pulled himself out of the hole. A bear head hooded his face, and its thick brown pelt hung as a cloak over his naked chest as he stalked through the quieting storm. He stood in front of where the temple once was, his electric blue-green gaze hunting through the open land around him.
When his eyes landed on her, Elysia paled. She gingerly tested her ankle as if it wasn’t smashed, never taking her eyes off the beast. Grim’s coin heated against her rain-slicked chest as the bear-man crushed the distance between them. Standing no more than a foot from her, he reeked of the wild. The crack of fresh air, the hazy ozone of a storm, and the rich, warm scent of good soil all rolled off him. Up close, he had to have been seven feet tall. Barrel-chested, his muscles were thick and defined, his naturally light skin a deep leathery tan that made it clear he spent toomuch time in the sun. Channeling the defiance that had long kept her alive, she lifted her chin and met his strange blue-green gaze.
The rain relented to a gentle mist as he stared at her curiously, and when he spoke it boomed like thunder, making her flinch. “You stink of death.”
Elysia blinked once, her knuckles whitening as she clung to the statue. “I am…connected to your brother.” What was she? Did she have a title?Death voyager extraordinaire.Now would have been a really good fucking time to have a title.
His eyes swept over her, frowning at her broken bones. “I thought I heard rumblings of a death voyage. He should take better care of you, so fragile while still in this state. Very unlike him.” He glanced back to where the temple had once stood. “Did you do this?”
She paused, unsure of how to answer that. “I assisted,” she replied shortly.
“It was our doing,” a familiar voice called out, and her shoulders sank in relief.
Topp somehow managed to make his burnt, smoky attire look purposeful and rugged while Rollie staggered closer with red eyes and angry skin, looking like he was two steps away from passing out as he hacked and coughed.
