“Basten?” I whisper on cracked lips.
His eyes widen for a fearful, awe-filled moment, like he’s watching a star being born. But the shock is short-lived. Heblinks, then grips his powerful hands around my shoulders so tightly it hurts.
“Sabine?” he croaks. “You’re—you’re really alive?”
I gaze up at him as if seeing him for the first time. My eyes have changed, somehow. Now, I see all the little details I was too blurry-eyed to take in before. How could I have never noticed the dozens of shades of auburn in his hair? The pinprick scar just under his bottom lip?
I shift my gaze to Immortal Vale, standing behind Basten with the Serpent Knife still in hand.
All my love twists sharp as a needle.
I hiss aloud, “I’ll break the world before I let them hurt you, Basten.”
My jaw clenches iron-tight, the burn of my light blazing even brighter.
Heat builds in my palms, a power I don’t even understand beginning to spark.
Artain’s voice suddenly rises, high-pitched and sharp. “Brother Vale—look at her fey lines! She’s going to blast the fucking castle apart!”
My attention hooks on him. My eyes narrow.This golden bastard staged the Night Hunt so he could kill Basten and claim me as his own. Now, it’s his turn to be afraid.
I let out an exhale, and as though I’d spoken aloud, a swarm of yellowjackets swerves straight for him. He yelps as dozens of stringers batter every inch of his exposed skin. Angry welts rise on his sinewed forearms.
He flicks them away with zaps of his own flame-orange fey, but hundreds more swarm in to take their places.
“Fuck this!I’llmake her stop.” Grimacing under the wasps’ onslaught, Artain swings his bow around, knocking a golden-tipped arrow that he aims at Basten’s chest.
“No!” I scream.
Roots tear out of the river-soaked floor, twisting up from between shattered stone tiles and weaving themselves around Basten and me. Thorns jut out on the opposite side from us. Leaves unfurl to hide us from sight, forming a living barricade to keep any arrows or blades away from Basten.
“Sabine!” Vale shouts over the roaring wind and churning waters. “As your father and your god, I command you to end this!”
But he might as well be speaking to the storm itself. His words glide right off me.
He might be a god…but I’m starting to understand thatI’msomething else, too.
As a ferocious cry tears from my lips, I twist my fingers in the air. More roots burst out from the floor to wrap around Vale’s legs, weaving into his armor to drag him down to his knees, the river waters rapidly rising up around his waist.
I throw out my hands to send a dozen hawks swooping toward his eyes. Their talons catch the candlelight, sharp as razors.
The Serpent Knife clatters out of his hand and skids across the floor.
Any human would duck to protect themselves from the onslaught, but Vale?
He smiles up at the hawks grimly as he unhooks the battle axe from its harness on his back, and sweeps in a vicious arc that slices every bird clean in half the second that it attacks.
Blood-stained feathers rain to the floor.
Anger coils hotly inside me, and before I realize what I’m doing, I weave my fingers in the air again.
The rushing Ramvik River bubbles up faster from the floorboards and builds with the force of a tidal wave, headed straight for Vale and the other fae near the head table.
At my side, Basten watches with a mixture of horror and awe.
A flicker of doubt runs through my belly.
Does he fear me like…this? What I’ve become?
