The guards turn to look at me with confusion marring their faces. “What’s what, my lady?” Pierce asks.
I follow my instinct to turn, to look, and that’s when I see him.
A lone figure in all black, standing at the back of the army.
Even from this distance, even though I’ve never seen him before, I know who it is, because I canfeelit. Because power pours from him, like a deluge of tainted water from the falls.
King Rot.
His menacing silhouette starts to move, striding forward, and I watch as the pure, glittering white plains beneath his feet begin to change.
Die.
My eyes widen as brown tendrils streak through the snow, forming from every footstep he takes. His power is reaching out, clawed fingers scratching the ground and leaving behind wounds to fester.
Veins appear in the snow like poisoned blood, the color of dead bark. Those lines stretch out, a frozen lake cracking, ready to crumble.
I can feel it every time he takes a step. Because that pulse of power comes again and again, delivered through the ground and traveling up my feet.
It makes bile rise in the back of my throat. The power feels wrong, ugly, like a sickness ready to spread.
The farther King Ravinger walks, the more land he ruins. The cracked veins infect the snow around it, destroying its crystalline purity. The frozen-flaked ground churns and collapses, turning a sickly yellow-brown shade.
Fear has an iron grip around me, but I can’t look away, and I can’t take a full breath. I don’t know how his army doesn’t run from it, run fromhim. I don’t know how they stay in formation, because even at my distance, my every instinct is telling me to flee.
He continues to walk forward, straight up an empty path between the organized lines of his readied army. Not an inch of power crosses beneath the soldiers’ feet. Not a single rotted line touches them. The control of that makes me shiver with intimidation.
This man doesn’t have power. Heispower.
King Ravinger’s gait is steady but sure. He doesn’t stop walking until he’s standing directly at the front, with the might of his army at his back and his power around him like a halo of decay.
All the rumors about him are true.
No wonder a fae male like Rip follows him. This is might. This is true unfettered strength.
With this display, I have no doubt in my mind that he’s something to fear. Because King Ravinger just proved that he can rot the world and collapse it beneath the arrogance of his feet.
The question is, who is he going to walk all over?
Chapter 34
AUREN
Sitting in the tent, Istare and stare.
There’s a pendulum swinging in my mind, in my chest. Back and forth it goes, with every heartbeat, every thought.
Past and present. Right and wrong. Truths and lies. Knowing and not knowing. Doubts and trust.
It’s a constant tick in an unending tempo.
I’m not sure how much time passes that I sit here without moving. I just know that I’m still staring, that pendulum still going to and fro, when I hear voices outside.
My tent flap is lifted, like the invitation of an open door. I take a deep breath as I stand, pulling my hood over my head once again, checking my coat and gloves.
When I walk outside, the skin of my face tingles all over. I probably would’ve had to squint from the daylight if Osrik hadn’t been looming over me.
He nods to my guard dogs, making Pierce and the other man depart, until it’s just Osrik and me.
