“You willnotdelay her.You will not harm her either, or by the Fuerin you’ll have me to answer to, and I promise you, I’m rarely this agreeable.”
She wasneverthis agreeable—before this encounter.
“Neither am I,” Alonso said.“She is my daughter, back from the dead, and you will treat her with the care and appreciation she deserves, or I’ll be having words about your conduct with the emperor himself.”
Cosette simply harrumphed, squeaky due to her size.
“You will wait for her outside,” Rafaela said.
I expected resistance.But Cosette flew toward the double doors, which she couldn’t possibly open.When a guard stepped forward to do so for her, she zipped out.
Immediately, Rafaela embraced me—for the second time in one week.She really was different.
As she clutched me to her, she breathed into my ear, so softly only Alonso would hear.
“Kill her.But it must look like an accident.Leave no trace to lead back to you.”
I nodded against her head.
“The same goes for the … other.No evidence.No witnesses.There will be a lot of scrutiny after he’s dead.”
“Understood.”
Without so much as a kiss to the cheek, she passed me off to Alonso.He, at least, kissed me and held me like our embrace mattered.
Against my ear, he too whispered: “May the Fuerin guide your hand and light your way.May the Fuerin protect you against all harm.Sora, my dear little serpunta, you are a champion of Zaraga, the one we’ve been waiting to return to us.Now, go do what must be done, what you were born to do.”
Then he actually shoved me toward the doors, which were already open once more, waiting for me.
The born killer.
Chapter18
In the Empire, You’re Nothing
Zaraga—or rather,formerZaraga—was the largest continent of the Opalese.Two oceans encircled it.The Moaning Ocean bordered one side, the other the StarRay Ocean.Since Rafaela had rescued Teo and me from Montressón and brought us to live at the palace, we’d lived by the StarRay Ocean—and then I’dexisted—neither dead nor alive—beneath it for those several centuries more.
The enormity of the ocean had long been a constant in my life: its rolling, sometimes shushing, sometimes crashing waves; the salt in the air; the wind.I tasted and smelled it.It coated my skin.Since I’d first laid eyes on those endless stretches of deep, unfathomable blue, I’d understood that, no matter how powerful I might become, the ocean would always be greater, more dominant, capable of taking away all the gifts it had given in a single sweep of a gargantuan, monstrous wave.
The ocean wasn’t a demigod, but she may as well have been.She probably claimed as many lives as Heartbreak herself.Misery too.
And that wasbeforeIsai and his questionable … advancements.Had his myriad imports really improved the Opalese?I had more doubts every day I spent aboard our current … transportation.
I was no stranger to travel by boat.Ships were a natural evolution.Where there were bodies of water, there were those inclined to voyage across them.The first D’Arco had arrived on Zaraga’s shore by ship.
Travel by colossalbeast, however, was unnatural.
Riding a horse, or even a dragort, was one thing.Though the creatures were larger than me, they were approachable.An animal as vast as the palace?That was no beast.It was amonster.
During the many conversations Rafaela, Alonso, and I had had over the past week, neither had bothered to inform me that boats no longer carried people across the water because fuckingmonstersnow ruled the seas.
From the Mirror World—a fae dimension that sounded somewhat similar to ours—Isai returned with thehigantorus.How he managed to cajole a beast this size back through a portal with him was a mystery apparently often pondered by the Opalese.What I wanted to know instead waswhy?Didn’t our world already have enough monsters?
The higantorus was so gigantic that it couldn’t dock to pick up passengers.I’d gotten my first good look at it from the deck of a small boat—a vessel made of actual wood planking—that delivered us far out past crashing ocean swells to the deep.
Only thedeepcould accommodate the girth of the higantorus.
Dragons had abandoned the Opalese for the Ethers even before the first D’Arco alighted on Zaraga’s shores.Only ancient drawings of them remained, telling us what they looked like.It was told that the Fuerin were gods even to the dragons.Many times larger than the dragons, the Fuerin had created them in their image.
