38
Hesitation was the most likely of murderers. Esoti had taught Vaasa that, and as she raced through the Sanctum, that training snapped into place. She scurried down one of the flights of stairs that had emptied out and spilled into the city square. She was covered in blood with a panicked look on her face, a host of guards charging straight toward her.
She ignored every single one. Her head whipped around as she searched the crowd for the man in the executioner’s mask. She had to find him, had to…
There.
Reid scaled a waist-high wall near the Citadel, keeping his balance with each precise step he took. His head lifted.
Their gazes collided.
Vaasa darted forward, but one of the city guardsmen caught her. He grabbed hold of her waist and restrained her, violently hauling her back. She thrashed and screamed. He cooed at her as though she were mad, as though her attempt to bolt was nothing but panic, and it was his responsibility to save her from herself. “Heiress, please,” he grunted. He must not have made the connection yet, must not have pinned Lord Karev’s death on her.
To the left, Sachia broke through the crowd, only prevented from reaching Vaasa by the line of city guards who blocked ordinary Mekës citizens from the rest of the nobility that fled the Sanctum. They were creating a path out forthembefore anyone else, leaving the rest of the people to burn or choke.
Every ounce of fear and torment that haunted this place melded with the rage already boiling inside Vaasa. The ground wept with the hundreds of deaths from the past two generations, the tang of their blood still marking the stones. It was an energy that had never left the square. She had felt it each and every time she walked between these two buildings. Her senses were so heightened, so keen.
Magic detonated from her with the same force as the explosions.
Veragi magic slammed into the Sanctum and shattered the remaining windows on the first floor. Colorful shards of stained glass exploded in every direction as wails pierced the air. It sliced through skin and sinew, cutting into the bodies of the people who tried to contain her. The ones who tried to run before anyone else could. Through every desperate noble who had crowded behind the city guards for safety, thinking themselves exempt from the violence they had always imposed on others.
People dropped, one by one, her magic slicing them where the glass didn’t.
High-pitched shrieks cut the square, everyone’s fear a palpable thing. It only fed into her power, only doubled and tripled every ounce of what she felt. Glittering black mist rose from the ground and circled her, spinning like a tide pool. Vaasa emerged from the pulsing cloud of her magic, shadows circling her body.
Their terrified echoes of the wordcursedswirled in the air.
Every guard that ran at her fell; magic shoved down their throats or slid like a blade along their necks. She was going to decimate the square. She would kill every person who stood in her way.
They stared at her with horror in their eyes.
Good.
Magic spread like poison on the ground, crawling up the bodies of the nobles it touched. No mercy lived within her, not as she attacked the very people who had watched and sneered as she was dragged through the city. Their calls came to the forefront of her memories. All her life, they had used her and prepared to trade her, as if she weren’t human. She was, after all, only someone’s daughter.
Her power rose higher, and she began to pull from Ozik’s side of the bond. With the anchor firmly in her pocket, she was protected from the consequences of their bargain, could take his magic at will the way he had been using hers. In glittering, maddening red, power poured into her. She devoured it. The taste was silken on her tongue—these people’s pain, their anguish, their terror.
They had celebrated the idea of executing her husband today, turned it into a performance to sate their bloodlust. They had whispered all those cruel things, imposed their own identities upon her, never knowing who she truly was.
Not cursed.
Witch.
She was going to bring down the whole city. She would bury herself if it meant she could bury them.
Black mist rose around her, blocking out the setting sun, snuffing out light and sound and anything alive. They couldn’t reach her. They wouldn’t dare try. They were all too afraid of what she was.
And then Ozik’s voice threaded her mind from some far-off place that she didn’t know or feel.Do you remember when I told you that I do not lie?
Vaasa held her breath.Yes, she whispered back.
I made a promise to your mother, he said.The first one-sided bargain I made in a very long time. I swore to her that I would keep you alive. So you must run, Vaasalisa. Please don’t make a liar out of me.
A tear slid down Vaasa’s cheek. Everything she felt crested over her. The more that she fed from the things outside her, the more unstable she felt. It was a gift to perceive everything—people’s emotions, their intentions, the subtle changes in everything they thought. It allowed her to predict everyone’s next move.
But it was a danger, too. Because right now, she was drowning in all of it.
And then someone broke through the mist.
