Scarlet Temple,Blood Kingdom
Lanlin
Golden flames,bones, and ash…
Nothing but ash.
My eyes snap open. I turn my head to the side to vomit.
Then I groan, pressing my fevered forehead, which feels as if it also is burning up like the realms were under Emperor Hadrian’s tyranny, against the cold stone.
The stink of seared flesh clings to the inside of my nostrils and coats my tongue.
I scrabble, scratching across my cheeks; I still feel ash falling across my skin like blossoms.
I can’t stop breathing too fast. I’m panting, shaking,dying.
My muscles ache, as weak as if they are lost in a past where the brutal Hadrian is destroying the realms, until sorcerersin his kingdom turned his own cursed dagger against him, reducing him to ash.
Nebet will never stop using her visions against me, will she?
“That is who your best friend is…who he will become. It is destined.” Nebet leans over me. I force myself onto my back, glaring at her. Her too crimson lips smile, thinly. “My family have dedicated themselves to hunting and putting down monsters like you. I thought that I could turn you into something useful for this kingdom. But twice now you refuse to do your duty by assassinating Aurelius. Why won’t you show your gratitude for me training you as an assassin, rather than slitting your throat and offering your blood to the Void Gods on this shrine like the fate of so many others with the Power? You never offer me a simple thank you.”
She rests the sharp tip of her sandal under my chin, forcing my head back to look up at the dark shrine, which is stained with blood — the blood of my people with the Power.
Beasts, to her.
The persecuted, to me — my ancestors.
The lost family whose spirits I pray for in secret, who I draw, honor, and remember because no one else will.
I jerk my head to the side with a growl. “I will kill Hadrian. But I won’t kill Aurelius.”
“Foolish monster.” The ribbons on Nebet’s dress whip out to wrap around my wrist, deliberately squeezing around my bond mark. My eyes widen. Is she trying to hurt Freya through it? “They are one and the same. Do you think that anyone can keep two sides of their natures apart forever? Can you? Are you not the beast as well as the Blood?”
I glance at my wrist, distraught.
Nebet has spent over a decade hurting me.
But now, she has hurt my Blood Lover.
My Omega.
And in the name of the Shadow Devils, no one hurts them without finding out how truly monstrous I am.
My head clears, and my eyes gleam. “Hmm, I’d say that I had three sides thanks to your training: beast, Blood, andkiller.”
I yank my wrist sharply, which Nebet has connected to herself with ribbons. Taken by surprise, she is pulled off balance.
I leap up, as if to steady her.
Instead, I sink the iron tipped claws of the gloves, which she has forced me to wear since I was a child, into her neck.
It seems like a fair method to fulfill the deal that I made with the fae, when Nebet sliced Dove with iron.
Nebet was never going to escape me, after what she did to Dove and the other Shadow Human.
After what she tried to do to Aurelius.
