The movement was subtle, and had Finnian not learned to be wary of the night, he would’ve overlooked the whirling mass snaking through the darkness like a specter straight for his bird.
“Alke, stop!” He slung out his hand and a stream of fire expelled from his palm, roaring up into the sky. The fiery glow lit up the silhouette of a shadowy monster widening its jaws and catching the bird in its mouth.
Alke cried out.
For fuck’s sake.
Finnian jolted towards Cassian, but the ground trembled and a force knocked them backwards.
Finnian felt the dense divine power against his skin as his back collided into the ashy remains of the grove.
Nightrazers flocked around him, a collection of black holes all pointed down at his face.
He pushed against the skeletal grip locked around each of his biceps, lifting his back from the ground. The restriction around his arms tightened, and he was shoved back down.
He let out a grunt as needle-fine teeth tore into his arm. Another set took a chunk out of his side. Waves of pain seized up into his neck, rippled in his ribcage, burned down his leg.
Fucking nightrazers.
Nostrils flared, he channeled his magic into his right hand, his pain sublimating into unadulterated rage.
An explosion of brassy tangerine fire spilled from his palm. The spout heaved like magma from a volcano. Screeches filled the air. The nightrazers scattered like vultures, giving Finnian enough time to hop up to his feet.
Quickly, he stuck out his hand and spun in a circle, barricading himself with the flames. The heat smothered his breath, but he didn’t care. They would keep the nightrazers at bay until he got a grasp on what was?—
“Finnian!”
He snapped his head in the direction of Cassian’s voice to find him thrashing against the iron bars of the fence, bound in place by the Chains of Confinement.
Finnian clenched his jaws as a figure stepped into his line of sight, obscuring his view of Cassian. An animal’s skull with horns twisting out of the skull hid his face.
In Finnian’s periphery, another stepped into the firelight, her fingers clasped around Alke’s neck.
Marina pried apart his beak, allowing access for a shadow the size of a worm to slink down his esophagus.
Old memories flashed in Finnian’s mind of that day—Mira looking down at him, holding Alke by the neck.
Know your place.
Rage beat in his blood, the intensity of it harmonizing with the steady ring trapped like a fly in his head.
The shadow slithered out from Alke’s mouth, its body curled around a syringe. A viscous vermillion shining in the fire’s gleam.
His nephew’s blood.
29
EVEN IN DEATH
Finnian rolledhis head to sate the quaking in his jaw.
She is just like Mira.
The voice was unhinged, an overlapping of whispers.
She deserves to suffer.
“Is this your revenge for what I have done to our mother?” Finnian asked, his tone belittling, as if she were a bratty child having a tantrum over her favorite toy. That’s all Marina had ever been, spoiled and pampered by Mira, taught to look down on Father, Naia, and himself. He could hardly stand the sight of her.
