Magick. Probably Gavril’s.
I hold my fire closer, a strange feeling swelling inside me, like a bubble about to burst. And I smell the death. The scent of a forge fire, and leather, and the air after a rainstorm.
I see his hair. Those dark, messy curls, and his sleek nose. I know the line of his jaw, even swollen with death, and I know his lips. Lips that have kissed mine. Lips that have spoken words that angered me. Lips that have spoken words that soothed me. Lips that told me to go when they wanted me to stay. I remember his head on that bowsprit, his eyes cast toward a sea and a land he never wanted to know. He was there because of me.
I’ve felt a fighting calm before. I’ve felt cold, murderous rage. And they come together now into something fueled by deepest pain.
Neri drops Vexx and steps aside, and when I hear Alexus calling my name and running for me, Neri stops him.
“Let her have this!” Neri shouts. “She has earned this vengeance!”
I owe that god a debt because this cannot be taken from me.
Breathing so hard I’m gasping, I stalk toward Vexx with flames in one hand, a dagger in the other. I slide the dagger into the sheath. I need both hands for this. I want it to be slow. I want to burn him from the inside out.
I hear voices. Rhonin. Hel. Callan. Zahira. Keth. Jaega.
They’re here.
Helena cries out in utter agony.
I feel Alexus, his love burns through the rune, his plea, his comfort, but I am already too consumed to be moved. I sense him break past Neri, an awareness of his nearness, and when he does, I think for a solitary moment about Fia Drumera’s warning to me, to be careful of my gift, but that thought passes as quickly as it arrives.
Nothing will stop me. I grab Vexx by the throat and carry him into my abyss, back into the deeper part of the grove where no one can find us, no one can stop me, and no one can save him.
I summon fire. I let it flare high from my hands, hot death awaiting.
“Stop!” Vexx screams, scuttling back over the roots. “Stop right now!”
But I don’t.
I grip his ankles, this coward. And I call forth my fire, letting it simmer, letting it burn.
He starts screaming, and my rune starts pounding, Alexus knocking to get in.
But I close him out. I close him out and I keep burning. Burning as Vexx tries to crawl away over the roots. Burning as he tries to fight me. Burning when he has no legs or arms to move him. I burn and burn and burn, until General Hammerin Vexx’s screams shake the requiem trees, until fire pours from his mouth and his eyes, and he at last becomes nothing but ash.
But then it’s over. And when the haze of my rage begins to fade, and I can see again, the Grove of the Gods is on fire.
74
RAINA
I hear my name, even over the screams of the Ancient Ones leaving the trees around me.
There’s a fast way out, and I try it, but it fails me.
It fails me.
Again, Fia’s warning repeats in my head. Be careful, be careful, be careful.
I try again, but the void inside my head is still and calm, as though it’s tired.
I get to my feet and move, stumbling over roots as the fire spreads, racing along the trees and branches as quickly as it did the night of the harvest supper, lighting up the world in flaming terror. The night fills with thick, woody smoke, and I can’t breathe.
This nightmare must end. I cannot lose anyone else. Alexus said that if he lost me, he would knock the world off its axis. I felt the same, although now I realize that if I lost him, it would be me who lost their balance. I would never be the same. I would rage for ages, until my pain was met.
I must protect all of them. Everyone in that clearing on the edge Mount Ulra. Everyone who is here because I didn’t stop the prince in the first place. I can’t let anyone else suffer. I can’t feel this kind of pain ever again. I can’t.
