After flying the three of us to Kaldari over Deadman’s Canyon on the largest griffin I’ve ever seen, Anahima—I can’t bring myself to think of her as Ani anymore—forced me to take a potion that instantly deadened my mental connection to Darrius. And since her brother had trusted her to perform negotiations on his behalf, she can easily traverse the wards between the realms.
I’m alone now, and my father’s survival is on the line.
It feels strange to be back in Kaldari. The throne room looks the same, but I am an entirely different person. I look around for Roshan, but he is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the deceitful princess is strutting about like she owns the place. My father, thankfully, is now resting comfortably in one of the bedchambers, even though he’s sleeping the sleep of the dead.
Some of the courtiers seem familiar, while others don’t. And they all seem very,verywary of the female magi at my side. Even the ones who come to take my father to a chamber where he will be cared for scurry away without meeting my eyes.
A thought brings ice to my veins: Has shekilledRo... the king of Oryndhr? That seems impossible, with Fero inside him. Is she planning to fully resurrect her father, then? Will she use me as Morvarid had tried to?
Loathing fills me. “If you think I will lie down and let Fero possess me, Anahima, you are dead fucking wrong.”
She laughs, though her blue eyes flare at my emphasis of her given name. “Oh, I have plans for daddy dearest, don’t you worry. He’s a scourge, but a powerful one. I’m his true heir, after all.” She waggles her fingers. “And then Dare won’t be the only sovran magi in Everlea. In fact, with the power of a god in my veins, I’ll be of sidereal rank, like you.”
“You lied about your magic level,” I say dully.
“Of course. How else could I have done everything I did? Form a—what do you call them?—revenant army with the power of my corpus sanguimancy. Control them with my psionic magic. Manipulate metal as a ferrokinetic or enhance my floramancy with heliokinesis. Fool everyone in the fucking palace our whole lives into believing that poor, bookish, gentle little Ani was never a threat to anyone.” She shakes her head, smiling wildly. “And when I take my father’s power, I can bring this entire castle down, if I choose.”
Anahima has lost her mind... or this has been festering for a long time.
“You’re not the only woman who has been underestimated and diminished in our realms,” I say quietly, thinking back to how I’d felt when Javed had paraded me through the streets of Kaldari for our engagement like a pretty prize. Or how a man’s value in Oryndhr had always held intrinsic worth, while a woman’s was reduced to the marriage she made. I’d been profoundly lucky to have a father like mine, who had never raised me as less than, who had always taught me toknowmy own worth in a world that belittled it. “We have always been passed over and fighting for scraps. You’re not the first in Endara, Ani, and you won’t be the last.”
She straightens to her full height—I’d never noticed how truly tall she is since she always hunched and made herself smaller on purpose—and peers down the length of her nose at me. Sands, how much have I missed by taking her at face value? Like everyone else had?
Cold laughter bubbles from her lips. “Look at you, all this power, and still you bend to the whims of men. For what?Love?It’s just another yoke of control.”
“Not always,” I say.
“You’ll see,” she says. “They make sweet promises at first. Trick you. Woo you.” She runs a hand over the mantelpiece, watching me in the large mirror on the wall. “I had a soul-fated once, did you know?” I stare at her in shock while she nods, pursing her lips. “We did the ritual. I was besotted, you see. I thought helovedme.” She turns then, and I can see the pure devastation written all over her before it’s stamped out. “Then he drained me to the point of death and kept me there.”
“Why?” I whisper, heart aching. “How?”
“Because I was useful. He wanted me for what I could give him.Power.Access to an exiled god.” She snorts. “He almost had it, too. But one day, I found a way to free myself. I taught myself everything that sanguimancy had to offer.” Ani’s smile is a rictus. “Blood magic can be powerful and quiet. And then I stripped him of every drop of his magic and slit his throat, but that bastard survived. I never saw him again. Vogonis fled Everlea.”
My vision tunnels. Could it be... ? It has to. I can still remember that awful neck laceration. He’d knownexactlywho and what I was when he’d slaughtered Javed... when he, too, sought to resurrect a god.
What are you doing, Vogon?the queen had screamed at the Scav general.
Taking what is mine...
“Vogon is dead,” I say. “Morvarid killed him.”
“I know. I felt him die,” Ani says, thumping a fist over her breast. “I also know what my beloved became, building an army to defeat me. Ironic, isn’t it, that said army is now mine.”
I swallow, remembering what Darrius had said about the bond if one person dies. “But you didn’t...”
“Follow my soul-fated into death? Hardly. My father saved me. He severed the bond for good, and the pain was unlike anything in this world, like having your soul shredded into pieces.” She shrugs. “But it was worth it. Fero finally recognized my devotion and my value.”
“So you did all this to hurt your brother?”
Anahima smiles. “My father hates him, you know. And gods can be infinitely patient.”
The depth and intricacy of her deception sinks in. Ani’s heart has been corrupted for so many years, a fact that becomes glaringly clear when I realize exactly how long she has been planning this coup.
“And what does the king of Oryndhr have to do with this?”
“Apart from anchoring the old man?” Anahima claps with glee. “Come look. All I need you to do is open a portal. Simple.”
She leads me to a balcony that overlooks one of the back courtyards—and my knees nearly buckle at what I see there. A dozen Scavs, all of them revenants, identifiable by the state of rot and the tendrils of purplish decay beneath their eyelids.Gods... the stench is unbearable. I fight a rush of bile.
