“No!” I try to dive forward, begging my limbs to be long enough, strong enough, fast enough, only to have Eli’s arm snap around my waist. Inches from impact, the metal divides, peeling away from the ground and pushing outward. Roots punch up through the ground and link together, catching Atom with a soft bounce.
They deliver him to the mud at my feet with a gentle toss. My tongue is tangled. I’m too stunned to speak. Atom curls up in a ball and covers his head.
Even without a voice, I won’t cower. I won’t let them see how scared of myself I am right now. I elbow Eli in the gut until he releases me, a tentative hand lingering at my waist in warning.
Vengeance has the front seat now, and she’s on fire.
I lift my chin, and the ground shakes. Roots rise, disrupting the entire forest floor for as far as I can see. They pierce the ground and climb toward the sky. Then those thick, serpentine roots attack. Wrapping around necks. Breaking backs. Bashing heads.
It’s a masterpiece. And terrifying.
And it’s me.
The Vaile wail in pain, every crunch of bone reverberating through me. Kaleida holds a hand over her mouth, the other bruising Milo’s arm.
“They’re running away,” she says, watching the crowd thin. They leave behind a bed of twisted, broken bodies.
“They’ll escape,” I whisper, my thoughts hardly my own. I flick my wrists. The ground jerks violently, knocking Vaile flat on their faces. Their startled cries reach my ears.Music.
Eli grabs my shoulders and flips me around to face him. “That’s enough.”
Not until he tries to hold me still do I notice I’m quaking all over, drenched in cold sweat. “It’s not.” I breathe through clenched teeth. “They don’t want to hear the truth.”
It’s not lost on me that I’m the same. That I resist the truth in front of me time and again. That I crawl deep into the dark tunnels of Eli’s eyes and find the farthest corner, the coldest wall. There, I’m safe.
Chapter 44
EVER
Never.” Eli shakes me. My teeth clatter. “Wake up.”
My eyelids slam open. The wind picks up. I’m lying on the ground under the blue-gray evening sky, purple dusk falling all around. It’s cold, Sonnet cold that settles in the bones. He sits at my side, still only wearing the brown pants from the Underbroke. His face is over mine, tense and eager. So I speak. “Hi.”
That pulls a small smile into existence. “You were having a nightmare.” He unsticks a lock of hair from the cold sweat on my forehead and tucks it behind my ear. His fingers linger on the lobe, tugging it softly.
Maybe everything is okay.
Trees surround us, standing straight and unharmed. The quiet thrums my nerves. “None of it was real?” I sit up sharp, the memories rushing back in tidal waves. A few hundred paces away are the felled trees, the web of branches.
And the bodies.
Eli lets them answer for him.
Shame clogs my airway. Guilt stings my cheeks. Those were lives. Mothers. Fathers. Friends. People with fears, with secrets and stories. I hang my head and stare at my hands in my lap, at my fingers, each decorated with multiple rings once again. Gusts of wind toss bits of the forest brush about. “How?” I gasp quietly. “Is this my gift?”
I thought gifts were meant to help, not to kill. I thought my link was supposed to be here with me. Isn’t that the whole point? Kelter doesn’t even want to see me.
“I don’t think so,” Eli answers. “Gifts require touch.”
“What’s happening to me?”
He tilts my face up with two fingers under my chin. “Your father’s side is coming out.”
Great—the god of death is coming out in me. “Is this what it’s like for…” I choke on the words.
“Demigods?” he asks. I try to look away, all the courage and confidence I built up now trampled by guilt, but he grips my jaw. “No one would know. They’re not common or even heard of. You may be the first.”
“Then I’m something else. Something less confusing, less… lethal. I don’t want this.”
