Pulling me into a hug, he kissed my temple. “I love you,Drágám.You are everything to me. Happy birthday.”
Then he was gone, giving orders and moving around the room.
My throat thickened, tears burning the back of my lids as I watched him disappear down the hallway. My gut twisted with a deep fear, fluttering panic around my stomach as if devastation was swinging down on us like the scythe of death.
Energy danced on my skin, wrapping around my bones, the smooth laps of the water contradicting the anxiety moving around me.
The stolen boat glided down the inky Danube. The night was crystal clear, seeing in the darkness my billowing breaths and prickling my nose and cheeks.
Sailing through the city, tension knotted my muscles. The air was crammed with tension. We were on the cusp, the moment before the storm, where all was still quiet, but it pulsed with anticipation and power. Killian’s palace bloomed with light, and I swear I could feel him, standing on his terrace, his eyes finding me through the dark.
“Relax, princess,”Warwick growled into the back of my neck, his heat around me, while he stood at the back end of the boat, steering.
Blowing out, I trained my gaze back on the river, trying to calm the thumping in my chest. The farther away we drifted, the darker it became, emphasizing the enormous golden moon in the sky, glimmering off the water.
Twenty years ago, I was born under the same moon. The same moon when the two realms became one on this night, fae were discovered to live among humans, and the world flipped over.
It was strange to think I was being born somewhere in Budapest, maybe even in the cottage, and at the same time, I was there in the war too—felt the blood ooze between my toes, smelled the dirt and sweet acidic fragrance of the magic dissolving and burning, and saw the bodies and experienced death.
“You smell it, Fishy?” Opie looked back at me from his perch on boat rail, Bitzy next to him. Neither had been on a boat before and were awed by this new experience.
“I smell the Danube.”
“No, adventure, Fishy.” His eyes sparkled. “And possibly dead bodies, but mostly adventure!”
I scoffed, my gaze dipping to the water. From the pictures Andris showed me, there were many bodies hidden underneath the dark inky waters of the Danube.
The boat curved around a bend in the river.
“There.” Ash pointed.
Following his hand, I spotted a crumbling old stone castle on the hill like a headstone, marking the graves of so many lives lost in the soil around it.
Warwick steered the boat toward the shore, beaching it on the embarkment. Opie and Bitzy jumped in my pack. My lungs struggled to keep even while we disembarked, the knot in my stomach coiling tighter. My boots landed on the shore, and prickles skated up my spine, coating my skin in goosebumps.
Death.
Dead didn’t mean nothing or emptiness. It hummed at the edges, desperate to feed, thirsty to taste. Life was death’s drug, its addiction, its craving to feel again. And I could feel them coming to me as if I was the gateway. Nausea swept over me, my lids closing, trying to swallow down the bile.
“Brex.” Warwick grabbed my arm. The moment he touched me, the sickness dissipated, allowing me to take a full breath.
“Shield yourself.” Ash was on my other side.
Nodding, I pushed back at the dead, the ghosts drenching this land, coming to me. A light in the dark. A beacon. The source of its need.
“There’s so many,” I whispered. “Too many.”
“You do not bow to them, Kovacs,” Warwick rumbled in a mandate, his hand squeezing mine before he let go. “Make them bow to you.”
They crashed into me the moment he let go, waiting at the barrier like hungry savages.
Gritting my teeth, I slammed down my walls.“No!”I screamed in my head. They pushed forward, my form bowing over.“Get back!”There were so many; they just kept coming. I felt myself throw up, my body swaying.
“You are their commander. They bow to you!” Warwick demanded of me.
With a bellowing cry, I dug deep and shoved back at them, power thundering off me.“You do not touch me!”
I thought I heard thunder crack in the clear sky, a flash of light.
