Astrid delves into her Gift once more, the well of power so deep now she knows Bastet will barely feel it, not in this new form of his. She aims it for Skylar, finding that bond between them; it’s an answer to Skylar’s unspoken question and a command. Make him suffer. Make him pay. Astrid sees Skylar’s eyes widen as Astrid’s Gift fills her up. Energy pulses from Skylar, blasting harmlessly into Astrid and Bastet. Zryan shouts something, but she can’t hear what. The hairs onher arm rise like an army of tiny soldiers as Skylar pulls on her Gift, drawing more of it into her; and Astrid watches in horrified awe as Skylar rises from the ground, hair floating around her head like the flame of a candle.
She levitates above the assassin, her face cold, unfeeling. With a flick of her wrist, the man’s knee disintegrates. He howls. Another flick of her wrist and the other knee is pulverized. He screams, sobbing, begging. Pisses himself.
“Who sent you?” Skylar’s voice doesn’t sound mortal. It echoes across the beach and Astrid shudders.
“Please, please.” He sobs. “They made me do it. Said they would take me away, take my family to the camps if I didn’t.”
Skylar sneers in disgust, and he gasps as she snaps his spine. He passes out, but she holds him up, like some grotesque rag doll, and wakes him somehow, as if she has control of his very person.
“So you took the lives of two others, attempted to kill again, to save yourself,” she spits at him, this time crushing his forearm. He faints again. Astrid laughs, humorless, the sound alien. But she wants more, wants him to hurt as much as she does.
“Don’t let him die yet,” she commands Skylar, and the dragon heir inclines her head in acquiescence. Skylar wakes the man and he retches, his eyes rolling.
Skylar lowers to the sand, walks to the man, and slaps him. His head snaps to the side.
“Who?” she demands.
The man gurgles, trying to speak, but the pain is too much for him.
“Astrid, one of your vials.” Skylar holds out a hand. Bastet pads over to her as Astrid pulls out a healing solution and hands it to Skylar. She wrenches the man’s jaw open, smashing the glass vial into his mouth. Blood spurts from his tongue, his lips, until the potion begins to work, healing the very wound caused by the vial. His breathing eases, his eyes clear, but the terror doesn’t leave them.
Skylar crouches in front of him. “Who sent you?”
“I don’t know who they were, I don’t know. They were masked and hooded, gave me no name.” Skylar raises her hand but he shouts. “Please, I only know that they came from the castle!”
“How do you know that?” Astrid demands.
“I followed them—they were known to the Dreki at the gates, I’m sure of it.”
Skylar’s head spins, those strange black eyes unnerving as she looks at Astrid. She rises and slowly pivots to Zryan, who has been observing silently. He shakes his head in denial, in apology, Astrid doesn’t know or really care. A dull ache throbs where her heart once was. She can’t believe that an hour ago she let him kiss her, hold her. Was reveling in him when she could have been with Jessa, could have protected her friend. She never should have let Jessa swap masks. Disgust with herself rears up.
“It’s not him,” Astrid says, because that, she does know. Zryan would never do anything like this. Skylar cocks her head at her. “It is not him,” she repeats.
Skylar regards her and then nods. Turns back to the assassin, limp within Skylar’s invisible restraints.
“Astrid.” It’s Zryan, his voice like she’s never heard it. Agonized. He takes a step toward her and Bastet growls, but it’s Skylar who stops him, her power snaking out and blocking his path.
“You don’t go near her.”
Zryan stares at Astrid, but she turns away. She can’t bear to look at him. No, she doesn’t believe he has anything to do with this, but if what the assassin says is true, it’s someone who resides in the castle. Inhiscastle.
“End this,” Astrid says. She’s bone-tired all of a sudden. She wants to lie down, to curl up tight in the dark, to not think or feel. Just hurt. She wants it all over. She can’t understand how she is still here, when Jessa isn’t, how this piece of shit lying broken on the sand still lives when her friend is dead.
Useless.
“End him!” she screams.
Skylar doesn’t even look at him as she drains the life from him. His mouth opens in a silent shriek as his skin is pulled taut over his face and his body starts to rapidly decay before Astrid’s eyes. His hair turns white, falls out in soft clumps, and he crumples in on himself. It is a matter of seconds and Skylar has reduced him to a wrinkled husk.
No one says a word.
Astrid is hollow. She grasps her pendant. One of a matching pair. Then she rubs a hand along Bastet’s back. “Take us to them.”
He leaps into the air before she can finish, soaring back to Jessa and Quincy, to her grief. Violent shakes begin to rattle her body and she clenches her jaw. She can’t lose it now, she cannot lose it now. Bastet descends back into the ball; a crowd of people are still gathered, surrounded by soldiers and Dreki, who are attempting to maintain order. They’re guiding people out, though a few hover around Jessa and Quincy. Arboria is lying against Jessa’s back, Fionn nowhere to be seen. But standing over her friend and her fox is Axel. His eyes flit from left to right, until they look up and spot Astrid.
Bastet lands in front of him and she leaps off him, collapsing next to Jessa and Quincy, grasping them both, pulling them close to her, knowing it will never be close enough. She buries her face in Jessa’s hair, inhaling, wanting to remember everything about her friend right down to the way she smells. Like pine. Like home. She strokes Quincy’s fur, savors the coarse strands between her fingers.
They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead.
