“Me?” He faced her fully. Delaynie stood a few paces away, watching with her piercing eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Krilene gathered her robes. She nodded deeper into the jungle. “Come. There is something you need to see.” She smiled, showing far too many teeth.
It raised the hairs on the back of Quentin’s neck.
“I want to show you something that could help your queen win this war before it truly begins. But only if you are strong enough to take it.”
Chapter 85
The smell reached Mariah first.
The northern road was worn and beaten, stomped into submission by thousands of hoofs and booted feet. The evidence of Kol’s army was everywhere—dropped banners, forgotten utensils, even the occasional discarded boot.
Every moment spent with those reminders made Mariah want to scream.
The road widened as they approached Andburgh. The Crossroad City, built at the intersection of the northern road—which led to Khento and farther, to Antoris—and Xara’s Road, which connected Kasia all the way to Verith’s golden gates.
Mariah had never understood why her parents picked this place to call home. It had never felt like one; not to her.
Only her family had made it something worth protecting.
The stench of death clung to the breeze. The acrid smell of burned lumber, the rancidness of melted flesh. Rot and decay and fear was thick in the air, pluming into the clouds.
Mariah’s rage was hotter than a forge when Andburgh came into view. What was left of it, anyway.
The circular town square had been reduced to rubble and ash. Shattered glass spread around the bloodstainedcobblestones. There were no bodies, but plenty of dark stains to suggest that death had swept through this place.
It was an odd thing, to see the very foundations of her world destroyed. The very things that had made her who she was reduced to splinters and cinders.
The rage in her chest bubbled brighter. Hotter. Vengeance crawled beneath her skin, bloodlust circling around her heart.
The only thing that kept her planted on the earth was that single bond in her chest, woven of silver and gold and shadow, that she could never seem to shut away.
A spear of guilt pressed through the weight of her vengeance and rage. Andrian bringing up her mother and that diary had infuriated her. Mariah couldn’t remember the last time she’d been that mad.
She knew—somewhere, deep down—that the fury she felt wasn’t for him, but at herself. It was born from shame at her failures, from her weaknesses and faults and all the things that screamed at her that she wasn’t enough, she would never be enough, she would always fail the ones who counted on her most.
Mariah knew exactly what to say to get under his skin, to get him to leave her alone. She also knew saying those things would cut him deeply.
And she knew how incredibly untrue they were.
It had been close to five hours, and she’d wanted to stop and go to him and apologize at least a dozen times. But what would she even say? A simpleI’m sorrydidn’t feel like it would be enough. They needed more time, so she could explain; so he could understand; so they could share all the scars they carried.
Mariah didn’t have that time.
The only thing that kept her grounded and sane was the fact that she could sense him there, riding behind her and Matheo. Aquiet, steady presence she hoped would never leave, no matter how terrible she could be.
She didn’t deserve him and would spend every moment trying to make her words up to him.
AfterKol was defeated.
“Goddess’s tits,” Matheo muttered. They’d pulled their horses to a halt in the middle of the square, right in the center of the carnage. To Mariah’s left were a collection of tables and benches, most tipped over or smashed or burned. There was one in the center, untouched amidst the wreckage.
Less than a year ago, she’d sat at that same table across from her mother. She’d eaten her lunch and told off a young woman in town for something that felt so impetuous and unimportant now.
Mariah wondered, with a sick twist to her stomach, if Annabelle had survived the slaughter or if she would find her amongst the dead.
She loosened her mare’s reins, sliding from her back. Kol’s army had clearly used this space to keep their horses; a few bales of hay were left under a crumbling awning.
