You are on borrowed time,Lymrasi had said.I’d been so damned foolish.
“Cousin, Mortag, you need to push him out. This isn’t you.” Panic sank in, and I drew a hand to my throat.
“Oh—it hasalwaysbeen me. Watching you, waiting for when our paths would cross under this black moon,” Caym said. “I once wished to see you dead for your ancestors’ betrayals. But now…I see what we may accomplish together. Come with me willingly, and I will not harm them…”
He waved a hand at Barden and Mortag and my heart pounded. His voice was like venom in my veins, alluring in a horrific way. I almost faltered, almost approached him.
He’d done this to Firose.
I’d seen it in her memories—his lure, his ability to sink into people. He had his sights on me next.
“So now you wish to see me leashed to you instead?” I spat back, my sense of self-preservation giving way to anger. He’d hurt so many—killed so many. “I’d rather be dead.”
Barden and Mortag stood still, but their arms went limp at their sides. Caym looked murderous, nostrils flaring. “I warned you. When the Origins released this body from that tomb below Helos, these pawns were a means for me to regain strength through. They are useless to me. They’ll make better use as Death. So we start here until you bend to me…”
Caym let a sinister smile cross his face as he cracked his neck and outstretched a hand toward my cousin. The putrid smell of dark magic roiled as a ghastly amber smoke swept around Barden. It robbed him of breath, then of color, then of skin. His pocket watch fell from his hand—it landed face up, revealing the deathmark carved into its gold body.
I gasped out in horror as my cousin’s muscles decayed until there was nothing but dust on the tile. I threw a hand over my mouth, stifling a scream.
There were no guards to hear me.
Caym’s eyes closed with a satiated shudder as though he’d just taken the first sip of a fine port. His lids opened slightly, showing me the whites as his eyes rolled back. He extended a hand toward Mortag next.
“You can stop this, Isleen.” Caym held out his other hand to me. “Just come to me.”
“Mortag—no!” I tried to run to my healer only to realize my legs were trapped in place.
I had no control.
All that training, all that false hope that my mind would be any match for him. He would kill everyone I loved until I accepted his terms—until I surrendered to him.
I reached deep into the depths of my mind, and I screamed to the one who I knew might hear me, not knowing if from a distance his mind would let me in.
“He’s here. Caym is here. Run!”I helplessly slammed against the shield of his mind as if it were a pane of glass.
The smoke descended over Healer Mortag.
No, no, no. The dust of what had once been my healer fell into a pile next to my cousin’s. My heart cracked in two.
I tried to scream out, but a hand wrapped around my neck and squeezed. Caym had killed them both so quickly, and the shock of the moment washed over me as I gagged for air.
“I may not be able to kill you, but what an impressive partner you will make once you give in,” Caym said. “Pity, really. My nephew had been so happy with his first wife—didn’t even notice when I made her an envoy. What was her name? Fiona? Farah?”
Freya. He’d taken Krait’s first love. My stomach churned.
“She was only strong enough to change the moon cycles by a few years before her untimely demise. Will you be more useful than she was?”
“Never,” I choked out.
“We’ll see.” He frowned. “Pity this black moon had to sour your honeymoon. I suppose there will be no heir. That was what you were going to try, wasn’t it?”
He made atisk-tsksound before he slammed my back against the stucco wall so hard that debris from the ceiling rained on us. I cried out as he released my throat, but his face was so close that I shuddered. He closed his eyes as though he might kiss me and then breathed out that awful amber smoke. I gagged as it slipped into my mouth, caressing my tongue. He would devour me, take me under his command and never release me.
I could be worse than Firose, worse than any other under his command.
That future flashed before me.
Fallen cities.
