“It’s not technically the same.” She blew the bangs out of her eyes. “What happened to that creature had been purely mechanical. This is the finest form of chemistry. The snake will bleed from the inside out.”
And flood the bank with enough blood to redden the Obsidian River. My stomach turned. I’d seen enough carnage and death.
“Ifwe can raise the temperature,” I said.
Zandyr hesitated. “We can do it.”
“But you are not going to like it,” Elysia said.
I closed my eyes to keep from screaming. Instead, I asked in a deathly whisper, “What did you do?”
I’d only been gone for a couple of days and I’d come back to a madhouse.
Or maybe everything made sense, and I just couldn’t see it through the impatience.
“We haven’t burned the fallen Serpents. Yet,” Zandyr said.
My mood soured even more. “That’s not right. They deserve to be judged by their ancestors. They need to be burned, or buried, or sent down the river. Pick your funeral and go with it, but do it.”
“And they will be,” he said patiently. “Their own people left them on our shore to rot. We could have used their bones for gods-know what dark magic. The Butcher didn’t care. Wewillburn them. When it’s more suitable for us. When our dead enemies can actually help us keep others alive.”
Rage slashed through me again. But my grief worried me more.
“That isn’t right.” I kept on shaking my head. “What if they did that to our warriors?”
Elysia scoffed. “They aren’t clever enough–”
I began breathing heavier, not looking at any of them. “What if they’d used Geryll’s body as a torch against us?”
Elysia and Zandyr exchanged a quick glance.
I knew how I sounded.
Resentful.
I was–at myself.
He placed a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it away.
I didn’t deserve empathy.
“What happened to him isn’t right,” Zandyr said slowly. “But weneedto stop others from having the same heinous fate. Those soldiers are dead. They don’t feel anything anymore.”
Too bad.
The words slithered into my mind like the snakes which were quickly approaching the river.
They brought me more shame.
This wasn’t how I was raised to rule. I couldn’t become this vengeful, abhorrent being.
“We need you to focus on the plan,” Zandyr went on. “It’s the only way we will win.”
“You two could have done this without me,” I murmured, bitter. “Picked flowers, splashed them with poison, and waited for some poor animals to be guzzled up by those monsters.”
“Ryker.” He sighed. “The snakes would have eaten the deer whether they were doused or not. It’s nature.”
“Have you even imagined?” I said viciously. “What it would be like for those animals to see the snake’s jaws descending upon them? The fear they must feel?”
