They’re just sounds. Syllables strung together that my brain refuses to process.
Sold your soul.
Air magic.
Resurrected one.
“You do not feed on humans, as lesser vampires must, but on supernatural blood.” The Seer’s voice drips with contempt. “You drink from the willing one who offers herself to you, who believes it will earn her a place by your side.”
Callie makes a strangled sound.
And suddenly I’m seeing all of it, in excruciating detail.
Callie could barely stand when she came out of Logan’s office weeks ago, and I was too jealous to wonder why. She got paler every day on this boat, and I blamed seasickness, even though she grew up on the water and has likely never been sick at sea in her life. I woke up next to her in the Land of the Lotus Eaters and she looked half-dead, and I didn’t ask a single question.
“You wear a token.” The Seer’s gaze drops to the chain that hangs beneath Logan’s shirt. “An ankar token that binds your soul to your corpse, anchoring your humanity so the monster does not consume what remains of the man.”
No.
I shake my head, as if that can make it untrue and stop the Seer from saying what I fear is coming next.
“You are not witch.” The Seer’s declaration rings out across the water like a death sentence. “You are not vampire. You are a creature that should not exist.”
The Seer stops directly in front of Logan.
“You are a Revenant.”
The word hits me like lightning through water.
It’s not a sudden shock. Instead, it’s a slow, devastating spread that travels outward from the point of impact into a wave that snatches the ground from beneath my feet. My hands are at my sides, my ears ringing with the echo of a word that’s rearranging everything behind my eyes.
Revenant.
My chest cracks open. It actually feels like my ribs are splitting apart, like my body knows the truth before my brain can catch up, and that it’s trying to reject it physically.
I told Logan everything Circe said about the Revenants and the Blood Coven. He held my hand, pulled me close, and said he was there for me.
You’re not facing this alone. Whatever comes next, I’m here with you. Always.
He saidalwayswhile being one of them.
I believed him. That’s the part that’s going to destroy me. Not that he lied, but that I believed him with my whole chest, without hesitation, because I’ve never trusted anyone the way I trusted him.
Still, I think back desperately, grasping for proof that the Seer is wrong, that this is a trick, or that it’s a test we have to pass.
When I first told Logan about Revenants, back at the academy after Constance warned me about them, he said he’d seen the term in old texts. He was as confused as I was.
He was pretending.
After Circe’s island, when I explained what I’d learned, he listened. He asked questions and seemed appropriately horrified. He was protective when I admitted I felt overwhelmed. He was worried about me.
Because he’s a good actor.
The denial’s clawing at me, desperate to find a way to make this not true, because even now, I’d rather believe a three-bodied ancient judge is toying with us than accept that Logan looked me in the eyes and lied to me every single day since we met.
Silver sparks dance across my knuckles, and I can’t make them stop because I can’t focus, can’t breathe, can’t think past the wordRevenantechoing through my skull.
Tempest star touched me to turn me into a weapon against the Revenants. I’m destined to destroy them.
