Page 35 of All Hallows Fate

“I don’t think slippage is a word,” I said, my voice thin as the overseers roared again.

“We will give you one minute to retreat,” the spokesman said.1 “In acknowledgement of your status,” he added to Death. “You will not be given longer than a minute.”

“We need a coil of iron. Give us that, and we’ll go.”

All three overseers screeched.

“The audacity,” one hissed.

“To ask what isn’t theirs,” another snarled.

“You will leave,” the middle creature snapped. “Now. Or we will hunt you through the mine and use your blood as fertiliser.”

I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t asked what was being mined here. That was none of my business, and I’d happily stay ignorant forever.

“This is my domain,” Death growled in a voice that rattled and rasped. “This mine sits in my land and is occupied by spirits because of me. I can just as easily unmake this place as I made it.”

And unmake you, the implication was clear. Dark, possessive glee swirled in my chest, making my heart beat faster. This man was my husband. This god was mine.

“No,” the creature said with a croaking laugh. “You could not. You, who are sickly and feeble, think to threaten us? You don’t have the strength.”

“He may not,” I said mildly before Death could reply. My head tilted as the predator in me rose, assessing the overseers. “But I do.”

My magic had triggered at my first hint of fear as we ventured into the dark mouth of the mine, and all through the trek down the tunnel it had been building strength, gathering into a storm of judgement and death. And that was before every treacherous soul in this place assaulted my senses, baiting my power until it frothed at the mouth to judge, punish, and destroy.

It swept through me like the first warning signs of an electrical storm, sparking when the overseer laughed.

“You dare to address me, whelp of a god?”

“What did you just call my wife?” Madde asked in a voice so unfamiliar I didn’t recognise him until he stepped right to the edge of the path, tiptoeing against the fall. No laughter, no madness, no bright, unapologetic passion. This was a plain of ice under a night sky utterly devoid of stars.

“Your wife,” one of the others repeated, wings beating to hold him in place as his rough face turned in my direction. “Is unfit to step foot in a place of such vital power as this. This mine is rife with magic and darkness, unsuitable for the weak mind of a woman—”

Madde leapt off the edge of the platform before the overseer even finished, and I cried out, lunging forward on instinct. Fear dragged me back against the wall when I saw the sheer drop. Well, fear and the tight grip Pain had on my hand.

“Madde!” I shouted, a tremor in my voice.

He landed on the overseer, arms locked around the creature’s shoulders, and he clung there like a barnacle even as the creature fought Madde’s hold.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Tor demanded, throwing out a hand and unleashing a wave of darkness rife with so much suffering, I shrank against the wall, even knowing it wasn’t intended for me. “Get back here, you crazy bastard.”

“One second,” Madde called, climbing onto the overseer’s back as he thrashed, trying to unseat my insane husband. “B.R.B.”

My breath left my chest when he thrust his hand forward and—and ripped out a spine of dark, shining stone. “He—he just—”

“Yeah, that’s his new thing,” Pain sighed, shadows writhing around him faster than before, his grip on my hand unforgiving.

“His new thing is ripping out spines?” I asked sharply. I was a little faint watching Madde throw the stone spine into the sheer drop below him and grab for the overseer’s wings next, but part of me was purring. The dark, quiet part of me that craved blood spilling, bones snapping, and organs shredded. The overseer disrespected me, so Madde punished him, and I loved it.

“Jump back to the ledge,” Death ordered. “Now, Madde. If the overseer falls—”

“I know,” Madde replied brightly, that ice cold thing I’d glimpsed buried once more. “A free rollercoaster ride!”

I thought he was afraid of heights? Maybe insanity trumped fear.

“Madde, be careful,” I urged, my whole body jerking when the stone wing ripped off, only one wing keeping both overseer and my husband in the air.

“Watch your back!” I screamed when the other two winged creatures reached out their long-fingered hands for him. The tips, I noticed, were sharper than the claws that split my fingertips when I got angry. Long, serrated. A brutal promise of evisceration.