Their anger and hatred beat at me as I looked down, seeing my blood falling against the stone. I couldn’t breathe. Their raw emotions were an endless rolling tide, and underneath it was a hum, a whirring from the very core of me. My skin vibrated. Just like it had when the soldiers surrounded Casteel and I before the wolven had arrived.
Something red splashed on the ground, tainting the pearly stone. More blood. Another drop joined it, seeping into the cracks. The marble trembled under my feet as roots appeared in the stone, thin as fragile veins, they crept out from the crack. I blinked a sting from my eyes, and the roots disappeared. Another splash of crimson fell and another, this one farther from where I stood.
It was blood.
But it wasn’t mine.
It fell from above.
The skies bled.
Chapter 45
Dizzy, I lifted my head to see blood falling like rain from the crimson-hued cloud that stretched over the Temple and the cove.
It spattered the pristine white of the Temple floor, dampening my clothing and turning the white clothing of those who stood before me pink. It seemed to stun them as they cast their gazes to the sky.
“Tears of an angry god,” someone whispered.
My gaze shifted to the blur of unfamiliar faces.
“It is an omen,” the Atlantian who had unsheathed his dagger announced. “They’re showing us that they know what must be done and what we will face.”
“Enough,” I said again.
“For Atlantia,” a woman said. She was closer. A mortal with Atlantian blood and crimson streaking her face. An Atlantian stood beside her, his lips peeled back to expose his fangs and the hatred in his snarl reminded me of a Craven. Of an Ascended.
“From blood and ash.” The Atlantian raised the dagger. “We will rise again, my brothers and sisters.”
The hum in my blood grew, the buzz in my skin intensified, stronger than what I’d felt before, and that ancient sense of knowledge rose deep from my pain. The cords I could see so clearly rippled out from me, connecting me to each and every one of them. It gathered all their burning hatred and scorching loathing, their acidic bitterness and thirst for vengeance after years, decades, centuries of pain inflicted upon them. And I took it.
I took it all inside me, letting it pour into every vein, every cell until it choked me, until I tasted the blood, until I drowned in it. Until I tasted death, and it was sweet.
“Enough!” I screamed as the connection to them—to all of them—crackled with energy. The cords that had always been invisible, lit up in silver, becoming visible to not only my eyes but theirs.
“Your eyes,” the Atlantian with the dagger gasped, staggering back.
Moonlight glow spilled out of me, seeping over the stone and rippling into the charged air as I stood. Thunder rolled endlessly, shaking the Temple and the nearby trees.
“Dear gods,” the Atlantian whispered, his dagger slipping from his fingers to fall soundlessly to the tile. “Forgive us.”
Too late.
The cords connecting me to all of them contracted as I threw out my arms. All the hate, the loathing, the bitterness and vengeance intensified, tripled, and then erupted from me, traveling through each of those cords, finding their way back home.
Lightning streaked overhead like a thousand screams as the group’s rancid emotions choked them.
Hair blew back from faces. Clothing pulled taut against bodies. Feet slid over stone, and they went down, one after another after another as if they were nothing more than fragile saplings caught in a windstorm.
I watched as their vileness continued feeding back to them.
I watched as they clutched at their heads, writhing and spasming, screaming and shrieking until the bones in their throats caved in under their contempt.
And then…nothing.
Silence in and outside of me. I was empty again—no hatred, no anger, no pain. Empty and cold.
I sucked in air, staggering as the silver cords connected to them sparked and fizzled out. The rain eased and then stopped, forming pinkish puddles across the floor.
Those on the stone didn’t move, they didn’t thrash and squirm. Red. There was so much red around them that ran in rivulets to the puddles, deepening the pinkish hue. They lay still, their bodies twisted and contorted as if they had been thrown about by the gods themselves. Eyes wide and mouths hanging open, hands clenched tightly around rocks or their crushed throats.
I felt nothing from them.
The bells tolled again, this time rapidly with no pauses between the gongs, and the Temple shuddered. Stone cracked behind me. The scent of blood and rich soil spilled into the air. A shadow fell over me, stretched across the floor like hundreds of bare bone fingers.