I rocked to a halt, inhaling sharply.
Reddish-black smoke filled the chamber, swirling around the robed figure of Vessa—the same kind of shadowy smoke that had drifted from the ruby-adorned box Isbeth had sent.
“What the fuck?” Kieran threw out his arm, blocking me.
Vessa’s milky-white eyes were wide as she stared at a scorch mark on the ceiling, her arms spread. She stood in the center of a circle drawn not of ash but blood—hers. It dripped from her mangled wrists. Through the churning, thick tendrils of smoke, I saw a sharpened chunk of rock lying near her bare feet.
A thick, oily feeling seeped through my skin, and the eather in my chest pulsed. In the hall, I heard low snarls of warning from the wolven.
“You,” I breathed, the essence colliding with the building anger. Energy flooded my veins. “You did this.”
Her laughter joined the cyclone of smoke.
The corners of my vision turned silvery-white as I brushed Kieran’s arm aside and stepped into the room.
“Careful,” Kieran warned, his hand fisting in the back of my dressing gown as the pulsing smoke whipped past my face, blowing strands of my hair back. “This is some bad shit.”
“Magic,” Perry rasped from behind us. “This is Primal magic.”
“Harbinger,” she cooed, her frail body shaking as the reddish-black smoke whirled. “You were told when you entered this manor, Queen with a crown of gold, that all that you and those who follow will find here is death.” The reddish-black smoke spun faster, spreading. “You will not harness the fire of the gods. You will win no war.”
My breath scorched my lungs and throat as realization swept through me. “Isbeth,” I hissed, chin lowering as the essence sparked from my splayed fingers. I didn’t know how she was able to do this, but I knew why. “You did this for her.”
“I serve the True Crown of the Realms,” she yelled.
The floor began to shake as the smoke funneled, rising to the ceiling. That smell—the stale lilacs—grew until it nearly choked me. But it was not Vessa that caused the trembling.
It was me.
“I serve by waiting—”
“You served,” I cut her off as the edges of my robe rippled. My will formed in my mind as I lifted my hand. Pure, ancient power spilled out from me, spinning down my arm. Starlight carrying the faintest tinge of shadow arced from my palm, slamming into the smoke. The eather rolled over the storm and cut through it, striking Vessa in the chest. She spun back as the flash of eather pulsed through the chamber, but only her robes fell to the floor. “And death has come for you.”
Chapter 9
I walked toward the receiving chamber, the dressing robe replaced by breeches and my sweater coat. It was the thick of the night, hours after the sixteen draken had been lifted onto hastily made pyres so Nithe, one of the remaining draken, could burn their bodies. I stood by the pyres until nothing remained but ash. Part of me felt as if I were still there.
Entering the room, I went to where Reaver sat, still in his mortal form, nude but for the blanket he’d wrapped around his waist as he sat on the floor, in a corner. Before I could speak, he said, “She smelled of Death.”
“Well, that’s because she was dead,” Kieran replied.
“No. You misunderstand. She smelled of the Death,” Reaver countered. “I thought I smelled it when we arrived here, on and off, but it was never strong. Not until tonight.”
His pupils had returned to normal as he watched me lower myself onto the ground before him, the heavy length of my braid falling over my shoulder. It wasn’t just the four of us. Those I trusted were with us, sitting or standing, drinking or motionless, still held tightly by shock. I swallowed the knot of sorrow gathering inside me—a mix of guilt and realization that I should’ve listened to Kieran. “What does that mean?”
“That was the essence of the Primal of Death. His stench. Oily. Dark. Suffocating,” Reaver said, and I looked to where Kieran stood a few feet from me. That was exactly what we’d both felt. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“You mean Rhain?” Vonetta asked from where she sat on one of the chairs, her knees pressed to her chest.
Reaver blinked. “What?”
“Rhain,” Emil started to explain, his hands on the back of Vonetta’s chair. “The God of Common Men and—”
“I know who Rhain is. I knew him before he was known as the god you recognize today,” he replied.
From the entry of the chamber, surprise flickered through Hisa, mirroring mine. “Who was the God of Death before him?” she asked.