Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
“Then tell me how,” I said, heat flowing into my voice. The air charged. Stinging, icy-hot energy throbbed, and the air seemed to contract toward me, clinging to my skin. “How is she standing before us?”
“Poppy?” another voice said softly. I also recognized it. Kieran.
My skin tingled and hummed. “How?”
If he answered, I didn’t hear it. My mind was racing forward. This had to be some sort of trick. It had to be Kolis’s doing. She couldn’t be real. But some part of my mind slowed until only cold logic existed. Just enough. Before the pure rage and sweltering power drowned out everything. I knew Valyn had been correct.
In those last seconds, I had the sense to warn both Casteel and Kieran not to expose what they were. Then, the rage and power poured into every part of my being, stripping away every other sense and leaving nothing behind. Whoever I was now or in the past vanished in an instant. Instinct seized control, tearing through the tethers keeping the Primal essence in check. Whatever emerged shredded the shock holding me immobile. For the briefest second in my mind, I saw the Ancient clawing its way out of the soil as it freed itself.
I snapped forward and gripped the railing. I didn’t shadowstep. I was beyond that as eather tensed the muscles of my arms. I launched myself over the balcony.
The weight of the realm seemed to fall away as searing, crackling air reached up and seized me. The wind caught shouts of surprise and screams. I smelled burnt ozone as the air sparked and then ignited. Flames erupted and then were extinguished in the rush of air.
I landed, my knees bending, lowering me into a crouch to absorb the impossible impact. My fingertips grazed the ground, setting the grass on fire. Smoke wafted from the blades as they collapsed into ash. Darkness crept into the corners of my vision—a mass of shadows streaked with faint traces of crimson—as my head kicked back and my gaze locked with dark eyes shaped like mine. I rose slowly.
The smile on her face grew as a shadow fell over both of us. Shouts turned to screams as massive wings extended above us, slowing a draken’s descent.
Reaver landed amid the fleeing soldiers and mortals, coming down hard on his hind legs, then the front. The impact sent several people toppling to the ground, but not her.
She remained standing with that fucking smile on her face and those fucking eyes trained on me as Reaver’s neck snapped forward, his mouth stretching wide to release a roar that even I felt inside me.
She didn’t even twitch.
But she would.
My lips curved into the same smile as hers. Tendrils of churning mist spilled from me, silver spinning around gold banded by shadowy crimson. I saw nothing but her as I stalked forward.
The realm didn’t quake; it caught fire with each step, then so did the air as I rose. Wisps of mist churned, lashing out as flames seared the breaths of those foolish enough to remain close.
In the distance, I heard shouts—voices panicked but not afraid. Voices that threw out demands. Orders. Pleas.
“You,” I whispered, drawing the mist back. It spun and thickened, coiling tightly like a pit viper as I stared at her.
She tilted her head back, and the fiery eather throbbed. “Daughter.”
That voice.
Her voice.
Soft and smooth. Sultry. Wretched. Ruinous.
An icy heat ramped up inside me as the mist spun and coiled tighter, the shadows deepening and the crimson brightening as the fury built. I saw Jadis, her bones jutting in her bare skin, her eyes hollow. I heard her begging to die. I saw the spilled blood of innocents in the cavern in Oak Ambler. I heard the cries and pleas of countless families that had gone unanswered. I saw the state she had pushed Casteel to, his eyes burning like a blood-starved Ascended’s. I saw the life go out of Ian’s eyes and Duke Teerman leaning over me, his pale face flushed, and lips smeared with crimson.
Her smile continued to widen until I saw a flash of white teeth—slightly sharpened canines. “Do it,” she whispered, but it was a shrill scream in my head.
Fear drenched the air, and I took it inside me as I drew in a breath. I welcomed it. Fed on it. Used it.
Death woke inside me, cooling the fire in my veins. Ice drenched my skin as the golden power of life flickered and went out, swallowed by the achingly cold and dark essence of death. The air contracted and expanded. Flashes of lightning erupted overhead, streaking from one cloud to the next.
“Strike me down, Daughter,” she urged. “I’m sure that will help with…” She glanced around with an idle flick of a slender wrist. “Whatever you planned with this.”
Eather gathered in my chest as the coldness streaming from me snuffed out the flames spreading across the courtyard. I didn’t know what this thing was, but I refused to think of her as Isbeth. It didn’t matter. It would turn to ash.