Tears streamed down my face. The burning from Alastor’s Remnants intensified, spreading up my arms and legs like liquid fire in my veins. It consumed me from the inside out, rewriting who I was on a fundamental level. Hiding the monster behind a wall of power. Alastor’s power.
My gaze darted wildly between Alastor and Reverius, silently begging for answers, for mercy, for anything to make this stop.
I fell to my knees, consumed by the fire. I couldn’t see beyond the pain.
“Stop!” Reverius roared, and I could swear the earth rattled with the force of that command.
But Alastor’s laugh was greater. “She’s mine now, Keeper. Pity you failed again. Some of us were really rooting for you. There’s nothing you can do to stop it now.”
“I’ll fucking stop you myself,” I roared.
Somewhere, a million miles away, I heard the door to the house slam shut.
“Come find me when you’re done with your tantrum, Huntress,” Alastor’s magic echoed in my ear as his Remnants dissipated and I was left buried beneath the panic of my own shadows, unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to blink beyond the two black bands circling my wrists.
9
Thorne
Icouldn’t fucking see her beyond the dome of darkness she’d placed over herself. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. She was mine. Mine to have. Mine to own. Mine to fucking claim. And a desperate bargain to save her had kept me from interfering with Alastor’s plan. They really were the fucking same. Though she’d conned me into her bargain, and he’d simply demanded one.
The darkness swirled and pulsed, a living entity of shadow and despair. I could feel Paesha’s panic, her fear, her rage, all of it radiating from within that impenetrable dome. The air crackled with raw, untamed power, making the hair on my arms stand on end. I reached out, desperate to break through, to reach her, but the shadows lashed out, leaving angry red welts across my skin.
“Paesha!” I roared, my voice lost in the howling wind that kicked up around us as Archer darted across the little meadow, sword in hand as he screamed and placed himself between Paesha and I.
“You bastard. You fucking bastard. You could have saved her. You let her die. You knew her, and she loved you like a brother, and still, you let her die.”
“Put the godsdamn sword away, Archie.”
“Don’t you fucking call me that.” He stepped forward, teeth gritted, shoulders heaving, as he placed the tip of the sword into the hollow of my neck, hand only slightly trembling. Good for him. “I will kill you. I don’t care what kind of god you are. I don’t care if you wrote the rules, or the worlds, or whatever you’re supposed to lord over. I will kill you, you bastard.”
The cold metal was a balm against my skin. The rage in his eyes burned hotter than any flame. Fueled by grief and betrayal, he was right to hate me. They all were.
The damn shadows continued to pulse around Paesha, her anguish a tangible force in the air. I could feel her power growing wild and uncontrolled, threatening to tear her apart. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I’d been effectively caged by bargains.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “None of you do.”
Archer’s grip on the sword tightened. “Then explain it.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of millennia pressing down on me. How could I explain to a mortal the peril of worlds and whims of gods and their games? How could I tell him in the end none of it would matter? Not even his sister.
“All magic is failing. The gods are losing their power. We’re weakened.” I grabbed the edge of his sword, letting it slice into my palm as I shoved it away and stepped toward him. “You think I would have sat there and done nothing when Ezra’s men attacked if I could have helped it? The flow of magic used to be an endless supply and now it’s an ebb and flow. Sometimes great and sometimes there’s hardly anything there. The cost of using it is so much steeper and I can promise you, Ezra knows exactly when to fucking strike.”
His cold eyes never looked away from my face. “You were limited because you were holding that veil in place, weren’t you?Admit it. You put your little game ahead of my sister’s life and she fucking died for it.”
When I didn’t confirm or deny, he lifted the sword again. “One day, you will fall and I will be the one standing over your withering body. You’ll see my face and you’ll think of her the second before you die.”
Harlow would be one of thousands, but I couldn’t tell him that. He’d only throw more empty threats and probably a sword into my gut, and I had no time to heal from that right now.
“Be careful of the gods you threaten,” I said, clenching my teeth. Threatening me was one thing, but if he stood before the wrong person and said those words, he’d be joining his sister.
The shadows swarmed forward, a writhing mass of darkness. They enveloped Archer, wrapping around him like a protective cocoon, tendrils of inky blackness lashing out at me as I took another step toward him. He yelled in fury, likely trying to fight against the wall Paesha’s magic had formed.
She’d taken way too much fucking power. Way too much. It hadn’t affected Farris because he’d had no idea how to find that magic in himself, but the Huntress had no such qualms.
As the shadows danced and twisted, I could see flashes of Archer’s face through the gaps, his eyes wide with fear but his jaw set in defiance. The darkness seemed to respond to his emotions, growing more agitated and violent. But maybe it wasn’t the darkness. It was her. Paesha, still hidden behind the wall of her breakdown.
“Paesha,” I whispered, trying to reach her.
