Tension gathered at the corners of his mouth. “I would love to.”
My fingers twitched. “Then what’s stopping you?”
He moved his stare to the colonnade. I followed his gaze, my breath catching as I saw thin cracks forming at the bottoms of the pillars and spreading across the steps. I felt the faint tremor in the ground beneath us then.
“You’re calm?” he asked, his voice low.
Clearly, I wasn’t.
“I can only imagine what’s going through your head right now, what you’re feeling,” Attes said, keeping his voice barely audible.
What I was feeling? I was furious, disturbed, and a hundred other things as my gaze returned to the swaying bodies. My lungs burned as I pressed my lips together. I tugged on my arm.
His grip tightened on my arm. “You’ve seen worse, Poppy.”
My entire body jerked as my head snapped in his direction. “When I was Sotoria…?”
A muscle flexed along his jaw. He nodded curtly. “And you’ve seen worse in this lifetime.”
A wave of tiny bumps broke out over my skin. I had thought exactly that minutes ago, but I knew he couldn’t have known that. “How would you know?” Something occurred to me. “Seraphena?”
The muscle by his temple ticked now, and his silence was the answer. It hadn’t been Seraphena.
“How?” I repeated.
Attes remained silent, and for some reason, possibly thevadentia, the image of a large bird of prey flashed in my mind.
I sucked in a short breath. “Have you been watching me—watching us—while in stasis? Like Seraphena did?”
His nostrils flared. “We really don’t have the time to go into this, especially when you make it sound likethat. Like it’s something disturbing.”
“How else is it supposed to sound?” I demanded.
“Not like that,” he muttered. I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “He can feel your essence, Poppy. He knows you’re here. He’s known from the moment we got here. And now he knows you’re angry.” His chest rose, even though I didn’t hear him inhale. “You’re already fucking up.”
My head snapped back. Denial flooded my system, but it quickly faded.
“We should leave.” Attes glanced toward the manor. “This isn’t going to work.”
“What?” I pulled on my arm again, but he held on. “We can’t leave. If we do, he will attack Carsodonia. People will die.”
“So be it—”
This time when I wrenched my arm free, I broke his hold. “I am not leaving.” I stepped back, hands fisting as my gaze fell on the cracks in the stone pillars. “You can go, but I’m not.”
“Poppy—”
“You’re right. I am fucking up,” I admitted, tearing my gaze from the evidence of such. “I can lock it down. I will. You can believe that or not, I don’t care. Either way, I’m not leaving. What you do is up to you.”
Attes swore as he shoved a hand through his hair in a way that reminded me so much of Casteel that I had to look away.
Turning, I faced the colonnade. I didn’t close my eyes. I forced myself to see the bodies hanging there as I did what I said I would. It wasn’t easy—it was like trying to gather tattered clothing in a windstorm. But I had to. I was desperate to do so because I had to end this, and I was willing to do whatever was needed.
So, I did what I swore I would never do again. I took a deep breath and did what I was forced to do when I donned the veil. It wasn’t real. I wasn’t slipping anything over my head, but I could feel the weight of the golden chains. I forced myself to become nothing so I wouldn’t feel anything. Not the anger, the disgust. Not even the sharper, suffocating emotion that hid itself behind the rage. I didn’t just shut it down. I cut myself off. Ichanged. Adapted. For the last time, I became the Chosen. And when I opened my eyes, I was able to see past the bodies just as I had seen past the Ascended’s lies.
“Poppy,” Attes said softly.
“I’m level.” I started to walk and climbed the steps. “Are you coming or not?”
