Delano was gone.
So was Hisa.
Lizeth.
My father.
Myfuckingfather.
None of this was supposed to happen. My mind raced back over the years. I was supposed to free my brother. I was supposed to take the Maiden. I was supposed to end the Blood Crown. Poppy wasn’t supposed to stop me from following her—from preventing this.
None ofthiswassupposedto happen.
My trembling hands balled into fists as I pressed them against my bloody chest. My heart. I couldn’t feel it beating. I hadn’t felt it since Kolis arrived in the Great Hall.
Poppy.
She was hurt. She had to be.
I had to get to her.
I tried to focus on her, but like before, I couldn’t find her mark.
I couldn’t—
I jerked my left hand from my chest and opened it. Blood covered my palm. Heart thumping, I wiped at it with my other hand, over and over—
Bone.
All I saw was flesh fading into silver bone. I couldn’t see the imprint. I couldn’t feel her.
The roar of rage and eather built and built as the crimson-streaked mist poured out of me and spilled into the air.
I couldn’t sense Poppy.
My head kicked back, and a scream tore through me. The sound burst forth, turning into pure ruin the moment it hit the air. I slammed my fists into the stone.
Marble and gold exploded as patches of my flesh faded along my arms, replaced by the gleam of bone.
Inky black vines burst from the holes beneath my hands, slipping past my fists and rapidly spreading across the bloody floor. Thinner branches broke off, slipping over the bodies as I turned my head to Kieran.
With another shout that shook the walls and shattered what glass remained, Isenthim from the Great Hall.
The doors slammed shut, leaving me alone withthem.
The vines unfurled across the floor, gently wrapping them, moving over the others as a black bird landed on the floor before me. Then another and another. Ravens poured in through thedome as the vines climbed the walls, overlapping one another as they stretched over the windows and sealed the doors.
Pain—soul-deep pain—entrenched itself deep inside me, and there was this snapping motion. A coming undone as…something shifted inside me. All the desperation and sorrow carved ruin into my bones. Panic and rage collapsed into ashes of wrath.
I tipped forward, unused muscles along my shoulder blades twitching as wings slammed down on either side of me—wings with silver feathers tinged in dark gray and threaded with crimson.
The fluttering of smaller wings came, flapping wildly as snow began to fall. I suddenly understood Aydun’s words about our union because something was rising from within me. It was athing—a powerfulthingthat had always been there. Waiting. Watching. Caged. And it was cold. Unending.
And it tasted of ruin and wrath.
It promised death and destruction. And I would unleash it, from the west to the east, laying waste to all in between.
CHAPTER 60
