“Liessa,” came the soft warning.

“But I am not cruel,” I said. “That is the difference between you and me. I don’t want to find pleasure in another’s suffering.”

She cried out as the eather lashed over her leg, stinging her skin.

“Okay. I lied. I do find a little bit of pleasure in your suffering,” I said, tilting my head. “But I will not extend it. Because for whatever fucked-up reason, you did try to warn us. For that, I will not draw this out.”

She inhaled sharply.

“I will take your Court, Veses, and I will make sure all knowledge and memory of you is stripped away. No generation going forward will know of you. You will not be forgotten, Veses. You will be unknown.” The eather lashed out again, taking a strip of flesh. “You will die today.”

Veses tensed, and I felt her summoning eather. It was too late for that. Jerking her head back, I struck, sinking my fangs into her throat. I drank deeply and hard, not allowing myself to taste her almost too-sweet blood.

She broke my hold on her arms, but Ash was there. He would touch her to protect me. He caught her wrists, holding them down as I pulled more and more of her life force into me. She bucked under me as another draken crashed into the palace. I drank and drank until I felt her heart stutter. I released my fangs then.

I lifted my head and, guided by instinct, placed my hand on her chest. Strangely, I didn’t look her in the eye. I didn’t want to as I willed the essence from her body. Her back bowed, lifting clear off the floor. I drew my hand back. Thin filaments of eather stretched from her chest to my palm. The essence soaked through my flesh, causing my breath to catch. Her eather pulsed and flowed, making light dance across the broken mirrors and walls. It poured out of her, and the floor began to tremble, the walls shuddering.

I didn’t want to look at her.

But I did.

I made myself meet her gaze.

“Sera,” Ash whispered. “Look at me.”

I couldn’t.

I shook my head, holding Veses’ stare as the last of her essence left her body and entered mine—as the eather receded from her eyes and veins. I didn’t know why I said what I did next. Maybe it was because I knew what Veses had gone through. At one point, she had been different but had become something cruel and sick due to Kolis’s actions and influence. Perhaps she even willingly became what she was. But she wasn’t always like this. Maybe I truly had no idea why I said what I did.

“I wish it could’ve been different for you,” I said, my voice hoarse as the life flickered from her eyes. “I’m sorry it wasn’t.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Midas, the capital of the Callasta Isles, was silent, and the air smelled of iron as I walked the center aisle of the City Hall while Nektas watched from his perch on the Hall’s colonnade.

Bodies lined the aisle.

Hundreds of them.

“Don’t allow this to leave a mark,” Ash had said as we stood before the gods and godlings who’d refused our offer to start over with some semblance of civility. The majority had quickly accepted and pledged their loyalty to Ash and me, but it wasn’t their loyalty we sought. We wanted their genuine promise to change the way they had lived under Veses’ rule.

I had a feeling that, inevitably, more lives would join those we’d ended today. My suspicions of such were rooted in what lay just beyond the City Hall.

My gaze went to the patches of disturbed earth I saw through the colonnade. There were six of them, and they were as wide as Nektas was long.

A goddess who went by the name of Tindra had told us what they were. Mass graves. Both Ash and I were shocked. If anything was left of a god or mortal, it was generally burned. To leave them in the ground was to allow their bodies to rot. It was a sign of disrespect.

Tindra had said each gravesite likely contained hundreds of bodies. Which meant there were thousands of decaying corpses between the six sites. Thousands. When Ash had asked why they were not given a proper burial rite, Tindra explained that Veses never performed burial rites for those executed. And the crimes committed that were so deserving of capital punishment? It ranged from refusing to carry out an order to actual murder and everything in between. But it wasn’t just the so-called criminals whose final resting place was so disgraceful. Victims who had lost their lives over a quarrel or at the hands of a jealous lover had been routinely tossed into these pits, as well.

My gaze shifted to the slender, dark-haired goddess. Her black robes rippled in the breeze as she stood silent and still, her brown-toned features somber as she stood before the fourth gravesite.

Tindra’s husband had been one of the victims tossed so carelessly into the fourth site several decades ago.

“I think many were disgusted by what was happening,” Tindra had said when asked why no one seemed to have an issue with this. “At least in the beginning. But this…this is how many have lived for so long. Die or survive by any means necessary. It’s the only life we know.”

I could see why Rhain had refused any claims to the Court. And what lay beyond the City Hall was why I feared that what remained of Veses’ Court would shrink in the coming months and years.

I turned to where several gods of the Court were busy wrapping the bodies of the newly dead under the watchful eye of guards brought here when I summoned Attes to assist with locating whatever Ancient bones Veses had stashed away.

Don’t let this leave a mark…

I motioned for Elias to join me. He’d come with Attes, and soon, a contingent of Attes’s forces would join the Shadowlands in securing the Callasta Isles.

The brown-haired god approached, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He stopped a few feet from me and bowed.

“Elias.” I sighed. “You do not need to bow.”

“Sorry. It’s a habit.” He straightened, his gaze flickering briefly to the gravesites. “What can I do for you, meyaah—?”

“Sera,” I corrected. Considering everything Elias had seen me go through while being held captive by Kolis, I believed we were well past formalities. “It’s just Sera.”

He nodded in acceptance after a moment.

I angled my body toward the gravesites. “There are thousands of bodies in those pits.”

“Fates.” Elias’s gaze followed mine, his lips parting in disbelief.

“I know their souls have already passed on,” I said, “but I would like for you to gather a team of gods from Midas to excavate the sites and give them proper burial rites. Kars will be able to assist you.”

“I can do that.” His gaze shifted. He was looking at Tindra. “She’s still out there.”

“Her husband is in that fourth gravesite,” I told him. “She said he’s been in there for decades.”

“Fucking Fates,” Elias muttered in disgust. “Some of them will be nothing but bones.”

“I know.” Chilled, I folded an arm over my lower stomach and looked at the god. “I have a feeling this isn’t the only place like this we’ll find. There may be similar ones in other Courts.”

“You wouldn’t be wrong.” Elias ran a hand through his hair. “There are three times this many on the outskirts of Dalos.”

Pressing my lips together, I closed my eyes. I wasn’t surprised to hear that, yet I didn’t know what to say.

Elias left to carry out my request. I saw him stop to speak with Tindra. Did they know each other? The answer started to come to me, but I stopped myself before I saw what was none of my business. Besides, I had already seen into the lives of enough people. It was how I knew that those we’d ended today weren’t just being foolishly arrogant when they refused our offer. They’d had no intention of even attempting to live a different kind of life.

Ash arrived with Attes, the latter informing me they’d discovered one bone spear and some bone chains. It was only one set of chains, not nearly enough to keep Kolis secured, and that included what Penellaphe had managed to locate in Lotho. However, there were still more Courts to search.