And she was in there. Rose and Thorn stood before us, straining against their order to halt so intensely I could see them shivering. Their eyeless faces were fixed on the tower, heedless of whatever traps Hakkon would have ready.

And oh, there would be traps aplenty. Even now, I saw only six wargs in human skins, crouched around a fire; no scouts had come our way, no watchers’ spyglasses flashed from the tower window.

Which meant we were expected, and the empty expanse of ground between us and them had an unpleasant surprise waiting. Wargs, no doubt; the only uncertainty was how many and where, two minute details that could bring down the most vicious of armies. If he had six waiting, I had to assume a hundred more lay out of sight.

It was only the golems’ insistence that she was there in the tower that kept me sane and wary, more concerned for Cirri’s safety than my need to leap in and kill anything that moved.

When I’d first tasted the air and received nothing but blood and rot, I’d asked them, again and again, where she was. And every time, they insistently pointed to the top of the tower, that crumbling ruin.

So I had to believe she was there. My compasses were not sentient, thinking beings, with their own agendas and motivations; they lived to find Cirri, so she was there.

The legions were behind us, driving their horses as fast as they could gallop. Wyn and Visca were only a few miles away.

There were four of us. Four fiends.

We could hold the line until the legions arrived.

“They’re hiding from us,” Voryan whispered gleefully, his third eye so bloodshot it looked like it would leak scarlet tears. “Oh, I love games.”

I opened my mouth to growl the order to charge, and as soon as I did a taste hit my tongue, fresh and terrible.

The scent didn’t just caress my nose, but plowed into me, lighting my sinuses on fire, sending a gush of saliva over my tongue.

Cirri’s blood, sweet and strong. A taste—a scent—I could never forget, engraved on my mind like one of my own limbs.

It was carried on the wind, no longer sweet, but acrid with the juices of pain and terror.

There was a sound around us like thunder, roaring over the plains. Something in me burst loose, heat pouring over me, the sky as red as blood.

In a dim part of my mind, I realized we weren’t under attack, nothing had changed except for that dire scent, and that the noise was coming from me. My wings had ripped free, shredding skin and muscle, slick with blood as they spread wide behind me.

Andrus touched his silver pendant, burning his fingertips down to the bone. “May She smile on us, and bless the blood spilled this day, in service to the innocent.” And his face peeled open, four fleshy sepals lined with ivory needles, revealing the blood-slick bone beneath, the grinding maw of fangs.

Voryan sucked in a shuddering, delightful breath, his mouth splitting wider and wider until his jaw unhinged, third eye darkening with blood as it sighted an enemy; his many fingers flexed and cracked in anticipation.

“Fuck Her blessing, just let me feel alive once more,” Wroth whispered. His eyes were flames, flickering deep in empty sockets; if he resembled any lion, it was one born in the abyss and spit out by hell itself.

Blood rushed into my mouth, fangs bursting through the roof of my mouth, my crown heavy with horns. My wings spread wide, aching, dripping, and every inch of me screamed at the agony of it.

We followed the blood.

The terrible, godawful stench of pain and fear, the reek of failure.

I had failed her.

And the door of the tower opened, and there he was, clutching something close; Hakkon, his teeth bursting from his mouth to scatter at his feet like pearls, replaced with a fang-lined gullet; his body wracked with spasms, limbs lengthening, fingers snapping and extending.

Before he lost control, he held it up, showing it to me, the blunt head gleaming red: a hammer. The wind carried its scent to me, the despair of my lover, splitting me apart inside.

“Come, all of you!” He threw the hammer aside, shrieking as his spine crackled and expanded, a barrel-chested, thin-limbed nightmare. He breathed fast and heavy, eyes wide with exhilaration, his words distorted as his mouth shifted and changed. “I’ve killed your redling, Bane. Avenge her!”

He had killed her.

That hammer, bright with blood, with a snarl of crimson hair caught in its claw; he’d killed her with that thing.

There were no words in me. Nothing but a mindless roar, a scream of hopelessness, as I launched into the air, angling for him.

My brothers plunged in and the earth boiled around them.

The wargs came, all the wargs Hakkon had created and hidden beneath the earth.

A hundred… no, a thousand… a sea of teeth and hunger, writhing up from the depths of the earth, surrounding the tower.

My brothers disappeared into the roiling mass, and I plunged into Hakkon’s waiting arms, scything my claws through his flesh and gripping him close.

There was a distant horn call as the knights of the legions followed, the joyous thunder of my brothers’ screams as they fought their way through the ocean of bodies, the rasp of Hakkon’s snarls in my ear. The golems plunged in, Rose torn apart instantly, her petals showering the killing field like drops of blood.

Hakkon tore at me, angling teeth for my throat, eyes burning white with madness.

I let him have at me; there was nothing to lose anymore, but to drag him into hell with me.

Claws, slipping against bones, teeth shattering on my flesh; I reached for his heart, feeling the clamp of his body around my arm, the wetness of blood and organs, as close as a lover. The wargs crawled over me, their teeth ripping into my wings, slicing away flesh.

They could consume me, but I would be the last thing he ever felt.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 47 Cirri

With great agony came intense clarity.

My whole life… what had I feared? First, the pain of the Eldest Sister’s cane cracking across my fingers. Then the lonely isolation of being alone, unable to speak, unheard and uncared for by all. And after that… the monstrous appetite of my husband, the terror of his fangs.

With Hakkon’s punishment, I came to understand that none of those things meant anything. They were false fears, lies I had chained around my own ankles to hold me back. I could have grabbed the cane, I could have forced others to read my words, I could have stood my ground instead of running from Bane.

For all of those fears, I’d had options. I just hadn’t seen them clearly at the time.

But this…

There had been no options. No fighting the arms of the wargs who held me down, no words that could stop Hakkon from doing what he’d done, no way to fight back. This was genuine fear, true terror.

I hiccuped, choking on another sob as I cradled my hands close to my chest, wanting the soothing comfort of my own arms around myself and unable to get that close without sending another wave of blinding, sickening agony through my body. My scalp ached, hair torn away from where he’d brought down the hammer and ripped it back up, uncaring of what he tore away from me.

Hakkon was gone.

That was my only comfort now.

My stomach lurched again, bringing up nothing but acid that burned the back of my throat. I’d thrown up when he was done, my entire body revolting against the pain, wishing desperately I could either descend into the welcoming void of true unconsciousness or die, but I’d been granted neither.

Hakkon had carried the hammer out with him, only after showing me the head, clotted with gore. Left me alone in the tower, slumped under the window, my hands nothing more than shattered twigs, blood-slick gloves of flesh wrapped around broken glass.