Only to feel a prickle of heat in my mind, the Dark Source calling for my attention. Something isn’t right, I realized, following the strand of discomfort.
No, it wasn’t the source… but Midnight Fae.
I could sense them, the disruption, the agony rippling through the kingdom. What is it? I wondered, searching for the cause.
So much anger. So much hatred. So much pain.
The village.
I could picture it, the tavern up in flames, Anrika’s body floating in the sky with a spell inscribed beside her. Risaleea.
I searched my memories and those of my mates for the translation, then recognized the spell from Shade’s psyche. It was a Death Blood charm cast by a dying Midnight Fae when someone wished to leave behind a message for a loved one.
Is this real? I returned to the village, noting the fires and billowing smoke from the buildings nearby. Everyone was silent, their focus on the stage.
Constantine stood at the center with a scroll in his hand, speaking.
I couldn’t hear him, my vision not quite realized.
But all the onlookers appeared distraught.
What’s happening?I longed to ask them. I whirled around, sensing the heat and embers of the attack.
Anrika’s body looked so alive, her long white hair floating around her like an angelic cape. Her green irises flared with life, but her marbleized skin suggested death.
She didn’t blink.
She didn’t speak.
Her lips were parted, perhaps from voicing the spell.
And her clothes were singed with ash.
Two more Midnight Fae were on the ground, their skin holding a similar texture. But their eyes were closed, their hands clasped together in peaceful death.
I could sense through the source that they were dead. All of them. That this was real. That what I witnessed now was happening in real time.
Somehow, I was seeing this through the eyes of the crowd, like my link to the Dark Source had granted me access to all their minds.
I refocused on the stage, my lips parting as Emelyn appeared beside a stoic dark-haired man. Tears tracked down her cheeks as she tried to plead with him, the word father seeming to fall from her lips. But I couldn’t hear her, only see.
And then I gasped as Constantine struck her with a spell, yanking her soul from her body and turning her to marble like the others.
No, I thought. No! This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real!
Before I even realized what I was doing, I’d engaged Shade’s shadowing ability and I was flying through space to land in the crowd of silence. No one noticed my arrival, the onlookers too busy applauding Emelyn’s death.
The sound reverberated through my ears, my arrival allowing me to hear.
But the cheers weren’t what I wanted to experience. They were applauding Emelyn’s death.
Her dark eyes looked out upon them, frozen in time, agony etched into her features.
He killed her.
Constantine killed Emelyn.
My heart stopped, my world crashing to a halt. I couldn’t stop staring into her eyes, the soulless orbs echoing a pain I felt to my very soul.