Page 11 of Merciless Is My Crown

Now that my head was clearing, everything was coming back like a bad nightmare. But I had the feeling all those splintered memories were real. Corvus’s horrific magic had wrapped around my brain and shredded through my thoughts like claws through silk.

Then, when I’d opened my eyes, I’d found…a Reaper staring back.

“Was that thing…inside me?” Panic rose like a wave, and I scrubbed at my arms, trying to erase any remnants of that…thing. “Was I…possessed? Am I…Did I…Oh gods.” My throat closed off. I couldn’t get another word out.

That shadow had been inside me.

A Soul Reaper had been inside me.

I was infected. I had to be infected. There was no escaping the Reapers once they got in and if one was still inside me right now, then I was infected and I…

“Anaria. Anaria. You’re fine.” Tavion gripped my shoulders, forcing me to look up at him. “You are fine. Corvus’s magic got in through the cuts on your legs.” But Tavion looked rattled when he glanced at Raziel, ignoring Torin completely.

“Bexley couldn’t heal Anaria because of Corvus’s magic inside her,” he explained. “Anaria was the only one strong enough to push him out. But once she expelled him, that spent magic took the form of a Soul Reaper.”

“That’s how she kept making them,” Torin whispered, her face a pale mask. “There was a never-ending supply of Reapers, and the Oracle kept amassing them somewhere beneath the Citadelle. I searched for the source but couldn’t figure out where they were coming from.”

Corvus made the Reapers.

Like so many of our discoveries, that information settled into me like a truth I already knew.

The more I used my magic, the longer we were together, the more meshed to the past I felt. Something to talk about with the others once we got a chance.

But I’d had a Soul Reaper inside me, barely evicting it in time. I swallowed then searched every last dark corner inside me for any hint of that twisted, dark evil.

“Anaria, you are fine. There is nothing of a Reaper about you, not even their scent.” He tapped the side of his nose. “If you were a Reaper, I’d smell it.”

His unshakable confidence actually made me feel better.

“Okay. What about the king?” I looked at Torin. “Did Carex know the Oracle was an Old God?”

She shook her head. “No, not until those final days, if then.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Did you know what she was?”

Torin and Simon traded a long look before she blew out a shaky breath. “Yes. I’ve known what she was for a very long time. A hundred years.”

“And you never thought to warn us of who she was? You didn’t think that was a fucking important detail we should have known before we went to fucking war with the most powerful entities in the world?” Tavion took the words out of my mouth as he shot to his feet, sweeping his sword off the floor and gripping the pommel like he was contemplating separating Torin’s head from her shoulders.

Simon smoothly inserted himself between the seer and Tavion, and even in the frilly purple robe, strength and determination radiated from the shifter, his golden eyes glinting with a strength I hadn’t seen before.

“We couldn’t stop any of this from happening. Believe me, we tried. Overthrowing Carex was only the first step. We have to get rid of his brother, and then, if we are really fucking lucky and Anaria grows in power and we all don’t fucking die, we can take on Corvus and Gelvira.”

“Wait. Who?” I asked, my head whirling with new information.

“Gelvira. The Oracle. Corvus never changed his name because he’s never lived amongst us. Never needed an alias.” Simon’s clever eyes skated over us, his mouth thinning out into a tight line as if he didn’t quite approve of what he saw.

He pointed at Tavion. “You’re Ardaric. Raziel is Gattica. Zorander is Vitigis, and DeVayne is Saphrax.” His eyes were unreadable when he looked down at me. “And you are Amalla, the last and most powerful god. The one who binds them all together.”

Everything went still, those unfamiliar-familiar names ringing through me like a long-lost truth I’d finally uncovered.

Those names matched the ones from that strange vision when I’d touched the skull. Raz’s eyes met mine, and Tavion slowly sheathed his sword. Even from here, I saw his hand shaking. From fear or because of his condition, I didn’t know.

“Well, how about that,” Tavion murmured. “I always knew you were a liar, Torin, but it seems you know all our secrets.”

“While keeping your own close,” Raziel added in that velvety smooth voice as he pinned Torin beneath an icy stare. “Convenient, as usual.”

The High Seer dipped her head, but from my vantage point, I saw the pointed way her eyes met Simon’s. There was a question asked, an agreement made in that single look.

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