Page 118 of Vicious Is My Throne

I opened my eyes to a sea of muted pink light, Tavion cradling me in his arms, that black falling snow raining down around us…but not touching us.

Tavion clasped my hand to his chest. “All the magic went to you like it did before?”

“I think…yes. But not Fae magic. This is…something else.”

I stared down at my arm, watching the burns heal over like they’d never been. I rolled onto my stomach and plunged my hands deep into the ruined earth like I had in the forest of Caladrius. Shoved my newly forged magic deep into the ground, sending out a ripple of light through the torn-up forest floor.

The blight receded until we stood in a small pocket of untouched ground, the soil raw and torn like an open wound but free of the black rot, the ash still spilling from the sky overhead.

It worked.

Witch magic worked.

“I thought the Oracle would swoop in and claim it for herself the second the wall dropped,” Raziel muttered. “Why isn’t she here already?”

I blew out a shaky, unbelieving breath. “Because this wasn’t her magic to claim?”

This magic was different. And how that factored into our bargain, I didn’t yet know.

But we had to get out of here.

Raz and Tavion jerked away when my darklings slithered back, reabsorbing into my fingers, settling back into place, carefully avoiding my new magic.

“We’re leaving.” Raziel surveyed the little bubble we were inside. “Soon enough, this entire area will be overtaken, and then Corvus will devour Solarys.”

“I failed, didn’t I?” I met his eyes. “I doomed this entire realm, like I did the other two. How soon before this entire world falls to him?”

No one answered.

As Tavion lifted me onto Tristan’s back, I couldn’t help thinking…everyone would have been better off if I’d died on that altar at the end of the Fae King’s knife.

49

ZORANDER

The crushing wave took the straw-roofed hut out first, then the low rock wall, sending stones tumbling down over us, one of them cracking against my skull so hard I saw stars. I hurled my body over Finnian and Kael, hoping to take the brunt of the magic.

I was immortal, was wearing armor, and they weren’t.

I was also the godsdamned commander of the Solarys army, and I should have gotten us to Ravenswood in time.

That was my rational, anyway, before the wave of power flattened me, Finnian grunting, Kael letting out a foul curse. “Hang on,” I warned them, “and whatever you do, don’t try to escape. You can’t outrun this, and the magic will kill you.”

Or worse.

So, so much worse.

The roaring blew out my eardrums, the sheer force of the collapsing wall turning the edges of my vision black, punishing my body with enough pressure to drive the air out of my lungs. We were being crushed between a giant’s boot heel and a rock.

This wasn’t the heated wind of unleashed power; this was a cold, vicious kiss.

Cruel and cunning like winter’s breath.

Carried along on that freezing gale’s caress was a hint of jasmine and amber, of all the gentle things so at odds with that bitter, keening cold.

And yet, there was something familiar in the keening scream of the wind howling overhead, reminding me of…

“Gods, we are going to die,” Finnian gasped. “This is how we meet our end? Like dogs in the dirt?”

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