Page 25 of Vicious Is My Throne

“You fool.” Anaria slammed her palms into my chest and sent me stumbling backward, tripping straight into the gooey black pool. “You utter fool.”

“The monster’s dead. There’s no more threat.” I choked the words out, tears streaming from my eyes from the stench.

“You are an idiot. I could have killed that thing from way back there, and instead…instead…” Her chest heaved; her beautiful face contorted in misery. “Fucking hell, Tristan. You could have died. Did you even consider that? What I’d do without you?”

“I don’t matter,” I told her calmly, sheathing my knife. “The only thing that matters is you. The rest of us are replaceable. Disposable, even.”

We stared at each other for a long time until Raziel gently turned her away, Zor shaking his head in disappointment as if I was the one who’d fucked up.

Anaria picked up the reins of the pack mule and glared over her shoulder one last time. “You are a fool, Tristan DeVayne. A complete and total fool.” Then she looked past me, her eyes going wide. I sent up a shower of sparks, swallowing as I realized her words were true.

Out of the remains crawled black reaching tendrils of rot. Threading across the floor. Up the walls. Over the ceiling.

If there had been any chance we’d ever return this way, I’d just ruined them.

8

ANARIA

Iwas still reeling from the attack when we reached the portal, anger coursing through my veins as the familiar otherworldly hum and dancing blue light filled me with a different sort of dread.

I led the mule over to an empty corner and dug into the saddlebag for a handful of grain.

“I think I’ll call you Smart.” Smart dropped his head into my hand, nibbling out of my palm. “Now be smart and stay here while we go do something incredibly stupid.”

Tristan could have died. One wrong move, one swipe of those talons would have taken his head off and there would have been nothing I could have done to stop it.

Everyone was silent as we filed inside the chamber, Raziel’s hand still gently gripping my arm. He hadn’t let me go since he’d steered me away from Tristan, hadn’t said a word, either, as if he knew words would not make this better.

But he didn’t stop me as I pulled away and approached the largest of the skulls set up on a plinth, all that ancient, forgotten power on full display.

But by whom?

Ardaric. The name, whispered in the air, was carried on the hum of the portal, and my gaze drifted over to Tavion, his lips set in a tight line as he came to stand beside me, his fingers resting lightly on my waist.

The haphazard pile of broken bones stacked beside the plinth were as yellowed as I remembered, some of them splintered at the ends as if they’d been crushed by an enormous weight.

Like an entire mountain had crashed down upon them.

“It’s either Tavion and me over here”—I patted the mule and studied Amalla’s skull, the dome crushed into a ruinous ring of shards, a pile of equally shattered bones arranged beside it—“or we go to the other side of the portal where Tristan and Zorander will go in. Remember, we’re looking for what happened in that clearing.”

This was the one detail we hadn’t decided.

Who would go in, who would serve as an anchor.

“The only ones who haven’t been inside one of these visions is Zor and Raz,” Tavion groused. “I say it’s their turn to take one for the team.”

“Raziel’s skull is gone,” I pointed out softly with no small amount of regret. A tactical move, that diversion, but one I wish I hadn’t been forced to make. “Which means Raz is an anchor by default.”

“Now that we’re under attack”—Zor’s face was stone as he swept his eyes around the chamber—“you won’t have the luxury of time. Go in, get out.”

“We’ll try, but that’s not exactly how this works,” Tavion complained, his gaze dropping to the knife Tristan held oh-so casually.

“Time for some payback.” Tristan grinned. “I sharpened this before we left.”

Tavion went white, and I elbowed him in the side. “Told you so.”

“Pair up,” Zorander ordered, positioning himself at the opening we’d come through, the mule waiting patiently by the wall, shimmering blue light reflected in its limpid brown eyes. “Tavion and Tristan, Anaria and Raz. Tristan and Raz, keep your eyes peeled for any threat inside the vision; Tavion and Anaria, find the answers we need and find them fast. I’ll be your back up in case something goes wrong out here in the real world. Anything does…”

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