Page 162 of Daughter of No Worlds

{It is not enough,}Reshaye hissed.

“Remember me,”I snarled. A command, not a question, as I opened my palms to release streams and streams of butterflies — crimson, putrid wings spewing into the air as violently as the spurt of blood and the smoke of funeral pyres. They kept coming, surrounding me even as I closed my hand around my sword’s hilt again, as if they were peeling from my skin.

I heard my name, faintly, far away.

I ignored it.

“Please,” the man moaned.

He did not remember. He did not care to remember.

I was nothing to him. Invisible and unseen, just another body to use and sell and ruin, the same as so many who came before and after me.

And maybe it was the same for me. I looked down at the old man cowering on the floor and noticed the pudge to his cheeks, the sharpness of his nose. Was this really the same man that I had met all of those years ago?

Did it matter?

The bloody red butterflies clouded the air, sticking to the floor, the ceiling, the walls and to my soul.

Not enough. Never enough.

{More!}

I let my rage consume me.

{NOW!}

An animal cry escaped my throat as I raised Il’Sahaj over my head.

And when the blade came down — when it spread lightning-fingers of decay over the slaver’s body — my hands were no longer my own.

Tears streaked my cheeks as Reshaye lifted my chin and let out a manic, howling laugh.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Max

Iwas no longer looking at a woman.

I was looking at a fucking goddess. A goddess of death and vengeance and utter, indiscriminate destruction. She could be nothing else-- standing there in her white jacket so spattered with blood that it soaked crimson, sword raised, those scarlet butterflies forming a cape around her shoulders.

“Ascended above,” I rasped to Sammerin. “DidIlook like that?”

“Yes,” he said. “You did.”

The butterflies clogged the air, spreading down the halls. And when Tisaanah straightened, the wooden floorboards blackened beneath her every step.

The slaver that I was fighting blanched and stumbled, eyes wide. I took the opportunity to run one searing slash across his throat, never looking away from her.

"Incredible," I heard Zeryth gasp.

The remaining slavers, at least the ones close enough to get the full effect of what they were up against, began retreating.

Or at least, trying to. They didn't get far. She dragged them back with yanks of invisible hands, withering their flesh with mere brushes of her sword.

And her expression —

It wasn't Tisaanah's rage or her pain or even her angry satisfaction that greeted me when those mismatched eyes flicked to me. No. It was empty, glazed-over glee.

---