Page 174 of Children of Fallen Gods

Max Stratagrammed us away.

It was the smell that hit me first — Gods, there were a thousand memories in that smell of sunlight and flowers. I opened my eyes, and the sight of it took my breath away. The little stone cottage was nestled in a sea of wildflowers, now hopelessly overgrown, as if nature itself sought to wrap it in an embrace.

Fitting. That’s what it felt like, too. An embrace.

“Ascended above,” Max muttered. “I did miss this place.”

I did, too. I had missed it so much that it wasn’t even so very hard to shed my guilt like a bloodstained jacket, take Max’s hand, and let myself fall.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Aefe

Icouldn’t breathe.

My father was leaning over me. Hot blood was spilling down my collarbone. His hands were covered in it. I knew that, even though I could not see it, because his fingers were wrapped around my throat.

Please, please,I was trying to say, but the word was smothered beneath my father’s hatred, hatred that for so long I didn’t understand.

I did now.

He hated me because I was never his at all. Hated me because my cursed power, in my blood and in my title, undermined his.

All this time, I had thought there would be some way I could earn my place among them again. But the truth was, the position I had so desperately wanted didn’t exist at all.

“Who do you think you are?” he spat, so close to me that I could feel his breath and flecks of spittle on my face. “What do you think you have left to win?”

Everything, I wanted to say. And I knew this time it was the truth — there was so much I could do with this power within me, the power of my mother’s blood, the power of my tainted, hideous magic.

I can do so much, I tried to tell him.Give me a chance. I have so much to do.

But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.

The last thing I saw before my death were the scattered dead bodies around me. The bodies of Caduan’s kin, of the Reedsborn, of the people of Yithara. Orscheid, my mother. And closest of all, Caduan, his hand still reaching for me.

I opened my mouth and screamed, but released only the sound of shattered glass.

* * *

Shattered glass.

My eyes snapped open. A face leaned over me. For a moment, I thought it was my father’s. Then I blinked away sleep, and the features rearranged — a face just as hard and hateful, but different.

Klein.

All at once, I was awake. Caduan’s arms were no longer around me. I pushed myself up, only for Klein’s boot to come stomping down on my chest, pushing me back to the floor.

“You,” he hissed, “have made a very grave mistake.”

I snarled at him, my teeth sharpening of their own volition.

I pushed his foot away enough to twist around, craning my neck to see the light of near-sunrise spilling through Caduan’s smashed-open bedroom window. Hazy smoke hung in the air. A few feet away, Caduan was crumpled on the ground, unmoving. I couldn’t see his face, but I could see blood seeping through the fabric of his shirt, a sight that sent fire tearing through me.

It became difficult to breathe.

“What did you do?” I snarled. “What did you to do him?”

Klein tried to grab me by my hair, but I tore away from his grasp and stumbled to Caduan. I got just close enough to see his eyes open, slowly, through streams of blood when one of Klein’s men dragged me back. I whirled around, grabbing his hand and twisting until I heard a crack and the man let out a roar of pain. It was worth it, even though two others pulled me away before I could to the same to his neck.

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