Page 148 of Mother of Death and Dawn

“Do you think your regret is equal to my suffering?”

“No.”

“Then what good is your regret to me?”

Now, I understood this expression—sadness. “None,” he said. “My regret is worthless.”

This sentence was such an injustice. He was right. His regret was worthless. But he had carried it for five hundred years, and I had sustained my pain for just as long. Now what? What could come of all those years of suffering?

Kill him,a voice whispered in the back of my head.His death will make you feel whole again.

Yes. Maybe blood could fill what apologies could not. I drew back my blades, a snarl on my lips.

Ishqa was ready to meet death—until his gaze flicked over my shoulder, and his eyes widened.

He threw his weight against me, sending both of us falling to the dirt. I clumsily rolled to free myself from beneath his weight. When I looked up, I strangled a gasp of horror.

It was the creature from my nightmares.

It was almost Fey—tall, as if walking on stilts, its body stitched together in ways that did not seem to quite make sense. The open wound in its stomach glowed white. The one I had seen in my visions had stringy red hair. But this thing had a different face, one that looked as if it might have been beautiful before it was cut apart and stitched back together again, framed by long, fair hair. A single gold thread dangled around its neck.

Ishqa crouched on all fours, looking up at it in horror. When he spoke, it was a choked sob. “Iajqa.”

No.

Was that truly her? Could it be?

It seemed impossible to think that this… thisthing… could be the dignified general. And yet…when its eyes settled on me, their gold hue, even surrounded by bloodshot veins, was unmistakable.

Iajqa had traveled south. Had traveled closer to the Aran queen’s territory. And she must have been—

It lunged.

The creature nearly tore Ishqa in two. He didn’t even fight back at first, still gaping at this thing that used to be his sister. He was saved by chance—the creature grabbed another one of the Fey soldiers instead, stringing him between razored fingers and ripping him apart. The blue light that poured from the open wound in its abdomen sputtered in small explosions that left those around it rolling away in agony.

In the next ten seconds, I watched, paralyzed, as it killed a dozen Fey without seeming to even try.

Iajqa was nothing if not loyal. She never would have raised a hand against her own people, let alone so indiscriminately. If this thing had been Iajqa, there was nothing left of her within it now. She had been pulled apart and put back together again as something that would live a short, painful life, designed only to kill.

Ishqa kept screaming her name, over and over again, dodging her frantic blows but never striking.

The creature turned her eyes on me, and her frantic flailing stopped. The light beneath her skin shivered.

I readied my blades—

She was on me before I could move, her hands on my shoulders. One of those gold eyes was a little lower than the other, far from the perfect symmetry of her previous face. Her nose had been cut off. A wound opened from the side of her mouth, extending almost to her ear.

The overwhelming smell of death nearly emptied my stomach. And that revulsion spread, too, to the magical senses beneath this world. It was wrong on every level, physical, spiritual, magical. This creature was made from magic its maker should not have been trying to wield.

It made a noise that almost sounded like words—almost sounded like,Stop me—and then tried to rip me to pieces.

My blades seemed pitiful against this kind of strength. It barely reacted to wounds that would maim or kill another. When Ishqa finally snapped himself out of his trance and levied a devastating blow with his broadsword, she hardly faltered.

She grabbed me instead, claws squeezing, squeezing. I opened my mouth and blood dribbled out. My hands flailed in panic for my weapons, but they had fallen to the ground in my brief seconds of distraction. I was helpless. Just as I always had been for so many years, fighting and fighting against a force I couldn’t meet.

Time slowed.

I heard Caduan’s voice.You are not nothing.

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