Page 67 of The Stygian Crown

“My queen,” Victus said, head bowed. “I am your loyal servant. The one who engineered your resurrection, gathered the power necessary to pull you from the shadow realm.”

Kara reached Logan and clutched his face, lifting his head. It swung listlessly, his neck no longer supporting him. She pressed her hand to his chest, waiting for a heartbeat, a breath,anythingbut the jagged pain scratching at her soul. His eyes were empty, staring at nothing. The life gone out of them.

Kara’s scream rent the air.

It wasn’t possible. He was so strong, so full of life. They couldn’t end like this.

She traced the sanguinata onto his chest with fumbling fingers, but her memory of the rune’s shape was muddled.

Wesley gripped her shoulder and tried to pull her back. “Kara, we have to go. He’s gone.”

She ripped away from him. “No! I have to try. He can’t—he can’t be gone.” Her voice broke.

She yanked Wesley’s dagger from his waist and sliced through her mark, then held it to Logan’s mouth. Blood pooled on his tongue, but no swallow ever came. Tears blurred her vision. She tilted his head back and cradled it to her chest. “Please, Logan. You can’t leave me. Not like this—not ever. I love you. I should have told you I loved you.”

She was splitting open, an internal rupture tearing wider every second he didn’t blink. Inhale. Flash her a pained grin, more worried about her than being at death’s door. This was worse than flaying her back open on Victus’s hooks, worse than any of it. Her soul was shattering.

She traced the sanguinata again, then the runes for healing over his empty wrists. Again and again she drew, until the shapes were indistinct and tears blurred her vision. Swipes of red littered his body.

Wesley gripped her by the waist and tried to lift her away, but she fought him off with wild swings of the dagger.

“Wesley, shut her up. We no longer need her,” Victus said.

Namirah’s flaming gaze jerked to Victus. Shadows pulsed around her, and the blood at her feet swirled in ominous eddies. “You dare to kill my brethren? The blood of my blood? My only living descendant?”

Victus sputtered. “She’s loyal to our enemy, my queen. I’ve tried to convert her, but she will never be true to our cause.”

“She brought me here by her own hand, as you saw. That was her choice to make.”

“Look inside my mind. You will see what I say is true. She is nothing. She wastes your gift.Iam worthy of your power. Your curse. You will see.”

Namirah gripped the top of Victus’s skull in her palm and closed her eyes. Her lips curled into a severe frown, eyes jerking behind her lids. She gasped, eyes snapping open. “Worthy? You tortured my chosen, harvested power not freely given and tainted with their pain. You mutilated my granddaughter for your own pleasure, murdered her lover—your own brother. You are no better than Urian. You were a useful worm, but your use is at its end.”

Kara’s mind balked at her words. Loganwasn’tdead. She refused a reality without him in it.

Victus tried to shake his head and rise. Namirah tightened her grip. The flesh of her hand melted away like Kara’s mirror image’s had, revealing a glowing red core. Her fingers grew and lengthened, and black claws climbed from her nailbeds.

Victus howled in pain as her talons grew into his skull. Then Namirah squeezed her hand into a fist, and Victus’s skull collapsed with a sickening crunch. Blood and skull fragments sprayed out. His neck ended in a mass of red pulp.

Namirah released him and shook the gore off her hand as it shrunk back to normal size and the claws receded, skin rapidly coating it again. Victus’s body fell backwards into the pool of blood.

Kara was only sorry it hadn’t been her to kill him, to feel his bones break beneath her fingers.

She met Namirah’s gaze and played her final card.

“Grandmother, if you bear me any love—if you bore your daughter any love before she died at Urian’s hands—grant me this boon. Save him. My parents died for your legacy before they even took root in my memory.”

Namirah’s head tilted to the side, her gaze reptilian. “You no longer deny your heritage?”

Kara’s laugh was broken. “You wear my face. How can I? Our blood brought you back; we freed you from death. Save him. Please. He’s my soul.”

“Part of it, perhaps. But never your whole soul, darling. Never give them your whole soul. Then what will be left of you when they leave? That demon in the mirror. And no qualms about wearing human skin.”

Is that what had happened to her, after Urian betrayed her?

Namirah took a step, and the blood gathered beneath her in a wave that lifted her out of the pit and carried her to Kara’s side. She spread her palm over Logan’s brow, and Kara’s fingers tightened on her dagger.

Namirah gripped Logan’s jaw in her fist and looked at Kara. “This one? You’re sure?”

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