Page 132 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
And they were made of magic.
Ancient, powerful, untamable.
With my sparking eyes, I could see the lines spidering through the crater, like deep, pulsating purple wounds.
Very few of my people and even fewer outsiders could witness the phenomenon beating through my realm, but many benefitted from it.
Too many.
But sacrifices had to be made for the greater good–which had become for the good of the Blood Brotherhood in the past years.
I would have rather recited that old chant a million and one times, every day, for the rest of my life, than to turn my city back into what I’d saved it from. A heart bled by greed, that’s what it had become.
No matter what anyone else said, I knew what had happened.
And the Northern Clans had too much to say. They never shut up, did they?
Many rumors had been started about my state of mind, potential spells cast upon me by evil forces, and even one that I’d been replaced by a very convincing replica and therealCommander was wasting away in a dungeon guarded by dragons.
That last one had even drawn out a smile from me. At least they still viewed me as fearsome enough that only dragons could entomb me.
The truth was I’d seen the reality with my own eyes.
Heard my mother’s tearful pleas, which still echoed in my ears.
Never again, for as long as I lived.
A harsh sting erupted in my palm. I yanked my arm back from the rock, only to see a nasty gash and a long trickle of blood oozing from it.
It had been years since the crater had left its mark on me in any way. In anger, I must have squeezed too tight, too eager, like a youngling on his first wilderness outing–another thing I had outlawed for good and would never be seen again in Solkar’s Reach.
My power rushed through me, flitting between bones, sinew, and blood, and stitched the wound. I flexed my fingers, watching as the stone lit up in a purple hue and gulped the spatter of blood I’d left on it.
Then came the hum.
Even after twenty-five years in this realm, the sound still unnerved me.
It sounded like a great beast opening its mouth and asking for its next sacrifice.
Magic always had a cost. The crater simply demanded a bigger one.
But the hum…it was different this time.
I narrowed my gaze at the crater.
It usually sounded lower. Deeper.
As if the magic called out from the depths of Malhaven, too submerged to fully surface.
Now it was more shrill.
Closer to the surface.
Louder.
I stepped back from between the shards, palms fisted.
Not a second later, I was running again, everything around me bleeding away. The stars, the shards, the former clearing where she’d been assaulted, now felled to the ground so that no one would ever think to use my lands to attack again, they all turned into one big smudge.
