Page 183 of Promise of Darkness
“Vi, stop! You’re going to tear the Hallow apart, and everyone here, with it.”
What is stronger? My love for Thiago, or my fury at my mother?
Anger is a flame that burns everything. You may destroy your enemy with it,my nurse’s voice murmurs in my head,but you’ll also destroy yourself.
I clench my fists, reining in the fury and choking the Mother of Night down. We may be directly linked now, but I’m still the one in control. And until I pay my tithe, I can’t allow her to gain one foothold in this world.
Or within me.
The power flickers and then dies in a sudden quenching of light, leaving me wrung dry and shaking.
My eyes are night-blind, but I can hear shocked gasps and startled cries.
Fear. I can practically taste it.
When my vision returns, it’s not Thiago or my mother I see first, but Andraste, staring at me in horror.
“What are you?” she whispers.
She who knows me the best.
I did what had to be done.
The axe is gone. Solid iron melted into slag by my magic. The enormous troll who wielded it has vanished. All that remains is blood sprayed against the stone steps that ring the Queensmoot. Shadows scorch the earth where some of the lesser fae once stood. Only those with enough power to shield survive, slowly lowering their arms in shock and horror.
Thiago lifts his head. He’s the only one the magic didn’t touch.
“What… did you do?” he rasps, eyeing the glyphs burned into my skin.
“What was necessary.” I capture his face in my hands and press a desperate kiss to his lips. “I love you.” Our mouths meet again, mashing against each other in our urgency. “I remember you!” It’s almost a sob. “I remember you.”
“Vi, get out of here.”
I turn, trying to see what’s caught his attention.
“Abomination,” my mother spits, forcing herself to stand. Her crown of thorns quivers with her anger, but for once, I feel almost as tall as she is.
I turn and stare at her, and even now, there’s a kernel of that anxious child still inside me, wanting to please her mother. No matter how much I learn, how far I go, I think I will always have that scar.
But it no longer needs to direct my actions.
“You should know, Mother. You were the one who begat me.”
“I should have drowned you at birth when you came outwrong.” She rises to her full height, and thorns spring from the ground, curling around the hem of her charred skirts. “Herald,” she says. “Blow your horn.”
The herald lifts his horn and a long, sweet note cuts through the air.
The entire crowd stands with bated breath.
“Adaia,” the Queen of Aska warns.
My mother’s smile chills my blood as a chorus of answering howls echoes around the Hallow’s standing stones. Banes. Dozens of them, by the sound of it. I can see shadows streaming across the bracken-covered hills that surround us. Enormous, writhing beasts conjured from all manner of monstrosities.
“You dare bring those creatures here?” says the Queen of Ravenal.
The Queensmoot is sacrosanct, its laws written in stone thousands of years ago. To break its laws means risking everything, for the Alliance will not stand against it.
But if there’s no one left to speak of war and broken laws, then who will question her?
