Page 36 of Storm of Fury
“Locked away?” He straightened, his chains rattling. “In what way is she dangerous?”
“You don’t understand, Marduk.” The queen shook her head sadly. “I can see it. She isnotdreki. She ispureChaos. And she hungers for more of such magic. She yearns to suck the Chaos from the marrow of the world and bleed the oceans dry. She has no understanding of our world. She barely even sees what goes on around her, for the magic that overwhelms her. She is nothing buthunger.”
Alone.Frightened. Sensing the same gaping wound he himself felt.
“She can be reasoned with. I felt it. For a moment the song stopped and she was trying to communicate with me.”
“Do you not think I have tried, all these years?”
“I think you keep her locked away in the dark like a—”
“She prefers the dark!” Zorja snapped. “And being so close to the groan of the earth and the whisper of its fire seem to be the only things that calm her. Do you think I would imprison a child that I raised as my own if I could help it?” Her lip quivered. “That I loved?”
That’s not love.That is only fear.
But he could see she would not be swayed.
“Promise me you will stay away from her,” Zorja snapped.
Adrekicould not lie. “I cannot make that promise.”
Zorja’s eyelids half-shuttered her eyes. “You’re a fool. Seeking dreams and songs and hearing none of my warnings. If you will not give me your oath, then I have no choice.” She snapped her fingers. “I’m sorry. But I must give you to the Order.”
Illarion and his brother stepped forward.
“Throw him into the abyss,” she whispered, and for the first time he thought he saw a flicker of sadness in her depthless blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Marduk. Truly I am. But I cannot risk your sister gaining her magic. And if I cannot trust you, then you must endure eternal darkness.”
* * *
They staredat each other through the bars of the cage, though they didn’t speak. There was no need, and as far as Marduk knew, his sister had not yet breathed a word. Perhaps she didn’t know how.
Reaching through the bars, he offered her his hand.
“Ishtar,” he whispered. “Your name is Ishtar.”
She eyed his hand curiously, that eerie green light flaring in her irises. Marduk gestured for her to reach for him again, though the wards kept them apart.
The second she almost touched him the song he’d spent a lifetime listening to swelled to a crescendo in his mind. Marduk gasped as images cascaded through his mind.
There was darkness and pain, and a terrible, terrible fear that grew like a dark pit within him until it threatened to swallow him whole.
“Kill it,” hissed the beautiful female. “Get it out of my sight!”
The older maledrekiblanched. “Amadea, no. She’s but a baby.”
“I don’t want to see it. She reeks of magic.”
Marduk came to on his hands and knees, trembling.
“It,” whispered his sister in his mind.
He felt the overwhelming urge to retch. “Don’t ever believe a word she ever said. She knew nothing but cruelty and ambition.”
“Who?” It was more a thought than a word.
“She was your mother. Our mother. Or no, not a mother. She was the creature that birthed us into this world. Nothing more.”
And then the song was swelling; rage and anger and hurt lashing against him like a whirlwind.
