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hunting for mythical magic users who didn’t even exist.
Sometimes, objects shook around me. Objects made of iron, tin, or gold. Once, I’d been able to move one of Elroy’s daggers without touching it
She’d never seen snow, but that’s what I had been to her: her ice storm. Distant. Cold. Sharp.
Gifts that had long since been lost to us. Humans were no longer capable of reading each other’s minds, or making the blood boil in their enemy’s veins, or granting themselves eternal luck. Everybody knew that we’d been stripped of those heretical powers hundreds of years ago,
The second when I bared my teeth and came for him. He spoke, then, at last. Just one word. “
I’d needed to be chosen by the queen so that I could get close enough to kill her. I fantasized about how I would do it each night when I closed my eyes.
“It was the Fae, wasn’t it?” she hissed. “They’ve found a way through. They’ve come for me at last?”
“Death is an open doorway that’s meant to be walked through.
I had no understanding of what it was I was doing, but if this was a world-ending gift, then good. Fuck this city and fuck this world.
“Do not open the gate! You—you’ve no idea the hell you will unleash on this place!” He thought I would care? My vision flickered red, a lifetime of rage and injustice finally demanding retribution. Hell had already been unleashed upon this place centuries ago. What was a little more suffering?
“Is your life really worth so little to you?” “If Hayden really is dead… then yes,” I whispered. “It’s worth nothing.”
“According to most documents from around that time, the second order of the Alchemists lived very short lives. They often went mad and killed themselves.” “Oh, well, that’s just great.
I had grown up in a pit of misery, where people died more often than they lived. I hadn’t seen many beautiful things in my short life. But, of all the beautiful things I had seen, Fisher was the most beautiful of all.
To me, Kingfisher was a surly, foul-mouthed bastard who I wouldn’t piss on even if he was on fire. To everyone inside this tavern, he was a living fucking god.
I am the thing that exists on the other side of the dark. I’m the thing that puts the fear of the gods into the monsters who would eat you bones and all.”
But he was all wound up about not liking the way I smelled, so I figured fuck it.
and then dragged out the chair on Fisher’s right again, sitting down heavily in it. Renfis had been in the process of sipping from his glass, but the second he realized that I’d sat opposite him, next to Fisher, the alcohol sprayed out of his mouth in an arc that nearly crossed the width of the table.
“Here. Come and sit on this side,” Ren said to me, collecting his glass and shoving his chair back. “I don’t mind moving.” “What’s the difference between this side and that side?” I asked. “Either way, I still have to look at his smug face.” “She’s right,” Fisher said. “She’s made her decision. Let her sit wherever she wants to sit.” Ren gave him an odd look. “Really?” “Really.”
There was something else there, too. Something that made my body come alive. His scent, and the way I knew that he’d entered a room before I saw him, and the melancholy tug at the root of my soul whenever he wasn’t in a room, and—
“I can’t trust anything,” he whispered breathlessly.
“We have a fucking Alchemist?” “She’s mine,” Fisher said.
“Because she is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm. The smoke that rolls across a battlefield before the killing starts. You have no idea what she is. What she could be. You should call her Majesty.
“That makes you the most powerful Alchemist ever recorded,”
The sound of Fisher’s genuine laughter was rarer than water had ever been back in Zilvaren; it almost brought tears to my eyes to hear it.
“And if you should find soul sundered from flesh, order a drink for us at the first tavern you come across in the afterlife. We’ll settle the tab when we get there.”
“Don’t you dare die on my watch, Saeris Fane! Fisher will never forgive me if his sole reason for living is torn to pieces on her first fucking battlefield.”
Lucky for her, Fisher was more forgiving than me.
“That seat is reserved for the lady of the house, you stupid girl. Etiquette dictates that only Fisher’s wife is permitted to sit there. It’s a position of high honor meant for a Fae female
“Once upon a time, that was the case. Back when true mating bonds existed. Unions between true mates were blessed with marks from the Fates. That’s where the tradition of inking our hands originated from. But there’s no such thing as true mates anymore. When the gods left Yvelia, certain elements of our magic either died or waned over time.
The god swords, for example. They were very slowly cut off from the source of the magic they channeled. Our ability to form mating bonds also died out over thousands of years, until it disappeared altogether.”
“Do people… get that sometimes? Going around… their wrists?” “Oh, no. Definitely not. You only see that kind of thing in storybooks,” Te Léna scoffed. “They called it a God Binding. A blessing from the gods themselves.
“My weakness! My vulnerability! I’ve known for centuries that you were coming. That you were just going to show up one day and change everything. You’re the chink in my armor, Saeris. The soft spot where the knife slides in. You are the thing that Malcolm will hurt in order to hurt me, and I couldn’t… couldn’t fucking bear it!”
That’s what Oshellith means in Old Fae, Saeris. Most Sacred.
She had no idea what your name would be. Just that you’d have dark hair, and a beautiful smile. And that I’d love you with a fierceness despite myself.”
I’m about to introduce you to all seven gods. When you meet them, don’t forget to tell them I’m the one you worship on your knees.”
There were moments that were gifts, meant to be cherished only for as long as you could remember them.
I’ve never been one to trust in the gods, but I choose to believe that all things come from the same place when life begins. I have hope that they return to the same place when it ends. I’ll be waiting for you there, Saeris Fane. F
To the right of the dais sat Belikon. To the left… Madra.
“My name is Carrion Swift. But there was a time when I was known as Carrion Daianthus. Firstborn son to Rurik and Amelia Daianthus.”
“Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Salt. Brimstone. Quicksilver. The full gamut. More power than any Alchemist I’ve ever encountered. You are capable of restoring me to my power and a lot more besides.”
“Only the gods are eternal,” I told him. And I cut off Malcolm’s head.
This… was really happening? They were gods?
The God Bindings at my wrists flared out of nowhere, biting into my skin like burning ropes. “The best of luck to you, then, Saeris. Give Kingfisher my best.” And then he shoved me into the quicksilver.
As far as the vampire court is concerned, you’re to be coronated. In two days’ time, you officially become the new queen of Sanasroth.”
