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“Will you perform the rites now? Get married?” A jolt of adrenaline zipped up my spine. I shoved away from the table, quickly rolling down my shirtsleeves, covering the ink. “No. We won’t be doing that,” I clipped out. “She’s not—”
What do you meannnn.
In over a hundred years trapped inside Malcolm’s maze, I had never felt as bereft as I did in that instant.
When the feeders absorbed the magic.
I tried to pull my shadows back, but I couldn’t. The feeders drank them in and held on tight to them. A metallic black sheen swirled at the center of their chests, roiling amid the white energy they had taken from Renfis.
“They fed on our magic,” he whispered.
It was so much worse than being bitten. Worse than them feeding on our blood. Blood was sacred, yes, but our magic? I wanted to be sick.
But where Nimerelle bit through the flesh, a thick black substance crystallized along the blade like frost. “What the—” Nimerelle screamed. I heard it in my mind, deafening and full of pain. Nimerelle shook so violently that the vibrations traveled all the way up my arms and rattled my teeth.
I couldn’t use the sword again. It had caused her pain.
“In the pit of my stomach. I feel connected to them, like… the magic they took has tied me to them. I can feel them tugging on it, trying to siphon off more.
The way they’d moved together, in unison, implied that they were under some sort of control.
“Because that’s who he is. He’s a liar. He’s never been honest with us about anything. Foley’s where he is because of him. And he was there, the other night. With Everlayne. He had her on a fucking leash, Fisher.”
Renfis referring to Taladaius.
He abandoned you. He left you over a thousand years ago. He willingly chose to leave us all and go with Malcolm.
“I know that there can never be anything but bad blood between you and him. But you’ve never been bound by a curse, brother. You’ve never been forced to act against your will. And you have never been so in love with someone that you’d sell your soul to the devil to protect them. I pray that when you find your mate and you fall in love, you’ll know nothing but an everlasting peace with them. But for others…” I added sadly, “it isn’t that simple.”
“These fell things aren’t of Yvelia,” Lorreth said in a hushed tone. “Nothing in our world could produce this kind of evil.”
Feeders are bound to the high blood who made them, no matter what. They will only obey their sires. They have no choice in the matter. Runes and tags of ownership are never required since deadstock cannot be stolen.”
The mark, an X behind the female’s earlobe,
Their fucking ears are round. They’re human.”
“This is intentional. This is Madra’s doing. This… is how the rot got here in the first place.”
“Ammontraíeth has always had a pool.”
“I heard from Lorreth that you got yourself a new sex tattoo at your coronation. Can I see it?”
LOL
“If they procreate, I’m banishing them from Cahlish. A combination of the two of them would probably tear open some sort of hell gate and suck the entire estate through it.”
Lol. In regards to Carrion and Danya.
“You can’t tell me that you don’t want to get married?” “We don’t need a ceremony to join us together, Te Léna.” He laughed, but the sound felt clipped. Off, somehow. “We’re God-Bound. I’d say that trumps getting married, don’t you?”
“No. No, I don’t.” I answered quickly. Definitively. And it was the answer Fisher was looking for, which was why the look of relief on his face made sense… but not the flicker of disappointment that came after it.
Kingfisher "doesn't need" a ceremony.
“A Fae wedding ceremony is extremely sacred. It is the greatest commitment two lovers can undertake in Yvelia.
It’s sacred because they give each other their names. Their true names. And I can give you everything else, Osha. But I can’t give you that.”
Note back in the POV chapters Kingfisher is told by Mirelle that his mother said he must guard his true name as his life depends on it.
A person’s true name held power. With it, a person could control the other. They could command them to do whatever they pleased.
“I don’t know it,” he whispered. “I’ve never known it. We usually receive our true names on our fourteenth birthdays, and my mother—” He blinked. “Well, she died before I turned fourteen. And my father was already gone. So…”
“No one knows. If they did, it wouldn’t be good.
“You forget that I’m a winter creature, Saeris,” Fisher murmured. “I don’t crave the attention of the sun. The snowcapped mountains, the forest, the frozen river… those places are my home. You are home.”
“I despise the gods, Saeris. I’m Oath Bound by this land and the blood of kings. I swore I would never offer up a word of gratitude to them again, but you have made a liar of me. You’re a gift that cannot be ignored.
“I’ve killed more people than I can count. I lost the parts of myself that knew how to feel anything other than pain and sorrow centuries ago. But for better or worse, you have brought me back to life.”
“You taste like the end of the fucking world,” he purred. “Just kill me and be done with it. Nothing will ever be better than this.”
“Come now, Osha. Where else would an acolyte kneel to worship but at the altar of his god?”
Oh my gods.
“Thaaat’s it. Good girl. Ride it out.”
Bitch I would simply pass away.
“Feeling a little feral there, Osha?”
Lmao
The encampment was in ruins. Where Irrín had once stood, buttressed against the banks of the Darn, a scorched black crater now stretched for as far as the eye could see. Smoke rose from smoldering patches of ground where the embers of a fire still glowed red hot amid the debris.
The camp was destroyed. The tavern was gone. The armory. Everything. Only black ash and bones remained.
“Black blood, pouring from the gashes as if they’re wounds.
“It’s contaminating the ground.” And sure enough, it was. Where the black ooze spread, rot and decay followed after it.
“I’ve been waiting a long, long time to speak with you, Saeris Fane.”
I am Edina.” The name was so familiar to me. I’d heard someone speak it recently, hadn’t I? Seen it written down somewhere.
“They told you. About the rot,” she said in a clear voice. “They told you it would come. It’s here, now. You must find the book in order to stop it. Without it, the decay will spread until it swallows this realm and millions more with it. I have seen it, Saeris. Find the book. Stop the spread. It’s the only way.”
“Find it. But do not tell him about it. I mean it. It’s important. He can’t know about the book. Only you. Do you understand?”
“Thank you. Make sure he knows how much I loved him, Saeris,” she said. “At the end, make sure he knows that I’d do it all again.”
The runes on my fingers, the backs of my hands, chaining my wrists and spiraling up my forearms—suddenly it felt as though the runes were on fire.
“An Alchemist must seal her runes,” she rasped. “You are a well that runs deep. When you were marked with your runes, their magic began pouring into you. It flows and it flows. It will not… stop…”
“Why were you calling my mother’s name?”
I knew ittt.
The pain I’d experienced in Everlayne’s bedroom hadn’t been normal. It had felt like it was burning my soul as well as my body. As if the river of magic flowing through me had caught fire and was unmaking me. It had been terrifying… and I did not want it to happen again.
“The rot. It infected them somehow. The same way it must have infected the feeders.
Infected the warriors.
“And where those bodies lay, the rot spreads and multiplies,” Ren said. “It claims any vegetation. Any creature, living or dead. It travels over snow and scorched ground without issue. We’ve yet to figure out a way to stop it.”
“What did Zareth say?” “He said he was severing us from the tapestry of the universe. That the gods wouldn’t be able to see us anymore.”
