Brimstone (Fae & Alchemy, #2)

by Callie Hart

You should already be grateful for it. It saved your friend’s life last night.”

“No debt has been incurred. It is a silent rune, already sealed to your soul. It will act as a grounding rod for the runes you already have, and the ones that are yet to come, too. For a while, anyway. It will buy you some time while you work on sealing that brimstone mark.”

“Think of it as an apology,” it said. “For what is to come. I have seen through the eyes of your oracle, and your future is not an easy one. There are those who would consider me partially to blame for that.”

AHHH

a ring dropped at my feet: the ring of office that marked it as a Lord of Midnight. A large polished ruby flashed at the ring’s center, winking in the fading light. “Give it to the apostate with the golden smile,” the Hazrax ordered. “He will need it.”

“People call you the Hazrax. But that’s not the name inked into my skin now, is it?” “Clever child. It is not.” “You’re never going to tell me what you are, are you?” The Hazrax smiled its needle smile. “Why would I when you’re so close to piecing it all together, King Killer? You’ve almost figured it out.”

Iseabail had single-handedly eradicated thousands of high bloods in one night—something the Balquhidder clan hadn’t been able to achieve in all the years that had passed since they’d discovered the cure to the blood curse that was placed on the Fae. But the witches were sticklers for honor and tradition. They were rule makers, not rule breakers. And they did not hold with dark magic.

The matriarchs of Iseabail’s house had no idea what she had done.

For Lorreth’s family, it was a sin worse than murder to use magic—inherited, small, or otherwise.

I’d seen my friend wield his power only twice before, and both times had been to save someone else.

Lorreth has white light.

I’ve given everything I have to protect the people of Yvelia, and they spit on me and bay for my head because of it. I’m about to lose my home to this godscursed rot. I have no love left for this place, and I have very little good left in me. I’m afraid if you’re hoping for a hero, you’ll have to look somewhere else.”

“You don’t… mean that. I see you…” She rasped. “Your soul. You’d fight and bleed… for this… realm—”

The necrotic spread crept forward before my eyes, its progress startlingly efficient as it made for the house.

Rot is now in Cahlish.

She really had come blazing into my life like a comet, and now she was changing everything.

I will give you whatever you want, Saeris Fane. Always. No matter what it costs me.”

Ominous, I'm scared. I keep thinking back to when Callie said sacrifice is the main theme...

Lorreth had gone into the bowels of Cahlish, as deep into the pyre as he could tolerate, and he’d tried to convince Archer and his friends to leave with us, but they had refused.

Noooo

I felt the moment that she passed through the shadows and moved beyond my reach. It was as though I had been cut off from life itself, and only the cold, empty void of death remained.

Wind howled past my ears as the world went black… and then the laughter morphed into something else. A voice, calling out from the space between worlds. “Hello, Dog.”

Oh my god no.

The sky was thick with black smoke, the air rank with it. We were on top of a hill that overlooked a small township—small, neat little buildings with terracotta roofs below us, stretching out toward luminescent cliffs of chalk that dove into vast blackness beyond. Fae warriors sprinted across my field of vision, swords in their hands, blood staining their skin. The glow from campfires, kicked over and burning out of control amid the long, dry grass,

“Tell me he came through with you.” “I thought he had. But when I turned around, he wasn’t there. The shadow gate closed, and…”

Fisher would have answered via our bond if I’d called out to him. He hadn’t come through the gate.

Zovena was gone, then. And Tal had bolted into the fray as well. Half of me had hoped he’d be here, with the others. The other half of me had known he wouldn’t be. Maybe later there would be time to pick apart what that meant.

“I’m trying to work out how those feeders got here. Most of them were freshly dead. Some of them hadn’t even fed yet. We can rule out the Lìssian pool. Most of the feeders back at the Darn were terrified of running water. There’s no way the feeders that attacked today crossed a whole channel to reach land. They could have come from Gilaria, but it would have taken them days to make it down through the mountains. They would have been in much worse shape by the time they reached Inishtar.” “Which means Madra has found another way to travel between this realm and Zilvaren,”

The infected feeders that attacked Irrín were Zilvarens too, and they didn’t come through the pool at Cahlish or Ammontraíeth. They had to have found themselves on the banks of the river somehow. And Madra has been controlling magic for centuries in Zilvaren. Who’s to say she hasn’t accumulated enough power to find a way to travel from there to here?”

“I never came across any texts that spoke of interrealm travel that didn’t rely on quicksilver. I certainly read about individuals absorbing the powers of others to bolster their own magic, but… the kind of magic it would take to open a portal between realms? Well, that would require an inordinate amount of power.” “The kind of power that would take a thousand years to steal?” I asked. “The kind of power that would require a whole city to fuel?”

“‘You cannot eradicate magic from a city. Once it takes root within a community, it never leaves. It will find a way to thrive, one way or another. You just didn’t care to look for it.’”

“And what you said about the sigils in that book! ‘The strongest magic is circular. Like a wheel. It is the symbol of forever, the beginning and the end of everything. It carries magic on a loop, amplifying it, giving it strength.’”

“Zilvaren,” I said breathlessly. “The city, fashioned after the shape of a wheel. The walls form the wards, but they aren’t spokes. The whole thing…” My head was spinning. “It’s a sigil. This entire time, Madra has been using the city itself to siphon the magic of its inhabitants. Zilvaren is the biggest piece of spellwork ever created.”

but the news that Madra might now be in possession of this kind of power had stunned everyone to silence. If it was true, then nowhere was safe. She could open a portal and deliver more feeders whenever she liked, wherever she liked. And that made her even more dangerous than Belikon to the people of this realm.

“You’re talking about warding a realm. That kind of spellwork would require Fae and witch magic, working side by side. You’d need an entire coven of powerful witches and at least ten strong Fae wielders to build something that monumental. You’d also need something that belonged to Madra. And not just something she touched once. You’d need something far more personal if we were going to block her magic.”

“Well, apparently, you’re a member of one of the most powerful witch clans to ever exist,” I said to the witch. “I’m sure if your sisters understood what was at stake here, they’d agree to work with us on something that might just save the realm. And I don’t know ten of the most powerful members of the Fae, but I know one of them, and I’m personally going to figure out where the fuck he is and bring him back to us. As for something personal that belongs to Madra? I think I’ve got you covered there, too.”

Nothing was allowed to be beautiful in the world without him.

The pious fucker had been stupid enough to carry around one of Madra’s ridiculous plague bags on his hip. But she was the one arrogant enough to believe herself a god. The plague bags were full of ashes from the sacrifices who were burned in Madra’s honor… but they also contained her hair.

I noticed the figure sitting alone by a large chalk boulder that jutted out over the drop to our right. I knew him straight away. It was Tal.

Zovena looked like she was sleeping, but I had seen enough death by now to recognize its subtle hue creeping into the female’s pale cheeks.

“The fates scorn me,” he whispered airily. “Every time I try to die, they rob me of my peace.”

For a second, he looked so young. But then he turned to look at me, and there was that ancient sorrow in his eyes. “I was having Fisher send me home so I could die there instead. At Bayland’s End. The inconvenience of that unpleasantness would have served my mother right. But then we were in the middle of a battle, surrounded by feeders, and for once…” He choked on the word, biting back a strangled sob. “For once, I got to fight on the right side.”

“Imagine loving Kingfisher. Imagine not being able to stop yourself. And then imagine that he couldn’t give a fuck about you, and he took pleasure in hurting you every opportunity that he got. And then imagine selling your soul to the devil so that you could follow him into hell.” I couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying now. “Willingly! Hah!”

“She was already dead when I found her. Drained dry.” He sniffed loudly. “And when I looked at her, I stood there, waiting for the grief to land, to absolutely destroy me, and do you know what?” He threw back his head, closing his eyes and sighing loudly. “I didn’t feel… fucking… anything. It was always a game to her. I don’t know how she did it. If it was magic, or… or…” He shrugged helplessly. “It wasn’t real. It was a game, and now I feel as though I’ve woken up, and all the sacrifices I made were for nothing. How fucking stupid I was.”

“So I came here to give her to the sea. I came here to die… and once again the fates have snatched back my peace.”

“One thousand… and sixty-three years, five months… three days…” His voice tapered to a whisper. “That’s how long it’s been since I felt the sun on my face, Saeris. If I’d gotten here an hour earlier, I would have done it. I would have jumped.” He blinked his eyelids open, a stillness falling over him as he looked out at the water. “But now?” A crooked, heartbroken smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. “How can I consign myself to another endless dark when I’ve been given back the light?”

The quicksilver rune on the back of my hand blazed brilliant blue-white for a second, and then a bead of shining metal formed on the end of my short sword. It rolled until it welled and dripped down onto the other blade and immediately sank into the metal.

“You’re not… serious? That’s a god sword now? That’s all it took?” I shrugged. “A bit of borrowed quicksilver from my blade. A little bit of magic. An abundance of good intentions.”

“Tarsarinn,” he said. “It means… redemption.”

I’m not arrogant enough to declare that we’re fighting on the side of right. I hope we are, but your precious fates are going to have to be the judges of that. Either way, right or wrong, from now on, Tal, you’ll always be fighting with us.”

But when the satyrs present lowered their heads, they didn’t charge Carrion. They dropped to their knees at the same time and laid their weapons down in offering, bowing to the Daianthus heir.

“If you say anything to acknowledge you are the heir to the Yvelian throne, it’ll be public record. You won’t be able to take it back. It’ll be tantamount to declaring war against Belikon.”

“My name is Carrion,” he said. “Nice to meet you all. I really like your horns.” There were historians among the crowd. Someone would record this moment—the day the satyr community received the Daianthus heir—and when they documented the first thing their Forgotten King had said to them, it would be this: I really like your horns.

Lmao

My eyes caught on a bird, pinwheeling down toward the ocean… and the second I saw it, it struck me: the memory that had eluded me earlier. It had been right there, a millimeter from my fingertips. It was so obvious! Gods and martyrs, how stupid I’d been. I’d missed something. And now I knew what it was.

I think I'm missing something lol

“I might know how to find Fisher.” “Wait! Let me come with you, then!” “No, I’m sorry, Lorreth!” I called, running down the steps. “Please, I need you to watch Hayden. Where I’m going, you can’t follow, anyway! I have to go alone! I’ll come back and make those relics, I swear!”

I want you to punch me in the face as hard as you can.” Danya’s eyes widened. “What?” “I need you to knock me out.” She recoiled, sinking deeper into the mud. “You’re insane,” she said. “Probably. But it’ll help save Fisher. Now, do you want to abandon him to his fate for a second time, or do you want to help him, Danya? Because there are at least three other people I can ask—”