Horses surrounded her instantly, their riders seeking her out, assuming that because she had fallen, she was weak.
“Neiss!” she called out. Lightning slashed across the sky as her serpent answered.
The creature slid from her skin as the riders neared. Its mauve-colored scales near black under the moonless and sunless sky she’d created.
“What is that?” She heard one of them call out, his voice tinted in panic.
“I think it’s—”
Neiss’ body expanded, the width of his length forming to half her height. Realization seemed to echo through their ranks. They knew. “Basilisk!” they shouted, scurrying back as they tried to run, to escape the creature. It was too late.
Neither the horses nor the riders stood a chance when Quinn whispered her command, “Kill them.”
“With pleasure,” the serpent hissed as it took to the fight. Arrows rained down upon him, cracking and shattering into splinters on impact. Swords clashed uselessly against his near impenetrable skin. It was only after two of the riders died from simply being too close to the basilisk as he moved, crushing them under his massive size, that the others got the hint and truly began to retreat.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Quinn spat. Neiss slithered around, lowering his head as he did. The tip of his nose hit her, and she fell back between his eyes.
“Kneel on me,” he told her. Quinn scrambled back, struggling with the smooth surface of his scales, but managing to stay on as he opened his jaws and bit an archer aiming for her. She felt nothing but a sick kind of joy coming from him as he swallowed the man—bow and all.
“Won’t that hurt?” she asked.
“Tis’ a snack, young one,” Neiss replied happily as they gained ground on the half dozen soldiers that ran from them and headed straight for Dominicus.
“After them,” she urged and Neiss dove. This time the momentum threw her too much and Quinn’s body slipped away as she lifted and was airborne once more. Not for long, she realized, as the end of Neiss’ tail wrapped around her middle, pulling her along. He gained ground, closing in around them when Quinn realized her fault.
Animals, unlike the people that rode them, knew when to run from a greater predator.
That included the animals carrying the very people she was trying to save.
Quinn cursed herself as the steed Dominicus tried to control deemed the basilisk as the greater threat. Quinn saw it all so clearly in that moment. The horse’s panicked wide eyes, the shake of his majestic head. The enemy up ahead, turning back slightly as they ran.
“Neiss,” she said in a panicked voice. “Put me down.” The creature obliged instantly, but the horses kept running, and with Lorraine’s back to them—unprotected. Quinn felt something bubble up in her as Neiss recoiled and shrunk. He knew what she needed, even when she could not say.
“Do what you must, my lady,” he said, instantly withdrawing and slipping beneath her skin once more.
No one paid her any mind when one of the archer’s stopped and took aim.
No one saw what she did as the arrow flew, and this time, there was no errant wind to displace it. A scream tore from her lips as she tried to warn them.
But it was too late. The damage she’d done unknowingly was going to cost her.
The arrow pierced Lorraine’s flesh and the white tunic she wore darkened immediately as blood seeped out. Their eyes met over the great distance as Lorraine’s face contorted in pain and she cried out in surprise and agony. Dominicus rounded the horse, his instincts picking up on the woman’s distress, but it was too late. The action couldn’t be undone.
Time slowed. Paused. Stopped altogether.
Quinn felt it then, something dark and destructive boiling up inside her.
She clenched her fists as several attackers finally noticed that she had called the basilisk back and he was gone. Their eyes focused on where Quinn now stood completely alone. Lazarus and Draeven were too far out. Vaughn was engaged in his own fight and Dominicus rushed to aid the wounded Lorraine. They came for her as that whisper of something ancient and very dark awoke.
She knew then, as her side burned and lit her aflame, that she’d been right to wonder.
The attackers turned on her and Quinn lifted her hands. Tendrils of fear flowed from her skin and theirs, twining together. The two dozen or so that still remained took notice as black strands began to twist and turn.
“You hurt her,” she whispered to them. The darkness inside her reached its breaking point and she knew there would be no return if she did this. A whip cracked in the distance and Quinn froze.
Time stilled for only a moment. A mere blink of an eye.
The whip cracked again, and she saw it. The riders that chased Draeven, and the cruel smirk they wore as they pulled him from his horse and began to beat him. She saw as Lorraine toppled off the back of the horse as Dominicus came to a stop, scrambling to get her before they did. She saw Vaughn, seasoned as he was, being backed into a corner.
And the last one, she didn’t see. Lazarus was to her back and she couldn’t look away even as she felt that dark power inside him rise, bubbling forth. She couldn’t explain it, how she knew where he was and what he was feeling.
But she felt it, and it was that rage that pushed her over.
A final crack split the air and the dam that had been holding her finally broke.
“No one hurts my people,” she said darkly.
And Quinn Darkova fully ascended.
Ascension
“When the only thing left to fear is fear itself, you should still run, because she will find you.”
— Lazarus Fierté, dark Maji, heir to Norcasta, soul eater
Everywhere she went, he knew without needing eyes. It transcended his field of vision as something changed within them both, at once. He didn’t know what it was until it was too late.
He didn’t see the signs until the cage that held her shattered from the raw strength of her power.
Shadow creatures, beings made of fear and rage and desperation, rose up from the ground and descended on their enemies. Some shot to the skies, forming wings of obsidian that rode on the nonexistent wind. Others formed into mutated creatures that were like nothing he’d ever seen. Their skin was so dark it stood apart from the void she’d dropped over all of them. Those creatures had no souls. No will of their own.
All they were and would ever be were figments from her mind made real.
Somehow, she had twisted the fears of those on the battlefield into tangible beings. They leapt from the ground, ignoring the horses in favor of the men who were already screaming and attempting to flee. The flesh was ripped from their bones and their clothing torn to shreds until only remnants of this enemy remained.
He’d counted sixty souls apart from their own when this started.
Quinn wiped out over half of them in minutes.
Bones and cloth and weapons littered the ground, but no bodies. The beasts she’d brought forward consumed them with a viciousness that mirrored the woman herself. When the flesh they’d been feasting on was gone, an uneasy feeling spread in his chest as they still remained, still hunted. The shadow beasts seemed to know who was friend and who was foe and they never once drifted too close to him. He turned, knowing where she stood, locked inside a rage so cold that the hottest of flames might not melt it.
He’d seen her angry. He’d seen her in the grips of madness.
Never had he seen this woman so deep in the throes of rage that it consumed her. The creatures she’d brought forward fell to their knees before her and the ones in the sky took to the ground and followed suit as she simply stood there. The veins around her eyes had run black, exaggerating the cut of her cheekbones and planes of her face. Her fists remained clenched at her sides, and he could sense the battle warring within as she tried to pull back the strength she’d only just unleashed.
She’d stolen the fear of dozens to create her army, and that sort of power wouldn’t be displaced so e
asily. He knew it from the souls he’d taken. Each and every one she took into her would cost her as it did him. He had to get to her before the cost was too steep—before he lost her to her own madness and rage.
“Quinn,” he said, standing at the edge of her minions. She didn’t respond, but the creatures turned at once, parting to form a path straight to her. He took that as permission enough that they wouldn’t destroy him, though his steps were slow when he first entered the mass. Their lavender eyes glowed as they watched him with parted lips and equally dark tongues that licked over their teeth, as if salivating for a taste of him as well.
Even as she self-destructed within, she was keeping them on a tight rein. Thorne had warned him of this, that she’d come back different and the sort of violent whims she might have would be devastating in comparison to what he’d dealt with before. Lazarus hadn’t listened then because he thought he knew her better. He was listening now.
The last of the shadow creatures parted and he came to stand before her. She didn’t move, didn’t twitch as she kept them all in this dark realm she’d created from nothing but the fear in their hearts.
“Quinn,” he breathed. Searching her expression for something, anything that could tell him how to do this. “I need you to send them away now, fear twister,” he growled, thinking that maybe the command might pull her from it. Her eyes slid towards him, a sort of cold cruelty in them and she wore it so beautifully.
“Who are you to command me?” she asked in a detached voice. Something swirled in her blue gaze; a power that lurked just at the end, so wrathful that he knew commands would not work this time. He needed to tread carefully.
“Not a command, then,” he said, “a request.” She didn’t even blink at his words.
“Why?” she asked, tilting her head to the side then. “I rather like my creatures. They’re a part of me. They’re … mine.” Lazarus bit the inside of his cheek because he finally understood not only Claudius’ vision, but Draeven’s and Thorne’s warnings. Just as he knew without a shadow of doubt that Quinn had ascended, and if he had to guess at when, it was when she was in the springs. So much made sense now about why she’d almost died. She was already leaking magic, not because she couldn’t hold it, but because the Gods were leaching her of it to see if she was strong enough to hold its full might and she’d done it. She survived not just that, but the stone—and all the signs were there if he’d known what to look for then, if he’d suspected.
He hadn’t, however, and that was going to cost him if he couldn’t bring her back down.
“They are yours,” he said slowly. “Just as the basilisk is. Unlike the basilisk, these creatures don’t hold a soul, Quinn. They’re using slivers of yours to stay like this, and if you hold them too long, they might want to keep those slivers.” He spoke in sure, steady hushed words—meant only for her ears. “You need to hold onto your soul, which means you need to take those pieces of it back from them.”
Her lips parted for a brief moment as she said, “How do you know?”
“Because I see souls, and they only hold yours.” Her lips pushed together as she seemed to think on it.
“Why do you want me to have a soul?” she asked. “Is it so you can take it from me?” Something twisted inside him for a moment, causing his blood to rise and his palms to sweat. It only took him a second to realize it was her, preying on his fears.
Commanding her wasn’t working but neither was being kind.
He needed to try a different approach, something she couldn’t manipulate.
“I sense your fear, Lazarus. You worry you’ll take it,” she said, sounding indifferent to what exactly those words meant. “Don’t tell me you don’t. I know.”
Lazarus took a deep breath and tried to push down the rising panic. It’s not real, he told himself. She’s manipulating you.
He lifted one of his palms to the side of her face and her eyebrows drew together, the slightest touch of clarity in her expression. Then his fingers dug into her lavender hair, gripping it tight as he wrenched her head back. He leaned in and whispered a truth he never wanted to give, but that she needed to hear.
“You’re right. I do fear losing control with you.” His lips brushed along her jaw and he felt her shudder. “Because I want you—so much more than your magic.” Her breath hitched and he sensed that power backing away as something else pushed forward. “I hate that you hold the same power over me as you do these creatures, because anyone else I would crush if they dared act the way you do. You’re a cruel, twisted woman.” He paused, his lips only a hairsbreadth from hers. “But you’re the only one I think that actually understands me. You embrace the darkness as I do. You play with the beasts that no one would dare touch. You are fearless and magnificent as you are—and that is why I fear losing control. If I took your soul, you would be none of those things, and that’s why you need those pieces back. So you don’t become one.”
She turned her head just a fraction, but that was all it took for his lips to meet hers. She stayed frozen before him as he pried her lips apart. Lazarus groaned, and the sound seemed to pull her from the brink of no return. Her lips pressed back against his and he fisted his hand in her hair as she kissed him with abandon. One by one those pieces started to come back to her. Still, he kissed her. Unable to stop himself. Unable to pull back from the edge as he breathed in her scent and wrapped his hand around her throat—powerless to deny himself the possessive act—too weak to push her away even when he felt the last pieces of her soul slither back into place.
Her hands grasped the straps holding his weapons and pulled, reeling him into her. Lazarus—careful, calculated, and controlled as he was—threw caution to the wind and let her. Her nails grazed over the cloth of his tunic, scratching too hard to be accidental. She bit his bottom lip, drawing a groan from him. Gods above, he cursed himself. Her tongue toyed with his, wicked and maddening as the woman herself. He tightened his hand around her throat just a fraction and Quinn moaned. He wound his other arm around her waist, pulling her closer to—
A horn blasted from the other side of them, coming from Tritol.
The change in her was instant as she shoved with a strength she hadn’t previously possessed. “Liar,” she growled, wisps coming off her like smoke as she lifted a hand and clenched her fist.
An all-out dread absorbed him. Impending doom settled in his gut as anxiety clawed its way up his throat, his knees threatening to collapse. “Quinn, I didn’t lie to you—”
She pulled harder and the air left his lungs as terror reached its hands for his chest. Images filled his mind of terrible, dreadful things. “You tried to distract me,” she said in that same emotionless voice. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Quinn,” he groaned as a flash of silver caught his eye. She lifted the dagger above her, poised to strike. “Don’t do this.”
“May Belphor embrace you, Lazarus,” she whispered.
But it was too late. Far, far too late.
Axe
“Everything has a cost, whether you choose to pay it or not.”
— Quinn Darkova, vassal of House Fierté, fear twister, Master of Neiss
Her hand stilled, the dagger hovering above his prone form. The darkness rode her, those shadow tendrils of fear whispering sweet nothings in her ears. They told her that she couldn’t trust anyone, that it would all end in chains.
And Quinn wouldn’t be a slave.
Never again.
She would die before she took that route.
But to kill Lazarus … even as they pushed and pushed, something held her back. Something made her still her hand, even as the clomping of hooves grew near.
She didn’t want to stab him.
Kill or be killed, they told her. Those deadly tendrils feeding on the rage within.
Her arm shook from the exertion as she forced herself to remain still and not do as they commanded. Sweat trickled down her temples, tracing the line of her jaw before falling.
&nbs
p; Still, she fought. She fought her own demons with all she had.
I will not be a slave to anything. She meant it, and that included fear itself. It was her drug. Her addiction. Fear gave her power, but giving in to it also stripped her power away, and she could not allow that.
“You. Do. Not. Control. Me!” she cried out as the dagger began to slip from her fingers. Her eyes widened just as a hand clamped over her wrist. “Wha—”
The anger drained out of her, leaving her dizzy and light-headed. She swayed on her feet for a moment, her gaze traveling up a tanned arm to meet the violet eyes of the ash-haired man that stopped her.
“D-draeven?” she stuttered as her magic settled instantly when it no longer had the rage to fuel it.
His jaw tensed and the twitch of his eye told her he was struggling as he dropped her hand and backed away. “Drae—”
“Don’t,” Lazarus breathed. He rolled on his side before climbing to his feet. “He took your rage to stop you from doing something that would end us both, but the demons you faced are now on his back. Let it be.” He reached out a hand to still her and she marveled for a moment, staring at Draeven and then to the hand that touched her.
“Do you fear me now?” she asked him. The void she’d created began to shatter into pieces and fall before disappearing entirely, allowing the harsh light of a new day to bathe them.
Lazarus turned his gaze from her to the rising sun and the people on horses that approached them. Quinn tensed for a moment when he said, “I don’t think I would fear you even if you killed me, Quinn. There’s a lot of things I feel for you, but fear isn’t one of them.”
She opened her mouth, not knowing what to say. She stood in silence when he started for the half dozen people approaching them. His relaxed gate kept her at bay as she glanced back to Dominicus carrying Lorraine, and Vaughn trailing behind them.
The horses came to a halt before Lazarus, and the group remained tense for a moment before the one at the back came forward. The steed itself was a beast, but the girl on top of it was barely a wisp. If not for the flaming red hair twined in braids with beads and cloth scattered in it, she would hardly warrant notice. Her face was younger, much younger than Quinn, but her gaze was that of someone well beyond her years as she observed their party and the bones that surrounded them.
Fortune Favors the Cruel Page 26