6. Veyka

They were easy to find, in the end.

The scent of their fear left a trail from where I'd killed the succubus straight to their camp. Even after a day spent jumping through the void again and again, it only took me three jumps to cover the many miles between our camp and theirs.

When I'd first gone through the void, during those arduous training sessions with Arran, the fatigue would grow. Each jump a bit slower than the last. But now, the beating of my heart was from excitement, not exertion.

My power was growing.

Even as I looked down on them from high in the branches of a pine tree, where I'd made my final appearance from the void, I could feel the hungry hum of my power. More, it seemed to say. Further. Again.

I tightened the leash, just as Arran had taught me. Soon, I whispered to it lovingly. I only needed a minute to plot my course.

Three humans and seven fae.

All that remained of the force Gorlois had attacked us with on the shores of Avalon.

It would have taken me ages to find them without my void power. But now? Less than a day. The other scent I'd caught on the pine-scented wind as I moved in and out of the void… I was still deciding what to do with that. But it did not affect what was about to happen.

The humans passed around a flask of some watered-down, human made spirit. The fae warriors did not deign to drink it. I could not recall if they were elementals or terrestrials. If they were terrestrials, they'd been stupid to select this campsite. The branches of the pine trees did not begin until nearly twenty feet up; too far for any but the most powerful of their flora-gifted to make use of. The dead pine needles on the forest floor would not answer their commands. That much, I'd learned from months of traveling with Arran and Osheen.

If they were shifters… my magic flared inside of me. It does not matter.

No, it did not. Either way, they were dead.

Once, I might have been outmatched. But I commanded the depths of the voids of darkness. Each time I stepped into the void and reappeared, another soldier died.

I thought I'd killed all the humans. But my memory of that battle in the clearing… I started to shudder, but shoved the impulse back. No weakness, not now. No fear. Only ice.

I'd been mistaken before when I characterized the rage as fire. The ice was there to sharpen the rage into something useful—something deadly.

With each swipe of my knife, each spurt of blood that dripped down my hands, I rebuilt the wall of ice inside my chest. I could not afford to fall apart. I could not afford to be rash. Every decision had to be calculated. Every one of these deaths had meaning.

For Annwyn.

For myself.

For Arran.