54. Scythe

Chapter 54

Scythe

A urelia tears her reddened eyes away from mine and returns her stare to the corpse of her mother, lit by new, powerful flames.

Something uncomfortable worms around my stomach as I watch her hold my mentor's hand, as Savage sits mournfully at her feet and as Lyle stands like a stoic warrior behind her.

It should also be me standing there with her.

Instead, I watch from the sidelines, as I always have, as the red-orange flames turn her face a brilliant molten gold.

One Boneweaver regina had made a series of decisions that led her here to a pyre.

And another Boneweaver regina must decide her own fate.

Before my eyes, Aurelia's body trembles. But not with grief, not from mourning.

From rage.

Revenge is a song her bones sing. Vengeance is a beat her heart drums. A scorching wind stirs the loose waves of her wild hair, making her look like the Wild Goddess herself. Lyle and Savage look at her with alarm as our regina's power slices through the air with a blade so sharp it might have killed us if we weren't the other pieces of her soul.

Eko looks at me sharply, dropping Aurelia's hand and stepping away. "She's stronger than Athena," he warns. "Like the Boneweavers of old, her power may consume her."

The earth trembles, making the beach slide and shift. A feral wind whips up the sand on either side of us, creating tornadoes of power.

Out to sea, I feel the cursive power of a whirlpool opening.

Aurelia speaks with her mental voice. Commands it with a timbre that makes the very strings that hold me together shake in riotous anticipation. "There is no force in this world, or in any other, that will stop me from ripping him apart bone by fucking bone with my own teeth. I swear it to you."

And so she has made her decision.

"Stop, Aurelia!" Lyle cries, struggling to maintain his footing as Savage grabs onto her legs.

But our regina is staring at her mother's funeral pyre, unblinking, her eyes like lapis lazuli. The fire blazes higher, hotter, more powerful than before, scalding my skin. I have to take a step back.

"Someone stop her!" Xander cries, launching himself into the air.

Even his powerful wing beats don't suffocate the flames.

"Regina," I command into her mind.

Her head snaps towards me. It's the first time I've used the word in my human form. And the way her face crumples with a mix of devastation and joy would have completely ruined me, if not for the fact that she collapses a moment after.