29. Melisandre

29

MELISANDRE

A hush lay over the city.

Over the entire land.

The lords had returned to their cities, and steadily, they brought their people under my control. Valeria was in the tunnels now with the rest of my servants, awaiting the next stage of my plans.

And Gwyneira remained in her trap.

“All is right with your world, is it, pet?” Alaric asked from the soot-smeared reflection of a broken windowpane.

I smiled. Let him jab all he liked with silly little comments. I’d accomplished more than he could imagine.

And I was hardly done yet.

Still smiling, I strolled along the silent streets of Lumilia, listening to the frightened heartbeats of the few citizens who remained in its walls. Most of the populace were my servants now, either by being bitten or by doing the biting themselves with apples. Only a few holdouts still hid from me, caught up in the laughable illusion they could escape my plans. Meanwhile, those who resisted were dwindling daily, through surrender to the inevitable or because they lay dead in the pits outside the city.

When the wind was right, the scent of their decay was like the finest perfume.

“This death and destruction is hardly sufficient proof of your victory,” Alaric commented from the reflection of a puddle.

What did he know anyway? The Voidborn were reveling in this. I could feel it. Destruction had always been their goal, but in every instance before, it had taken the form of annihilation. The complete eradication of a land, a world, an entire realm with nothing left behind, not even a blade of grass or the breath of a breeze.

They’d never taken the time to savor every stage of it the way they did now.

“Your vision is so limited , pet.”

I spun, glaring at a fallen metal shield. “Or yours is.”

The metal was pockmarked and smeared with soot, but still those smears shifted like his smirking face lurked behind the grime. “I’ve watched entire realities die. You’ve seen a mere city burn.”

Seething, I turned away. A flash of a pale and frightened face caught the corner of my eye. The woman tried to run before I could see her.

As if the patter of her frightened heartbeat wouldn’t give her path away.

I strode after her, a grin tugging at my lip for the thrill of this little chase.

“It doesn’t have to end here,” the bastard continued, his voice tracking me from fragments of glass and metal debris. “My power is in you. Do you have any idea what you could accomplish? How many realms you could rule?”

I slowed. The woman’s heartbeat faded as she ran down an alleyway.

No matter. I’d send the Voidborn or my servants after her later.

“Rule?” I repeated carefully.

“You know what to do, pet. You’re already almost there.”

My brow furrowed. What did he mean? I?—

Magic surged in the west.

I gasped, my head snapping toward the electrifying sense of power. A rattling hiss came from the Voidborn as my lips pulled back from my fangs. This… this was not possible. My plan had been perfect. Fail-safes upon fail-safes from which she couldn’t escape. And yet still— still! —a damned heresy came to life among the ley lines.

A gateway.

Through the darkness of my kingdom, a piercing sensation lanced, a needle-like light stabbing at the corners of my senses. Like moonlight on frost, it glimmered brighter as it grew.

I bit back a snarl. Gwyneira couldn’t form a gateway . To do so required a level of control that only witches like myself or the highest levels of the Jeweled Coven possessed.

Other magic pricked at my senses.

Oh, that little bitch. Those were Erenlian powers. A multitude of them, like multicolor fragments of wool someone had attempted to weave into a rope of energy. It shouldn’t have been possible. The restraints I’d crafted for those brutes should have kept them from coming anywhere close to their own powers. And even if they had managed to cling to a trace of magic beyond their shackles, the prison I’d created should have caged them entirely.

Yet the prickling offense of their magic grew stronger.

How the hell had she managed to break them free?

Around me, the whispers of the Voidborn turned to a frenzy. They wanted to consume that magic. To swallow it whole until it joined the glow of destroyed realms burning inside them. They wanted to snuff out every trace of that power, until not even embers would remain.

But I had a much better plan.

Alaric’s chuckle came from a fragment of glass. “Silly child, isn’t she?”

A smile curving my lips, I made a noise of agreement. “Indeed.” My smile grew. “ That was a mistake.”