Chapter 4

4

KASSANDRA

H ome.

The Amorite castle.

Cold, insidious terror sweeps through meas I attempt to take another step away from the elf, momentarily forgetting I’m already flush against the wall. No. No way am I going to allow someone to kidnap me again. Not happening.

Aleksander’s eyes glimmer with whatappears to be amusement. Itmakes him look…younger, somehow. Softer. A tiny smile curves up the corners of his lips.

“Kassandra…” He gives me a pointed look, almost as if I’m a misbehaving animal barking and snapping at him.

When hetakes another step closer, I do the only thing I can think of—dive for the dagger I noticed Patric carrying before he collapsed. My hand closes around thecopper handle, and I jerk the weapon up, brandishingit in front of Aleksander’s face.

The message is clear—take one step closer and I’ll cut you.

Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll have the guts to do that. I’ve been conditioned my entire life to help individuals instead of harm them. My heart bleeds when I see someone in pain or hurting.

Can I really stab Aleksander, someone I considered a friend only a few ticks earlier?

Despite my turbulent thoughts, my grip is surprisingly steady on the knife.

Something molten and indecipherable flashes in Aleksander’s eyes. He licks his lower lip and releases a moan that borders on obscene. The carnal sound twists my stomach up into a dozen intricate knots.

“Can’t we save the foreplay for later, my sweet cherub?” Aleksander asks with a lurid grin. It tugs on a tiny scarbisectinghis upper lip, a line of pink on cherry red. “I don’t think this is the most appropriate situation to be hard in.”

Foreplay?

Hard?

I’m sure my cheeks are a brilliant shade of red by now, but I refuse to let him distract me.

I can’t communicate with him with words, but hopefully, my raised knife and “don’t come any closerto me” expression will do the job.

Abruptly—so abruptly that I wonder, briefly, if I’m imagining things—Aleksander’s expression clouds over, turning dark and menacing. The sight stills my breath and causes my heart to pound unsteadily. Fear crashes over me in a painful torrent as I study his suddenly venomous expression.

He reaches for a dagger in the waistband of his pants I hadn’t noticed before.

Gaia, is this it?

Is this how I’m going to die?

I think of the elf’s head Aleksander brandished when he first met up with me.

Is that going to be me soon?

Every muscle in my body locks together, seizes, as I brace myself for…who the hell knows what. Pain? Death?

Aleksander throws his dagger?—

And a creature directly behind me releases a guttural cry.

I spin so quickly that I stumble over the hem of my dress and come face-to-face with a familiar haggard male.

Patric.

The kind, old priest who led me into the tunnel and then was knocked unconscious by Aleksander.

But this… creature is not the Patric who attempted to save my life.

Fathomless black eyes home in on me unerringly. Goose bumps pepper on my skin at the sight. There’s no malice or anger in his eyes, but there also isn’t any warmth or compassion. There’s…nothing. No emotion whatsoever in a gaze that was once wise and intelligent. Black lines are visible through his papery, gnarled skin, crisscrossing across his face and arms like the intricate patchwork of a spiderweb.

“No.” I don’t say the word out loud, but my lips open and close, forming that one word in a silent denial.

What I’m seeing is impossible.

The black virus.

But Patric was fine only a few moments ago. He was walking and talking. He didn’t show any signs of being sick…

The priest ambles a few steps forward, Aleksander’s dagger protruding from his shoulder.

Aleksander moves so he’s in front of me, but before the elf can lift a finger in defense, Patric tosses him aside.

Literally tosses him, like he’s nothing but a rag doll.

Aleksander bounces off the cave wall, rolls a few times, and then lands in an undignified heap on the floor. Blood pools from a wound on his head.

The fear I felt before is nothing compared to what’s scorching my veins now. This is the type of terror that puts every other emotion to shame, that eclipses reason or logic. My heart thunders against my breastbone, the noise so loud I wouldn’t be surprised ifthe entire world could hear it.

How could Patric—a weathered, old priest with a hunched back and cane—throw Aleksander—a seven-foot elf stacked with muscle—aside as if he were nothing? The black virus doesn’t bring about primordial strength.

The priest pauses when he’s only a foot away from me. He cants his head to the side, those obsidian orbs locking on my face. He opens his mouth, and his teeth are yellow and dripping with some unknown substance. The smell of rot and decay permeates the air, and it takes everything I have not to gag.

Then, Patric speaks, but it’s not his voice I hear.

“Kassandra, Child of Gaia.”

The only word I can think to use is…musical. His lilting voice sounds like bell chimes in the dank, suffocating enclosure of the tunnel.

Patric takes another step closer.

“We’re coming for you, Kassandra,” he continues in that lyrical, eerie voice.

Patric’s expression doesn’t change—remaining impassive and blank—but I detect something akin to amusement underlying each word he speaks. A twisted sort of amusement that raises every hair on my arms.

“We’re coming for you, and this time, we won’t allow you to escape.”

We?

The princes?

The kings?

Someone else entirely?

Panic claws at my guts.

“The black virus is only the beginning,” he continues. “The world will burn.” A low, raspy chuckle escapes him. “The world will burn. The world will burn. The world will burn.” With each consecutive statement, his amusement lessens, until he sounds monotone. That lyrical voice turns brittle and scratchy. “The world will burn. The world will burn. The world will burn.”

Those words seem to echo off every wall. There’s no escaping them. No running from them. No hiding from them.

The world will burn.

The world. Will. Burn.

His hand closes around my bicep, just where my glove ends, and I still as a strange pain reverberates through me. It almost feels as if my skin is burning . Fire lights up my nerve endings as a tiny whimper escapes me.

The dead-eyed priest opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Midnight-black blood drizzles from his lips and down his chin.

Then, to my absolute horror, his body topples to the ground in one direction while his head falls in the other.

Aleksander stands behind Patric, out of breath and blood-stained. He holds a wicked-looking dagger in his right hand.

“Well…” His broad chest heaves as he flicks his gaze between me, the priest’s body, and the decapitated head. The second decapitated head I’ve seen in the last few ticks. Gaia. “That was fun.”

But I barely hear Aleksander. My eyes are glued to my upper arm.

Where Patric touched me, his skeletal fingers creating an iron vise I couldn’t escape from, there’s now a strange red mark unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s slightly raised, and the edges seem to be highlighted with pink and white.

Did he…brand me?

What in Gaia’s name just happened?

With an almost blistering speed, Aleksander reaches for my hand and tenderly holds my arm up for his inspection. His already pale face drains of all color, making his scars stand out like stark beacons in the dim cave.

“That’s impossible.” His brilliant blue eyes narrow on the strange mark. He begins to shake his head in refusal of whatever he’s seeing. “That’s impossible.”

I wave my hand in Aleksander’s face, trying to garner his attention, but it takes him two ticks until he finally looks up. A muscle works in his jaw.

“What is it?” I sign with my free hand, and then I gesture wildly at the strange brand.

“It’s…a mark.” He swallows again.

I don’t know him that well—and everything I’ve learned about him thus far has been a lie—but I’ve never seen such an expression on his face before. Gone is that jovial maliciousness, that white-hot insanity. In its place is a terror I feel in the hollow of my bones.

“ The mark,” he corrects when I continue to stare at him. “The Mark of Chaos.”