Chapter no 74

Daughter of No Worlds

was falling so fast that the world smeared around me. I reached for control and groped at nothing but darkness

and shadow.

I had no control over my body as I strode down the hall, to the ballroom.

The ballroom where hundreds of people, including many of my dearest friends, awaited.

I was so afraid.

It’s alright, I whispered to Reshaye, as soothing as I could manage through my rising panic. It’s alright.

{I have told you so many times. You cannot lie.}

Even its voice sounded different, warped with strange, flickering power. Cold light that resembled flames surrounded me, clawing across the floor and up the walls with every step I took.

{You betrayed me,} it snarled. {They all have. They always do.}

The image of Max’s fingers over my stomach flashed through my head again, two seconds repeated at a dizzying frequency.

Dread closed my throat. Max. Max who had believed in me so strongly. Where was he? Was he dead? Were they all dead?

I had failed them. Gods, they had followed me, and I had so deeply, utterly failed them.

Please, I begged.

{Silence.}

I turned a corner, and I was in the ballroom. The music overwhelmed my ears, throbbing into my head. The room was still packed full of finely dressed guests, though many of them had turned to filter from the room, whispering to each other in hushed voices and no-doubt gossiping about what they had witnessed.

At least, they were, until I entered.

The corners of the room dimmed. Flames and rot spread spidering fingers across the floor. The guests froze and turned to look at me, eyes wide with shock or narrowed in confused disgust.

Reshaye turned my head and skimmed our vision by the slaves, too — guards lined up against the wall and maids who sank into the corners, terrified.

{Look at the way they look at us.}

Monster. Like I was a monster.

For a moment, I stood there, staring at them.

We need to find the others. I chanced a whisper. They need—

Then pain lit up my back, searing through still-seeping wounds, and my throat released a ragged screech. Cold embers erupted around me.

I spun around to see one of Ahzeen’s generals upon me, bloodied sword clutched in his hands. My hands grabbed his face and watched it rot before he even had the chance to move.

But then there was another one, and another. A Lord eager to boast of his combat skills; a hired mercenary looking to do the same. Their strikes landed across my back and my shoulder.

Reshaye wailed, in a cry that rattled both my thoughts and my throat. I swung around and clawed at them. They

died beneath my hands.

One of Ahzeen’s generals let out a shout across the room, mobilizing the hesitant waves of slave warriors.

My lips curled into a snarl as my hand shot into the air, calling for Il’Sahaj. My fingers soon wrapped around its hilt.

Gods, no. No. I would not fight these people. I couldn’t.

I grabbed for control. Grabbed for it and failed to find hold. Reshaye yanked my own muscles from my grasp, shoving me further into darkness. My vision blurred.

I tried again, and again, and again, to no avail.

And I screamed a wordless, voiceless plea as those soldiers rushed towards me, as Reshaye raised Il’Sahaj in a lethal battle cry.

No!

But then, before I could bring the sword down, I was blinded. Blinded by fire — real fire, the kind that seared the hairs from the tips of my nose, the kind that embraced me with such vivid heat that it sent my body staggering back against the wall.

At first, I didn’t know what I was looking at. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and to realize that the fire was moving, and fast. Not moving like flames, but like a creature.

Reshaye’s delighted smile spread slowly across my lips. And my heart stopped.

It was a serpent. A massive serpent that wove through the air and the crowd, its body made of flames that ran together like water, sparks glinting as scales on its skin. It had no wings and no legs, but it moved uninhibited all the same. It lurched through the air in movements that were at once exquisitely graceful and wildly untamed, as if it, too, struggled to fully control its body.

And yet, it was still so beautiful. Warmth and light and power surrounded by cold magic and deepening shadow.

Its head turned towards me, and the realization hit me so hard that it took my breath away.

Those eyes. I would recognize them anywhere. The shape of them was seared into my soul. Even though now they were dark, veering on black, instead of their usual cloudy blue.

Reshaye’s smile spread into a grin. “Oh, Maxantarius,” I breathed. “You are even more beautiful than I thought you would be.”

The serpent paused for a moment. Then, in one wild surge, charged towards me.

If I had control of my body, I would have cringed for an inevitable impact.

But before it reached me, the snake compressed, flames reforming into the ghostlike shape of a man. Claws of heat prickled my skin as I stared into a face that was so familiar, even as it was so terrifyingly strange — Max’s face rendered in flame and rippling heat, dark eyes cutting through light so bright that it hurt to look at him.

Then, membranes slid from the corners of each of his eyes, transforming them back into the peculiar cool gaze that I knew so well. The flames withered, leaving behind sweat-slicked skin.

And it was this image, of Max in his normal, unremarkable human body, that nearly pushed me over the edge.

“It’s time to stop,” he said.

“Look at what we made together. You finally—”

“It’s time to stop. We need to get these people out of here and leave.” He placed his palms on either side of the wall above my shoulders, leaning over me with a wrinkle between his eyebrows. The desperation in his eyes gutted me.

He was talking to me, not it.

And Reshaye made that realization at the same time that I did.

{The two of you. Of course.}

My blood turned cold with Reshaye’s anger and my dread.

No, I begged.

{I have had enough.}

“I have had enough.” My palms pressed to either side of Max’s face.

{You chose him over me.} No!

{You already did.}

Max winced as veins of blight slithered across his cheeks. His fingers clutched my shoulders. “I need you to come back, Tisaanah.”

I made a mad rush for control. And I felt it, for one moment — for one moment I felt the warmth of his skin beneath my hands.

But then Reshaye grabbed me and threw me back.