Born of Blood and Ash

My lips parted as he rose into the air, his massive wings stretched high. Wisps of pure white eather swirled around his arms.

I took a breath.

That was all.

And then I was no longer in the courtyard but standing on the white limestone and granite steps of the Temple of Keella. I was in the heart of Croft’s Cross.

Or what was left of it.

Holland grasped my shoulder. “Look.”

The tall, narrow tenements had been reduced to piles of rubble. The already uneven cobblestones were shattered. Bodies lay everywhere. Survivors scrambled up heaps of jagged stone. There were screams for help, pleas for the gods to bring aid, and among the chaos, a dark-haired woman robed in white stood in the cluttered roadway, cradling a limp babe against her chest. She hummed and smoothed her hand over a pale cheek.

I recognized her.

She was the Priestess I’d seen when I came to retrieve Norbert’s children, Nate and Ellie. The one who had said the age of the Golden King was over and that no Mierel sat on the throne.

And never would again.

The Priestess’s sorrow-filled gaze lifted, meeting mine.

My body jerked, and then we were suddenly in the Garden District, bells chiming. The air was thick with smoke, and the destruction was vast. Homes were leveled. Fires raged. Survivors rushed toward crushed hills of stone as pale, gaunt, black-robed Priests moved through the debris, ringing the death knell.

“Look,” Holland ordered. “Look at what has already happened to the people you were willing to die to protect.” His fingers dug into my shoulder. “Are you willing to exchange their lives for your Ezra? Are you willing to take their lives?” He turned me to the left.

A man and woman huddled on the ground, their arms around two small children. They were all wounded, smudged with dirt and blood, but they were alive, a family still intact.

“Them?” demanded Holland. “That is who will pay the price. Everyone who walks will.”

My chest cracked, somehow deeper and more unforgiving than before.

“And do you think those you bring back will not know the price that was paid?” His massive wings stirred the thick billow of smoke. “They have been dead long enough to know, just as many of the villagers were. They will return to see their family and friends dead in their place. Do you think they’d want that? Do you think those you’ve sentenced to that fate wanted that?”

My lungs burned when I dragged in a stuttered breath. My heart pounded as I stared at the family, the death knell continuing to ring.

I couldn’t do that to them.

And that made the pain unbearable.

I wrenched myself free of Holland’s grasp, trying to swallow, but it got stuck. I saw that he no longer looked like such an otherworldly being. His wings were gone, and his skin was no longer full of starlight. I recognized every inch of his features and saw sorrow in the kaleidoscope of colors in those eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at him.

I turned to the once beautiful garden. Men and women, children, and the elderly were strewn about, their necks broken and twisted at u

This was Kolis’s fault, but…

I couldn’t let myself finish that thought. I couldn’t. But I had to. Because Holland was right. Not only Kolis’s choices had led to this moment. Mine had, too.

Pressing my hands to my temples, my chest tightened.

So many lives had been lost.

So many.

What have you done?

What I’d done was right in front of me.

Oh, gods.

A shudder went through me, and I stumbled forward. My legs went out from under me. I didn’t hit the cracked streets. Instead, my knees pressed into damp soil as the weight of it all fell upon me. Each act of vengeance and retribution fell like the stones I had torn down and the mountains I had crumbled. I pitched forward, placing my hands on the grass.

Oh, gods.

Nightmarish images rose as I stared at the Blood Forest I had shadowstepped into. Toppled homes and burning forests. Deep crevices in streets and beneath homes and people’s feet. In my mind, I saw the Priestess cradling the small child—one whose life I might have inadvertently taken in anger. The hills alight with fire. The screams I’d heard after ending Embris.

They were the screams of the dying. Lives I had taken. Maybe not thousands, but hundreds. And that…oh, gods, that was just as bad. It was just as monstrous as what Kolis did.

What had I done?

My fingers dug into the clumps of grass, and I trembled. Kolis had acted.

And I had reacted.

I summoned the eather, and the power responded to my will, stretching out and wrapping itself around each blood tree. I destroyed them one by one, unable to bear the sight of what I’d done. I destroyed all but a small cluster that stood at the foot of what remained of the Undying Hills.

I focused on them, but the eather rolled off them. Nothing I did removed the twenty or so trees that remained. I tried until I was exhausted. My gaze swept over the now-barren fields before returning to the remaining blood trees. For some reason, I could still see them covering the landscape as if all those haunting trees would one day return.

I pressed my forehead against the tainted ground, dragging in air. It tasted of the ruin I had caused.

The line between acting in rightful justice and lashing out in wrathful vengeance was a fine one. Incredibly thin and so easy to cross. I needed no vadentia to know that. I’d always known that. But I hadn’t just crossed that line.

I’d destroyed it.

And had become a true monster in the process.

What rose then was just as choking as the rage. It, too, was an all-consuming tempest, and every heartbeat was an echo of ravenous sorrow.

I broke.

I rocked back, bloody hands fisting in my hair as I screamed. Tears coursed down my cheeks and fell from the sky. I screamed until I thought I might rip apart, until my voice gave out, and there was nothing.

I didn’t know how long I remained on my knees, arms limp at my sides. I heard and saw nothing until I registered someone calling my name over and over.

Hands grasped my arms, shaking me. “Sera!”

Numbly, I opened my eyes, expecting to see Holland, but it wasn’t him.

Attes was crouched in front of me, red soaking his hair and streaming down his face. “Sera? Can you hear me?” He squeezed my arms. “Do you understand me?”

“I…” I rasped hoarsely. “Look…at what I did.”

The Primal shook his head and swallowed thickly. “That doesn’t matter right now.”

How could he say that? My gaze drifted behind him to the crimson leaves.

“Look at me.” He caught my chin, forcing my gaze back to his. “I need you to focus on me and listen. If you don’t, there will be more death and destruction. Lotho needs a Primal, and only you can Ascend one. If you don’t do it and do it now, the essence will circle back, and there will be even more damage. You must stop this.”

The screams…

Those lost when Embris’s essence was released. I flinched, and Attes cursed. Their blood was on my hands.

“Sera,” Attes pleaded.

“I know,” I croaked.

Relief poured into his features, and he helped me stand. As the blood leaves swayed in the wind, we shadowstepped to Mount Lotho.