Stupid corridors.
I ran faster through the dark, stumbling and desperate. Panicky.
If only I could find them.
A bone-chilling bear’s roar echoed louder than before.
Shadows stretched and contorted around me as the silence smothered.
I was losing my mind.
Without sunlight, I couldn’t tell if we’d been fighting for hours or days. The compound housed thousands of people, and the battle felt never-ending. It didn’t help that almost every infected was armed.
I was lost in a sprawling compound filled with trained warriors.
A mecca of ungodly.
My foot cramped in my boot as I turned another corner, arches burning as I searched desperately for a door out of the maze.
I slipped again but kept my eyes straight ahead as I pretended not to see the streaks of gore in my peripheral vision.
The corridor was gleaming in cobalt ice.
I was losing control.
Walls and floors melded as my vision blurred. Everything was spinning.
I was losing my mind.
I turned down another dark corridor, then skidded to a stop, then doubled back—it was the outline of another hidden door.
Tightening my core, I kicked and prayed it was an entrance to the main battle where I’d lost my teammates. I prayed the men were inside.
Wood splintered, and it whipped open.
I was wrong.
An infected woman screamed and swung a sword at my face.
My reflexes were the only thing that saved me as I brandished my stolen weapon.
My stomach sank as I took in the cramped dark bedroom.
Sparks flew as steel banged together, and I towered above my foe, taller and stronger. I easily overpowered the infected and pushed my sword closer to her neck.
Her features glowed in the blue light of our enchanted swords.
Innocent eyes were wide with fear. “Why?” the woman whispered brokenly.
A screaming sound started in my head.
My vision wavered.
There was a scraping sound, and I whirled my head to the right to find more women hiding behind her. They were unarmed.
My mind fractured.
“I-I,” I said uselessly, my voice hoarse from hours of exertion. It didn’t matter anyway; there was nothing I could say.
My limbs went numb.
I drowned on air. It felt like I’d plunged into a lake and it had frozen, crushing my organs.
Jinx said inside my head, “Calm yourself, they are already…” Her voice warbled and disappeared.
The woman pressed her glowing sword back toward my neck, and I couldn’t find the strength to resist. I hunched low so we were at eye level.
Her sword hovered inches from my face, sizzling with the blue enchantment that sliced through bone like butter.
She pushed me backward across the room.
I was powerless to stop her.
Time warped.
The dark room and glowing blue swords faded into shades of morbid gray as a hush descended over the world and blanketed me in stillness.
Outside in the hall, a familiar male voice shouted, but it was an indiscernible garble.
The woman said something, but I couldn’t hear.
I was lost.
In the haze.
The woman must have realized I wasn’t fighting, because suddenly she pulled her sword back and thrust it forward.
The descent happened in slow motion. Millions of seconds of possibilities and avenues of action unfolded before me.
I was emotionless.
Unfeeling.
The haze took everything.
I was numb.
In my imagination, I raised my sword and gutted my attacker before she could land a blow, and then I killed the ungodly as it ripped from her flesh. I killed everyone in the room.
In reality, I didn’t move.
“You’ll always be weak,” Mother said as I screamed on the palace floor. “You’ll never amount to anything. You’ll never be like me.”
A towering shadow burst into the room and watched as the steel sliced through my skin, and relief filled my lungs.
Silver eyes glowed through a black hood.
I didn’t know if not killing her made me good or evil; all I knew was it made me feel less like Mother.
In slow motion—I crumbled toward the ground.
Terrible agony screamed along my neurons, and my eyes watered as I crashed to the stone floor. It echoed like it was hollow. It was warm. I was glacial.
If I were anything less than the reigning Queen of the Fae, I would have blacked out.
I stayed awake.
It had all happened in a split second—and Malum had seen it all.
Four other men burst into the room behind him, but they were too late.
Only he knew.
The woman backed up, her green-tinted eyes widened with fear, and she opened her mouth.
She exploded in scarlet flames. Then, so did everyone else in the room.
Mouths open, they writhed helplessly against merciless flames.
Paralyzed with pain, I could do nothing but watch in horror as they boiled to death.
Ungodly ripped from the flaming flesh of innocents and towered to the rafters. Pincers clacked as their six arms attacked.
Fire danced across their patches of exoskeleton harmlessly.
Five men stalked toward them.
Enchanted swords swung in a glowing blur as they carved the ungodly to pieces—the tallest shadow ripped their heads off with his bare hands as flames shot from his fingertips.
I choked on copper as it dribbled out my mouth, and everything spun faster.
Psychogenic dissonance devoured me.
I spat up blood.
Someone bellowed, and shadows fell to their knees around me.
Everything whirled.
Head lolled back like a corpse, I could do nothing but hang helplessly as the shadow who tore the ungodly’s heads off carried me against his chest through the maze of halls.
I closed my eyes.
Time twisted.
Chilly air slapped against my skin, and I opened my eyes to see the dark sky.
Malum ripped off his black hood, flames leaping off his head.
I thought I’d seen him angry.
I hadn’t.
Molten silver eyes flashed with so much rage I could feel it radiating in waves as Malum snarled inches from my face, “I’m going to kill you for this.”
So much for hoping he hadn’t realized what he’d seen.
He was fully aware that I’d made a choice.
Watery blood dripped from my eyes as the corner of my lips curled upward in a mocking smirk.
Who was going to tell him?
I was already dead.
Chapter 10
Orion
FATE
Orphic (adjective): fascinating, entrancing.
DAY 2, HOUR 20
“Where is she?” I screamed to my mates as we dodged the razor-sharp pincers of an ungodly as we fought in the melee.
Petals drifted across my neck.
I was seconds from losing control.
For the last forty hours, we’d slaughtered every infected we’d come across. Thousands of them.
We were thorough.
Unrelenting.
Exacting.
When there were less than a hundred infected left, we’d chased them through the halls and they’d fled into an expansive room.
The last stronghold.
It appeared to be the compound’s living space because there were four stone fireplaces and excessive furniture.
Now smoke filled the windowless space. Velvet chairs and sofas were broken into pieces and scattered about.