Page 103 of A War of Ruin and Reckoning

“Oh God.” Nova’s heart rattled in her chest. It didn’t look so frightening from a distance. “What is that?”

“The demogorgon. Used to be human,” Leaf grunted near her ear. “Your twin’s right-hand man before Maebh got her hands on him.”

A shadow rushed from the right. Leaf blocked with his sword, steel clashing with a serrated bone sword. Leaf lunged forward, driving his sword into something—Nova was yanked along with him. She couldn’t see anything beyond the immediate, but could hear the blade squishing into flesh and meeting bone. Next came a wet crunch, the gushing of blood, and a male grunt of bewilderment.

Leaf corrected their balance and pulled Nova to the foot of the litter. High above on the rickety platform, the fae queen and her six pretty monsters stared down at them. Leaf’s recent power blast had left their hair sticking up, their faces blotched as though windburned. But no other damage. Blood and viscera spattered the carved wooden litter and the orcs holding it up. With horror, Nova realized some were missing flesh. Bone and strips of tendon dangled from gaping holes in jaws. The litter rocked, unbalanced, as one orc collapsed dead on the ground.

Their spines suddenly snapped stiff, filling them with unnatural vigor until the litter righted. Maebh was too busy trying to hold herself in balance. What a powerful queen she must have become.

“Too busy to use magic,” Leaf mumbled, almost to himself. “Must have placed a compulsion geas on them a while back. Otherwise, they’d have fallen with that damage.”

“What are you all doing?” Maebh shrieked at her army. “Attack!”

The sounds of battle fired up again. Now steady on her feet, Maebh’s gaze landed on Nova’s face and did a double take.

Do it now,voices screamed in Nova’s mind.Share the memory or we kill her.

“Wh-what?” she muttered, wondering who said that, but then remembered the Six standing behind the queen. They stared at her with wide, inky eyes. “They want me to share the memory,” Nova repeated to Leaf, hardly able to hear herself over the screams of the dying.

Leaf’s breath was hot at her ear. “If they’re giving you an option, they must be still with us. Otherwise, they’d simply rip the memory from your mind.” He swung his fist, and two yards away, a trio of soldiers about to attack jerked with unseen magic. They continued to walk forward, straining against the power, but then Leaf shot a blast of water from his hand like a firehose. “Do it,” he rasped behind the cover of mist. “While you can still concentrate.”

Rallying her courage, Nova focused on the queen. She conjured the memory. Gripping Leaf’s forearm across her sternum, she closed her eyes and trusted her mate to keep her safe.

Then she relived the worst day of her life.

* * *

“I didwhat I always said I would do.” Nile’s emotionless eyes were at odds with his words. “I beat you. I’ll always beat you.”

“I didn’t realize we were competing,” Nova replied.

“We’ve competed since we were born.” His lip curled. “In the womb, for our parents’ love, at school, at friendship. You always seemed to win. But I’ve been playing the long game, Nova.”

Who was this man?

“You know…” He sighed as though this conversation bored him. “I came here to tie up loose ends. You’re the only one alive who knows everything. I thought you were my greatest chess opponent, but I see now that I’ve been playing with a pigeon. In hindsight, I overestimated you. Using you would have been easier than creating another biological energy source, but…” Another sigh. “Let’s just say things turned out for the better.”

He left the kitchen.

“Come back here and explain yourself,” she shouted. “Niles!”

But he strolled to the front door, passing the family pictures in the hall without stopping. He opened the front door, stepped into the rain, and looked at the coming storm as though the sun shone on his face.

“I always thought that name sounded weak,” he said, disgust oozing from his tone. “They gave you a beautiful, powerful name. Nova. Like a bursting star. I used to obsess over it. Why? Why would they stack the odds against me? Then I realized… the other side of a supernova is the black hole it creates in its wake—the Void.”

He slid his dark gaze to Nova and stared until she shuddered, as though a film of evil had lowered itself on her heart. She narrowed her eyes at him, at the feeling bouncing between them. They’d always had a twin connection, always had a sense of what the other was feeling or where they were. But this evil—this was new.

No… not new. Just unhidden.

There was no joke in his eyes. No humor. This was the real Niles, and he was right. She may have been a pigeon knocking over his chess pieces, not even understanding the game they’d played. But she’d always had the sense he was up to no good. She should have trusted her instincts. Should have been brave enough to call him out.

She lifted her chin and said, “Mama and Papa would be ashamed of this man you have become.”

“Lucky then, isn’t it?” His gaze turned cruel. “Lucky they both died at the same time.”

The screen door clanged as he walked away, and his expensive loafers slapped through puddles on the stone porch. With her heart in her throat, she chased after him. Furious.

She had no idea what to say, but it wasn’t her logic driving her. Emotion and fury pushed her forward, her hand on the door, her feet outside, and into the rain.

---