Page 107 of A War of Ruin and Reckoning

Nero wanted to laugh. For all his talk about fate forgetting him, here was another example of a gift. He’d emptied one biological mana source in his daughter, but another had walked in. Nova was Well-blessed. She would keep him young and powerful for eons to come.

“Fuck you,” Willow spat, her eyes flashing.

Her betrothed captain gasped like a schoolboy. “Willow!”

“I’m not killing them,” she said to him, her voice softer, proving she had feelings for him. Good. Feelings were easily manipulated.

Nero nodded to the Reapers waiting for his command.

A masked, tall one fisted Willow’s hair and shoved her toward the gangplank, where the rope ladder unfurled and dropped below. Nero gestured to the other Reapers, who trained their guns on Aurora.

“Why are you pointing your guns at me?” she asked, cocking her head. To his daughter’s credit, despite the fog in her mind from his copious treatments over the years, she looked as sharp as a tack now. And deadly. Unlike these fools, she’d had decades, if not centuries, to hone her craft as a Reaper. The taint had made it difficult to maintain the level of compulsion he needed for her to stop asking questions over the past decade. She’d been remembering things she shouldn’t, and it was precisely why she’d outlived her usefulness to him.

“Because if the halfling doesn’t do as she’s told,” Nero explained, “you’re dead.”

“You wouldn’t.” Aurora’s gaze narrowed on him. She was dressed in all-black military fatigues and was missing the copper epaulets stating her rank. Copper was a precious resource. He’d thought ahead to ensure she left them behind. But the captain’s participation was newly improvised. Nero ripped off the gold decorating his shoulders. No use in it going to waste.

“Ensure she does her job, and I’ll return these.”

It was remarkable how lies flowed off his tongue these days.

“Don’t worry about me,” Aurora told Willow as the Reaper shoved them toward the ladder.

The captain was already over the edge and dangling a few rungs down. Willow was next, but her wide eyes sought Aurora’s as she resisted the Reaper.

“For fuck’s sake,” Nero muttered. He had to do everything himself.

He grabbed the knot at his daughter’s nape and pushed her to the gangplank. She gripped Nero’s wrists to stop him from scalping her.

Cruel pride swelled in his chest. His daughter was a magnificent specimen of his DNA, even aging as she was. She still had all the strength and fortitude he possessed, and he took a moment to appraise her. That fire in her eyes was finally back. He pulled so hard on her hair that strands plucked from her scalp, yet one wouldn’t know she was in pain if not for her pupils contracting.

This kind of resilience was a talent. Most people crumbled.

She couldn’t complain he’d never given her anything.

For a moment, something in her honey-colored gaze gave him pause. It caused the tiny hairs on his neck to stand upright. The prickling sensation crawled along his skin, down his spine, and along his arms.Danger, his instincts screamed.

Unlike him, she’d awoken from their frozen sleep with a natural capacity for magical energy. But he’d known that would happen. He’d planned for it. He’d built a cult around it—the same ones who quarantined themselves in the Crystal City bunkers. They’d been there ready and waiting when it was time for Nero and Aurora to thaw, arms wide in welcome.

“Do as you’re told,” he said to her, bleeding compulsion into his voice. The air between them vibrated, and the emptiness returned in her eyes.

She let go of his wrists and then went over the ladder’s edge after Willow. Three Reapers descended after them. While they dangled on the long rope, the airship continued to a lower altitude.

As they neared the ground, Nero sucked in a breath. A tremor in his body remained. He couldn’t get that look in his daughter’s eyes out of his mind. That unnamedthinghe’d seen when she held his stare. Frowning, he pointed at the Reapers remaining. Each had a sniper rifle ready, their bodies all flattened on the deck, aiming through the scuppers.

He rubbed his wrists to ease the burn from where she’d gripped him. Surprise sliced through him as his fingers slid over his left wrist—hisbareleft wrist. The portal device was gone. He rushed to the gunwale as the ladder reached a patch of dirt in the center of the battlefield. War-weary soldiers had retreated to their sides but watched their leaders over the field of littered corpses. No one had noticed the lowering airship yet.

A warning shout carried across the field.

Well, now they’d noticed.

Nero’s lips curved as Alfred and Willow jumped off the rope. The three Reapers were next. Before she joined them, Aurora lifted her face and sought Nero out. When their eyes met, he found the compulsion had regrettably worn off. He finally recognized that unnamedthinglurking in her eyes—payback.

ChapterForty-Eight

More airships appeared above the first, blobs of shadow against the purple sky. They’d been up there all this time, collecting mana like vultures picking at carrion. Silver had warned this would happen, as did Trix. And the Order had been prepared, but no one reported airships, and now Leaf knew why. They’d flown to an altitude the Well couldn’t reach.

Clever.

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