Page 155 of An Empress of Fire & Steel

Callyn.

Her Cally.

A sob broke from her throat, but it wasn’t one of sorrow or grief, it was one of cold, hard fury.

The Supreme ignored her and continued. “Enough about dead witches. Your mother made a mistake in telling me her deepest, darkest secret. She told me a tale of your father that I didn’t think was true until she sacrificed her name and coven to keep you alive and away from him. She had managed to keep you a secret for a while, until he found you. Your mother really picked the worst of the worst to open her legs for.”

Emara could hear the horrible smile on the Supreme’s face.

Tears streamed from her eyes as she tried to breathe, her gut churning so much that she might actually vomit. The Supreme had caught her hook, line, and sinker. No one had offered answers to her father, not even the library in Huntswood.

No one until now.

And even if she could feel the darkness set in around her heart, she knew she was about to explore her deepest fears.

“Why did she want me away from my father?” Emara asked, unable to help herself.

“Because he didn’t belong to this world.”

Oh Gods.

Emara’s skin turned inside out as the Supreme spoke. “He is of the underworld.”

And there it was. The darkest piece of her family puzzle.

Her father.

“Don’t lie to me,” Emara screeched, dragging a pain down her throat.

“Oh, darling, I am not lying to you,” the Supreme goaded as the wind battered against Emara’s face, the flames from the candles growing darker and taller. “Your father is Balan, the newest King of the Underworld.”

Emara’s cries stole away her breath as darkness gripped at her heart. Her restrained magic dying, scratching, and clawing to get out.

“No, no, no…” Tears blurred her vision.

Balan. The newest King of the Underworld. Where had she heard that before?

Maybe if her heart wasn’t breaking, she could focus and reclaim the information of how she knew it.

Newest King of the Underworld.

“There is no truth in that.” Emara pleaded with the Gods to give her a sign that it was not true.

Anything. Please. Rhiannon, please.

“And now that you are awake, we are about to create a portal to the underworld so that I can fulfil my end of the little trade deal we have with our king. I hand you over to him, in the nine realms of hell, and I receive immortality. It should have been simpler than it was, really, but that’s what happens when you get a man to do a woman’s job. Nevertheless, we got there in the end. I really should be thanking you for killing Taymir and tying up my loose ends.”

“No!” A heavy strain pulled in Emara’s chest. “It’s not true.”

“It is very true.” The Supreme started circling around as a rattling began. Emara looked over at her, fighting the force of the wind in her lungs and face, and saw that the Supreme had a cylinder full of crushed bones and stones. Only dark magic knew what that awful concoction it was. As the rattling commenced and the unnatural power in the room started to build, Deleine asked, “Are you ready to meet your father?”

Uncontrollable fear and confusion immobilised Emara.

She was going to be taken to the underworld. To Balan or to Veles. She couldn’t comprehend it.

The magic suppressed in Emara’s body was responding to the sounds of the rattle as the kingdom’s most powerful witch meddled with the darkness, its vibrations stirring and writhing, but it was unable to break free from the chain around her neck.

“Demons of high birth walk through this kingdom every day, undetected, all in the efforts to be the eyes in this world for Veles, our Dark God. Your mother fell for the charms of the most infamous knight of the underworld there has ever been.” Deleine’s voice turned acidic again. “Forget about what the hunters think or what they have told you; demons are not always bloodthirsty creatures who want to devour everything they see. Some are extremely powerful and restrained, like a warrior of the darkness should be. Your father is one of them.” She paused, taking a breath, and the thickness of the air magnified. “Balan seduced your mother. And like a lamb to the slaughter, she fell for it. She fell hard and fast. Poor Sereia, clearly so desperate for love that she would have taken anyone…” The Supreme shook her enchanted rattle.

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