Page 59 of Scourged

Andrian cocked his head to the side—a small, child-like movement. “I’ve seen your eyes before, and I think about them more than I think about anything else. I see them in my dreams. They haunt my nightmares.” His eyes flickered. “Are you a demon? Or a goddess?” he finished in a whisper.

Mariah’s heart thundered against her ribs. He sat deathly still as she moved even closer to him. Lifted a leg, settling it on the side of his. Lowered herself onto his lap.

His skin was hot and feverish against her, despite the chill of the night air. A line of sweat dampened his brow. She leaned in, forehead pressing against his, his heat consuming her ever-present chill as their noses brushed.

“I am neither,” she whispered against his skin. “I am your retribution.”

Shadows flickered across his face, dulling the manic brightness in his eyes. Shadows that made her heart race in excitement and soar with the idea of hope.

She knew those shadows. Shewelcomedthose shadows. They called to her magic, as much as the day called to the night and the darkness called to the light.

The threads in her soul leapt and twined through her blood. Mariah sank herself into it, wrapping herself around as many of them as she could muster. Both silver and gold answered her, spinning together in a glorious maelstrom of light and power.

She clenched her left hand tightly around the blade of her knife, hardly registering the faint sting as the steel cut her skin. Blood welling to the surface, she loosened her grip, switching the knife to her right hand, swinging it up around her body. Theblade glinted with the ruby droplets of her blood as she lowered it to his still-healing chest, to the line bisecting her dragon-shaped Mark, maw roaring and devouring.

Andrian’s eyes blinked with shock, clarity winning for a moment. He looked at her—intoher—then down to his chest.

When he returned his stare to hers, something new shone there.

Determination. Devotion.

Love.

He nodded to her, and that was all she needed.

Mariah sliced her simple paring knife through his Mark.

When she slammed her bleeding palm to his chest, when her blood laced with silver and gold light met his, the earth beneath their feet trembled and quaked.

Chapter 23

Mariah was falling.

Light and shadows flashed around her. She was nothing more than a mass of brilliant, burning light, both as cold as death and hot as life. She screamed into the void, but there was no one there to hear her.

Until something rose out from that void. Or perhaps they broke from her shoulder blades, something huge and solid and blindingly bright. She couldn’t be sure, but she felt her descent halting, her wild path through the darkness pulled short.

Spindles of silver and gold had spread from her being, winding together as they formed something solid beneath her. She alighted atop the shimmering surface, moving across it as it spanned the cavernous space.

Somewhere in this void, she felt other bridges. All made of silver or gold and other colors, all reigniting after being dormant for far too long. A part of her, a part she’d forgotten and neglected, leaped in joy. Fear and happiness and anger and elation slammed into her from those bridges, and for a moment they wrapped around her, all six making her soul leap and dance in splendid exaltation.

She knew what it meant that those six consciousnesses now brushed against her own. But she couldn’t dwell on it for long; bliss permeated her being for a moment longer before she closed those connections, sending back her own feelings of happiness and hope.

Mariah’s attention refocused on the bridge being built beneath her. The silver and gold threads of magic wove together until they were one, all but indistinguishable from each other. It was so bright—brighter than the others had been—and with each weave, she felt the tugs of fate burning brighter. She welcomed it, reveled in it. Fighting this destiny had forced her into darkness, wallowing in her weakness.

Not now. No more.

She progressed across the forming bridge, fixing her stare on the void beyond. Excitement raced through her like a million torches, lighting her soul ablaze.

Until the bridge stopped forming, and nothing was there to greet her.

Only a mass of writhing, twisted darkness.

She reached a piece of herself toward the void and instantly recoiled. This wasn’t something she knew.

This was something malignant and filled with festering hate, a dark tumor infecting the mind of the one whom she loved.

Somewhere, in a decadent moonlit garden on a different plane of existence, she bared her teeth in a snarl.

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