Page 114 of Of Nine So Bold

My eyes darted over the cavern. Up ahead, the darkness had stabilized again, becoming as still as a black pool.

And my men weren’t the only ones staring at me.

I wetted my lips, trying to regroup. I had no idea what just happened or if that voice in the darkness was trustworthy.

But everything in me swore I knew whoshewas.

“We need to go,” I said. “Now.”

29

MELISANDRE

Ahush lay over the city.

Over the entire land.

The lords had returned to their cities, and steadily, they brought their people under my control. Valeria was in the tunnels now with the rest of my servants, awaiting the next stage of my plans.

And Gwyneira remained in her trap.

“All is right with your world, is it, pet?” Alaric asked from the soot-smeared reflection of a broken windowpane.

I smiled. Let him jab all he liked with silly little comments. I’d accomplished more than he could imagine.

And I was hardly done yet.

Still smiling, I strolled along the silent streets of Lumilia, listening to the frightened heartbeats of the few citizens who remained in its walls. Most of the populace were my servants now, either by being bitten or by doing the biting themselves with apples. Only a few holdouts still hid from me, caught up in the laughable illusion they could escape my plans. Meanwhile, those who resisted were dwindling daily, through surrender to the inevitable or because they lay dead in the pits outside the city.

When the wind was right, the scent of their decay was like the finest perfume.

“This death and destruction is hardly sufficient proof of your victory,” Alaric commented from the reflection of a puddle.

What did he know anyway? The Voidborn wererevelingin this. I could feel it. Destruction had always been their goal, but in every instance before, it had taken the form of annihilation. The complete eradication of a land, a world, an entire realm with nothing left behind, not even a blade of grass or the breath of a breeze.

They’d never taken the time to savor every stage of it the way they did now.

“Your vision is solimited, pet.”

I spun, glaring at a fallen metal shield. “Oryoursis.”

The metal was pockmarked and smeared with soot, but still those smears shifted like his smirking face lurked behind the grime. “I’ve watched entire realities die. You’ve seen a merecityburn.”

Seething, I turned away. A flash of a pale and frightened face caught the corner of my eye. The woman tried to run before I could see her.

As if the patter of her frightened heartbeat wouldn’t give her path away.

I strode after her, a grin tugging at my lip for the thrill of this little chase.

“It doesn’t have to end here,” the bastard continued, his voice tracking me from fragments of glass and metal debris. “My power is in you. Do you have any idea what you could accomplish? How many realms you could rule?”

I slowed. The woman’s heartbeat faded as she ran down an alleyway.

No matter. I’d send the Voidborn or my servants after her later.

“Rule?” I repeated carefully.

“You know what to do, pet. You’re already almost there.”

---