Page 92 of Of Blood & Stone

He smiled. “A side effect I hadn’t taken into consideration until I learned what you and this ruffian had done in the healing pool. But it’s no matter, considering I’ve made sure no one will ever defect again. Not your parents, not any other Estean—not even you.”

“What have you done to my parents?” Sylzenya shouted, despair lacing through her bones like a thorny vine, piercing her insides.

Westley yanked Sylzenya back, her cut blooming with pain.

“Your parents are fine,” the High One replied, “Just enjoying their lives in the dungeons, drinking wine so they don’t become parched. Surprisingly, it was your mother who held out the longest; almost died until your father convinced her to drink it.”

Angry tears fell from her eyes. Her fatherhadn’tbetrayed her at the Kreena Rite… he’d tried to save her.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded, hating how tears streamed down her face.

“You figured out the wine, found the compass, but don’t know the answer to your question?” He smiled.

It was as if the earth had tilted: trees planted into clouds and growing from the sky, rain rising from the ground and soaking into the leaves, fire cold as ice burning along her arms.

“That’s impossible,” she whispered.

“And what might that be?”

“You don’t worship Distrathrus,” she argued, “You worship Aretta. You’ve erected statues of her everywhere. You had me create willows in her name throughout the gardens.”

“A rather clever facade, isn’t it? Hiding behind the deity everyone’s sworn they love to no end; their creator whom they’d die for if asked.” He tilted his head. “But still, you’re missing a rather important detail.”

“I don’t understand,” she choked, voice breaking.

“Can youreallynot figure it out?” He approached her, leaning in close, his cold hand brushing her cheek. “My sister protected you violent creatures, making excuses for your spears, your anger, your need to dominate. My creation was blamed for it all when it was humans who made the first kill. And then she cursed me into one of your own filthy, weak, powerless bodies to try and contain me, leashing this pound of flesh to this forsaken kingdom’s soil.” He gripped her jaw tight, Sylzenya’s skin ripping beneath his icy touch. “Humans poisoned my sister’s mind, turning her against me. I mean to end your race’s reign once and for all.”

“No… ” She faltered, the reality too absurd, his words nothing she could’ve ever imagined. “You can’t be…”

“Distrathrus.” He smiled. “In the flesh.”

Acid rose in her throat as the world continued to tilt, turning and spinning and spiraling out of control. This had to be a nightmare, nothing more. And yet, his familiar yellow gaze no longer spoke of comfort, but of insanity.

“But you…” She forced bile down her throat. “You’ve been like a father to me. You can’t be…”

His eyes flared, a thin silence hanging in the air. “And you’ve been the closest thing to a daughter I’ve ever known.”

Squeezing her eyes tight, she choked on her tears, despising how weak she’d become. How utterly small and helpless.

How much of a fool she’d been this entire time.

“Enough tears. It’s time you regain your power, for I have need of it,” he said.

She seethed, lifting her head and gritting her teeth. “I won’t become your puppet.”

“You talk as if you haven’t been one this whole time.”

The High One—Distrathrus—approached Elnok. He placed a long, thin finger underneath Elnok’s chin, forcing his eyes up, “I was a fool to let her run around with the likes of you: humanwaste from the streets. You thought she could be yours, but you knew from the moment we met she would always be mine. ”

Kharis grabbed Elnok’s hair and pulled up. Elnok winced; his black tunic, almost ripped in half, revealed the bright red bruises on his chest. Sylzenya wanted to reach forward and cover them, bathe them in salve and whisper soothing words into his ear until the pain in his face disappeared.

“She belongs to no one,” Elnok seethed.

Distrathrus clenched Elnok’s face, “Don’t tell me you actually… care for the woman?”

“I don’t give a fuck what you do to me, just let her go.”

Distrathrus laughed. The dark scratching sound echoed in the grove. He gripped Elnok’s face so hard Sylzenya thought he might crack his jaw.

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