Page 102 of Shadowlands Omega

I leave the Riders to die. I am nothing but loose marbles rattling within a glass cage. I am shattered. I am rage.

I kill a dozen undead on my way out, release a horse and chase it down the highway line with my own horse neighing at my heels, a flock of white birds clawing at the skies above me. I don’t care for them. I care for nothing but the one thing.

Kiandah, I am coming.

28 | Kiandah

Cliffs of Oblivion

What really happened

The winds are ice-cold and filter in through the burn holes in my dress, my hair and eyelashes freshly charred.Not that that matters. I’m probably going to die here.

Definitely going to die here.

All because I did something else stupid.

I glance at the little girl standing above me as I kneel in the center of the cluster of Omegas. There are three on my right-hand side, the little girl I once knew as and believed to be Margarite, included. When I was brought here, she gave me a wink and a wave before shivering into a different woman’s body. It was alarming and disorienting to watch, and ultimately disappointing, because it made me realize how easily I’d been played. I should have waited. I shouldn’t have panicked. I should have known that my sisters can handle themselves. Owenna, for example, seems right at home here.I was right about her, too. Once a traitor, always a traitor.

My oldest sister is among the two dozen people here working under Merlin’s direction, moving objects back and forth, clearing a space and setting rigging to presumably pull something up from the thrashing waters below. A boat? A getaway vessel? I’m not sure why they would need to bring it up, given the treacherous staircase carved into the side of the mountain that they could take down to it.

It’s no wonder Yaron’s people weren’t able to find Trash City — they were hiding, not below the Cliffs of Oblivion, not on them, butinsideof them, in caves that no one in their right mind would have dared explore, connected to sea and surface by a staircase that no one in their right mind should take. But I suppose they aren’t in their right minds, are they? Owenna. Madame Zenobia. Merlin. The Fates.

Bastards.

I glare at Merlin, who sits atop a rock to my left eating an apple like she hasn’t got a care in the world. On her other side, Sipho hangs from a pole they’ve erected, covered in what look disturbingly like bite marks dripping in black venom rather than blood. He’s not fully conscious, though occasionally his face flashes with pain.

Between Merlin and me, a woman kneels in chains. She’s got her eyes closed, though she doesn’t seem quite like she’s sleeping. It’s almost like she’s meditating. If she is, I don’t blame her. It can’t be fun to be that viciously restrained. If she’s at all claustrophobic, it would have to be unbearable. I feel sorry for the woman and wonder what twisted turn of events brought her to this miserable state among these wretched people on this windy hill.

Merlin must be a mind reader because at that moment, she says, “Don’t feel bad for the little lady. She’s the single most dangerous person in Gatamora. Creates all the undead Alphas your family got in so much trouble for helping her out with and could killyouwith the brush of her fingertips.” She waggles hers and a puff of orange fire blasts in her direction, knocking the apple from her other hand and her whole body from its wobbly perch.

“Silence,” Odette barks. She is the Fire Fate. Sy is the Mind Fate. Omora is the Beast Fate — names that I’ve only heard in whispers before today. Now, I hear these females responsible for so much death solidifying all that gossip into truth as they plot the destruction of my home and everyone I’ve ever known. “Ready the cage.”

Merlin dusts herself off, running her fingers through her blonde bangs, which are singed at the tips. She tosses Odette a dirty look but trudges off, past the Omega lying on the ground, who she kicks a tuft of moss at. I hate her a little more than I did for that.

As Merlin starts barking orders, the Fates chatter among themselves. They aren’t trying to whisper. I don’t suppose my overhearing their plans matters. “So you did find her, Omora?” Odette says to the Beast Fate, a very pale white woman with black hair that has streaks of white interspersed through it. She looks like she’s been through hell. She has bright red abrasions and scratches all over her arms, neck, chest and the two feet of her long legs that are visible beneath the hem of her simple black dress.

She looks nervous as she says, “I had her at the ports. She attacked me on my way here, and I…I lost her.”

Odette hisses, “You are a fucking disgrace. Adoqhina is stronger than that bonded bitch in Dark City. I aminfinitelystronger than the Fallen imbecile who walked right into our trap,” she gestures dismissively at me. “And Sy’s Fallen Omega has yet to be discovered and may already be dead. But you…you arenothingcompared to Freya and if you don’t figure out how to best her, then I will not stop Adoqhina the next time we suggest replacing…”

Omora slaps Odette across the face in retaliation. “Do not threaten me. The venom and the claws and the reason our undead army is so deadly, even to Berserkers, is thanks to me…”

“Enough. We don’t have time for your petty squabbles,” Sy says, her voice hard, her smile grim as it falls to me, looking absolutely nothing like the little girl she once did. Now, her pin-straight black hair hangs long and clean and untangled to her waist. Her monolid eyes shimmer when I look into them, making it impossible for me to tell their color. Her skin is pale, though not as pale as Omora’s. Her soul is just as dark though, her smile just as chilling.

Sy’s gaze snaps back to her sisters. “If Freya is gone, then good. We should act now before she returns. It was enough of an inconvenience having her harass us all the way across Zaoul.”

“Good thing she cares little for Betas and even less for Alphas, otherwise she might have made toppling Ruby City more difficult,” Odette suggests.

“She cares only for her precious little pets. Hopefully that means she won’t care what we do with this one.” Omora points offhandedly at me.

“If we hadn’t turned so many in the beginning,” Sy says, approaching the bound woman while pulling on a pair of black leather gloves. She pulls at the heavy chain dragging over the ground and the woman stirs. “Maybe we’d have been able to convince her to our side.”

“We’d have been even more powerful, then,” Odette mumbles, eyes growing distant. I wonder what fantasy she has conjured up in her mind. A world of undead. A Gatamora newly forged as a realm of witches and monsters.

With a single flick of Sy’s wrist, the chains fall to the ground with a loud clang and the once bound woman rises to stand. Sy holds up her hands, then winces. She approaches the female very carefully and rattles the thick length of chain. No longer draped in it, I see that the shackle is actually around the woman’s ankle. She’s not free, only unbound and capable of moving her arms and legs now.

“Are you alright, sister?” Odette says to Sy. The Fates are quite still as they watch the sleepwalking woman.

---