Page 143 of This Monster of Mine

His features turned ugly. “Tullus,” he hissed. “You have some explaining to do.”

She was going to die.

Tullus had beaten her before trying to strip her. Then he had beaten her some more when she’d resisted. And now Aelius was going to throw her off Sidran Tower.

The monstrous gods had stayed quiet.

Tullus dragged her onto the balcony. Her body wove a path through fragments of the vase he’d smashed over her head.

“You’re disgusting,” she whispered to Aelius with the last of her strength. “You think you’re clever. But someone will notice. They’ll wonder why I died.”

He didn’t care.

She drifted in and out of consciousness in brief bursts, struggling as she did. Tullus swore when she elbowed his side. He kicked her feet out from under her, plowing her head into the ground. Her vision blurred, growing dark with each slam.

“Useless bitch,” he snarled.

Dazed, she raked her nails into his face when he bent over her. He manacled her wrists in a grip of steel and delivered a final, resounding blow to her face. Blood filled her mouth, along with shards of her teeth.

“What a shame.” Aelius eyed her dispassionately. “This is what happens when you aspire too high above your station, Sera. You fall.”

Sarai wanted to scream that she’d only wanted to study, but her mouth was in too much pain. Blood dripped into her eyes, tinting her vision crimson.

“I’m going to enjoy this show.” Tullus slit her palm with a blade, and her hand burned as skin parted. Dipping the fingers of her other hand in the blood, he drew a rune she didn’t recognize. “Where’s that pet of yours, Aelius? What’ll you say when she comes looking for her little friend?”

Through the veil of red coating her vision, she saw Aelius shrug. “I sent her off earlier. By the way, I invited Kadra tonight. Bastard’s late. But if he does show, he’ll be just in time for a good framing.”

For some reason, Tullus and Aelius found that hilarious. They maneuvered her body, puppeteering her to draw rune after rune.

Something twisted in her chest as they finished the first few, the limbs of her body growing taut, fighting as an invisible force began to pull the life from her.What are they doing to me?

“You …” Her voice was little more than a croak. “The gods will burn you for this.”

Tullus cuffed her ear hard, slamming her head against the balcony’s railing.

“The gods sanction everything we do,” he said. “Or they would have stopped us.”

A deep rumble sounded in the distance.

Aelius frowned. “Hurry with the Summoning. The storm’s almost here.”

Her blood ran cold. Blinding white split the sky, followed by another drumroll of sound. Tullus drew the last rune.Modrai. This one she recognized.

“And here we are, Sera,” Aelius mused. “If there’s a life after this one, ask them to make you a little less foolish.”

Sarai, she thought as magic drained from her.My name is Sarai.

The two men hurried back inside, leaving her lying in a mess of blood.

A heartbeat. The spatter of a raindrop on her cheek. Then, a pale blue fire roared to life around her. An agony unlike anything she’d ever experienced burned through every limb. Her mouth fell open in a scream to the storm-laden sky as an invisible force reached through her ribs to wrench at the weak heart beating beneath.

Rain lashed her face, stole her pleas. She rose above the balcony, above the tower, a marionette to invisible forces. Pressure squeezed her head in a vise until rich iron choked her throat, and she couldn’t even scream anymore.

Help me!she pleaded to the Elsar, to anyone.Please make it stop!

And, suddenly, it did. Charged air thrummed in her ears as she hovered, a speck above Sidran Tower.

Then, she fell.

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