Page 33 of A Vow of Wrath and Ruin

She covered her mouth, squeezing her eyes tight. A tiny tremble shook her ghostly body. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have even noticed.

“If Crom is allowed back into this world, you will never know joy again. You will only know pain. Babies will be born to be sacrificed. He will blot out the sun and make it rain brimstone. Nothing will grow. Everything will die.”

“Why does he hate this world so much?”

“Crom was an orphan—shunned from his village due to his magic. People thought differently back then about magic. It was seen as a curse rather than a blessing among some humans or whatever they were called back then. They sent Crom into the wild. Into the desert, where he earned a following in the fighting Rasa pits. Eventually, he became their king. The only king they’d ever have. Crom used them to spread his influence, conquering other tribes until he made his way out of the desert back to his homeland.”

“I thought he was half elf and half sylph?”

She shrugged. “He could have been. His history has turned to myth in the millennium since his reign. Even my memory is cloudy.”

I swallowed the dread pooling in my stomach.

“So, these kingdoms he won favor with… he slaughtered them, didn’t he?”

“That was the first time I heard a whisper of his name. He gave the desert back to the Rasa and took his place on the SkullThrone of his home tribe. By then, no one recognized him, and he became a god to the people who once shunned him.”

The hair on my arms pricked at her words.

“And then?”

She picked up one of my cigarettes and held it to her pale lips, lighting it on the nearest candle.

“And then it went as most things go. They start small, like a pebble in a hoof that festers and lames the horse.” Smoke billowed from her mouth. “He was smart about it, banding together those the gods left behind. People with nothing to lose make the best zealots. Gods like Eoghan—the Alder King and I didn’t think much of it. The desert had been returned to the Rasa. What did we care if a few rogue clans banded together?”

“But it wasn’t just a few rogue clans, was it?” A question I already knew the answer to.

She shook her head. “No, he spread his roots deep, turning the mages to his cause. Things went downhill quickly once he got his claws in them. He used them to glamour his armies to feel no fear or pain.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said, lighting a cigarette of my own and letting the smoke fizzle in my lungs. “When did he become obsessed with the origins of magic?”

She gave me a coy look. “That is the natural order of things, isn’t it? Once you get a taste of power, it’ll never be enough. Crom thought if he could find the Trinity’s rumored Wells, he could become them. And he almost succeeded. Until the sylph, humans, and elves banded together to take him on.”

“So now Erissa’s got a new plaything in Gideon.”

“He does seem to fit the bill. Handsome, arrogant, brutal.”

I ashed my cigarette on the glass tray. “What I can’t figure out, is her end game. Is she trying to resurrect Crom or recreate him?”

The Morrigan nodded. “Could be either. Could be neither. Erissa is a deep thinker. She’s been planning this for centuries. She won’t go down easily. And if I were you, I’d watch my back. I have no doubt she’s hired someone to take you out.”

“Let her try,” I said, putting out my cigarette.

Baylis was still asleep when I entered the healer’s chambers.

“I don’t think she’s slept this soundly since we returned,” I said to the woman mixing tonics.

“I barely gave her any valerian root. She should’ve woken by now.”

I touched my sister’s shoulder, gently rattling her. Eyes dashed beneath veined lids. I tried shaking her a bit harder.

“Baylis, it’s time to get up.”

She thrashed violently like she had when Erissa controlled her mind.

“Baylis, Baylis!” I tried to hold her down.

The healer rushed to my side. “Try to hold her as still as possible.” She took a vial of green liquid from her pocket, lifted Baylis’s chin, and poured it down her throat. Almost instantly, her gray eyes fluttered open.

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