Page 66 of The Stygian Crown

A wave rippled over the mirror, and a blood-soaked hand clenching a ruby crystal thrust out of it. The fingers opened one by one, dropping the crystal into the pool of blood. The demons’ gaze jerked toward it.

Someone called Kara, the sound a distant buzz beyond the cacophony of magic.

Kara took a step forward, lured by some force she didn’t understand, and clasped the grasping hand in hers. She half expected to be pulled forward, but the mirror rippled in earnest, the demons fading. The hand tightened around hers, blood slick and sticky, jagged nails digging into her skin.

“Free me,”a familiar voice whispered. She’d heard it before. Blown on a forest wind through the Blackshear as she rushed towards Widow’s Fall. Leading her to an altar drenched with magic in the royal forest.

Kara tried to let go, to step back, but the grip was iron. Her feet slid toward the mirror.

“You must resist.”

Kara wasn’t sure if she should trust the voice or not, but she struggled with the hand like she had the largest fish in the lake fighting on the line. She braced her legs and pulled. An elbow appeared from the swirling reflection. Kara heaved.

The portal ripped open, and the resistance disappeared. Kara’s feet slid out from under her. Blood flooded her mouth and nostrils as her head went under. Panic spiked through her. She struggled to her feet, spitting viciously to clear her tongue of the coppery, sparking flavor.

A woman stood before her, coated in blood.Made of blood?There was no way to tell. Everything was wet and red and dripping. Then she opened her eyes, and the fire of Namirah’s Chosen burned out.

The woman bent over and coughed. A stream of dark blood poured from her lips. She lifted and swiped her hands over her face, revealing patches of pale skin beneath the crimson swathes.

The face she revealed was familiar, uncannily so. But it couldn’t be…

Namirah. It was the face from the portrait. Unchanged, as if she’d sat for it yesterday.

Impossible.

“You—you died.”

“Indeed. Second birth is highly overrated.”

Kara’s mind rebelled. “How?”

Namirah waved one blood-soaked hand in a casual shrug. “I intend to find out.”

Kara stared in mute horror.

Namirah braced her hands on her hips and looked around the chamber.

“Well, it’s not exactly the royal welcome, but I’ve had enough of royals, don’t you think?” Her gaze fell to Kara. “Granddaughter. You wear my likeness well.”

Kara’s breath caught on a sob. What had she done? Her gaze skirted tot he swirling pattern of barrels studding the pit. It was all beginning to make horrible sense. Victus’s focus on finding her, his mutterings about the bloodline. He and Salizar had brought Namirah back somehow—resurrected her using the power they harvested from hundreds of cursed women. From Kara.

She blinked, remembering where they were, who surrounded them. Her head snapped to Logan. He was slumped forward in his chair, unnaturally still and pale. Blood no longer leaked from the dark slices through his wrists. Ice slithered through Kara’s veins.

No.

Kara ran towards the wall of the pit as fast as the deep liquid would allow. The pool of blood no longer resisted her steps.

Victus was wading through the pit towards Namirah, his gaze reverent. He didn’t spare Kara a glance.

She leapt for the lip of the pit and fell woefully short. She tried again, and a hand caught her arm and dragged her up. Green eyes gazed down at her from behind a Sanguine helm.

Kara’s heart tripped as she was lifted to her feet. Wesley was here, helping her. Perhaps shehadgone through the portal, and this was a world where everything that ought not be was. Perhaps she was still hanging from the hooks in her cell, lost to an elaborate fever dream.

Kara squeezed Wesley’s hand and nodded at him, then ran for Logan. None of the Sanguines tried to stop her; many of them were missing. Shouts and the peal of metal striking metal rung out from one of the corridors.

Wesley strode after her. “Your friends are here, Kara. You must go to them while Victus is distracted. Logan’s gone.”

Victus had reached Namirah and knelt, thigh-deep in the pit of blood. Namirah was staring at her hands as if she didn’t recognize them, flipping them over and flexing her fingers.

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