Page 29 of A Spell of Bones and Madness
His entire body chilled, his veins so cold with ice that it felt like he was on fire. “I’m sure you would like that. I step away and you, what? Kill me?”
Ander’s feet shifted slightly, like he was trying to pull away from Katrin and the towering male that held him up. He looked back at her—at the woman that did not belong to him—and whispered, “Starling.” His brows furrowed together.
“So, you weren’t lying!” Kohl chuckled, his voice booming off the rustling leaves. “She was what you were muttering about this whole time like you had gone mad. How fucking dare you look at my wife like that.”
“Your wife?” Katrin screamed. “I married you out of obligation to my kingdom. Because I thought it would protect my family—my people. And what did you do? Run away as our people were slaughtered.” The light around her glowed brighter. “I know you are angry at me, but what did you expect after what they did to my family? To Iason? Kohl, you don’t understand! You don’t know what your father and that king are doing to him, why they want him.”
“Don’t I? You think my father would keep something so important from me?”
“You knew? This whole time you knew and you did nothing!” The color in Katrin’s eyes shimmered out turning white. She took a step closer to him, lifting her palm higher, the light intensifying around her skin.
Kohl drove his knee further down on Chloe’s shattered arm, another cry echoed out. Katrin bore her teeth, but Kohl’s sister stepped in front of her.
“Let. Her. Go,” Farah hissed, a guttural noise rolling in her throat.
“You—you are the worst of them, sister. Did our father not show you enough attention? Did he not appoint you to the throne when I vacated my title? Was it not enough for you, you greedy, selfish whore? Instead you align yourself with filth like this?” He inched the sword closer into Chloe’s throat, drawing blood.
“Keep talking, Kohl, and you will not like what happens to you.” Farah clutched her palms into fists. Farah had always been feisty, a woman who knew her way around a sword. But against him she was nothing.
“Really, Farah? You would rather help them than your own flesh and blood? What was it? What made you turn against your own family?”
Pure unadulterated hatred radiated off of Farah, her eyes darkening and jaw clenching. “Love,” she said through gritted teeth.
She took a step closer to her brother. “Father took her from me, Kohl. He slaughtered Celene right in front of me to teach me a lesson. Stabbed her through the heart because he thought it was poetic. You know how he is if we defy the ways of our ancestors. He did not care if I was in love, he cared that I was in love withher.That I could not carry on the Athanas bloodline.”
Kohl took a step back from his sister, who looked like she might explode and actually attack him with the sword now pointed at his heart. “He wouldn’t go that far, Farah.” He couldn’t believe what she was saying, their parents had gone between men and womenalike. But it was always in the confines of their chambers, never in public, never a declaration of true feelings. Khalid was a strict man, but she was his daughter.
“He wouldn’t go that far?” Farah’s vicious laugh echoed off the cliffs they stood above. She ripped up the hem of her shirt, bearing long jagged scars along her stomach. Not from battle, but burns. Raised marks forming the symbol of their people. The Viper’s brand. “He didthiswhen I wouldn’t behave, wouldn’t yield to the emotions he wanted me to. Wouldn’t convert to what he thought was the way. Tell me you wouldn’t have turned on him too, Kohl. If he had done that to you. Though maybe you wouldn’t—seeing as you are about to slaughter an innocent woman to prove his point.” Her fingertips began to turn black, the color trickling up her arms and neck.
“You need to be careful with that, Farah.” Kohl’s eyes darkened an equally onyx hue, the blackness snaking down his throat, up his arms once more. Standing up and pushing the crippled girl away, he took a small blade and sliced his unbranded hand, letting the blood pool onto the golden dagger. Katrin shoved Ander and the tall cloaked man behind her, a warm white glow still echoing around the woman that used to love him. His sister stepped equally as protective in front of the injured wolf.
“Do I?” Farah twisted her wrist so her palm faced the sky, black flame now encompassing her hands. Kohl’s eyes widened, and for a moment he was just Kohl again, not plagued by the thrumming in his mind, the instinct to kill those who went against him. Just Kohl, and that was his sister. “Did you think I hadn’t figured out what we were? Sorcery has long run in the Athanas line, you just believe the only way to harness it issacrifice.”
“Sacrifice is the only way tocontrolit, sister. The only way it won’t consume you.”
Farah’s lip curled up in a snarl, “You are a fool, just like our father.” That blackness in her eyes turned a fiery red and his sister inhaled a deep breath.
It happened too fast for Kohl to react. A ball of black flame came hurtling straight for his heart.
Chapter Twenty-One
Katrin
“Farah!” Katrin gasped, her hands shaking, light fading from around her skin. “Did you just…”
“Did I just kill my brother? I…I don’t know.” Farah’s eyes shifted between Kohl and Chloe both lying on the ground.
A creeping feeling settled in Katrin’s gut, causing her mind to spiral momentarily. She would have done the same thing, targeted Kohl to protect Ander—to protect all of them. But for a brief moment, Kohl had relaxed and his eyes looked how they had as a teenager.Her Kohl.The one she spent endless hours exploring the isle with. The one she almost begged to marry, tospend her life with. Now, as he lay before her, Katrin wanted to reach out her hand and check if his pulse still thrummed in his veins, if he would be alright if they left him in the woods, air so chilled he may freeze if not already dead. Then she remembered what Kohl had done to the innocent girl who now lay before them.
Clutching her shattered arm, Chloe shook with a violent tremor and her breath strained. Trying to escape with two people injured would prove near impossible—especially when they had to travel by foot to the other side of the isle. Ander still leaned against Leighton, his eyes drooping and legs wobbling. They shouldn’t have sent the other soldiers ahead to help prepareThe Nostos, they could have helped carry the young princess.
“We have to keep moving, before other guards are alerted of the mess we made in the dungeons. Or before a very pissed off Kohl wakes up and comes after us.” Leighton wrapped Ander’s arm around his shoulders. “I can carry the captain myself.”
“No need, Leighton, Katrin can help you. Can you stand?” Farah asked and Chloe nodded.
Farah knelt beside Chloe, waving her palm over the crushed bones in her right arm. Chloe shivered, hairs on end at the black smoke circling her arm, wrapping itself back around her shoulder and neck. “I can’t heal it, but this should help. Keep it steady until we reach the ship.”
“Thank you.” Chloe’s whisper was barely more than air leaving her lungs, eyes wide at the kindness Farah gave her.
