Page 204 of Wings of Ash & Flame
“Your puny mind cannot comprehend his brilliance.” The bat’s wings twitched.
“Sounds like just another power-hungry maniac to me. Elithian’s full of them. He should get in line. Tell me—what do you actually get out of it, besides the makeover?”
The blood pounding in her head threatened to drown her, but she still managed to sneer.
“I serve the greatest being in existence—the Voidshade Sovereign.” The bat’s voice quivered with fanaticism, its body vibrating with zeal. “Those who were changed are imbued with his essence of shadows.”
Alaire felt like she’d been doused in ice water. “That’s… not possible. He was killed fifteen years ago. He died during Starfall, in Aurelia with—” She swallowed against the knot in her throat.
“With your parents.” The bat’s lips curled into an abhorrent smile, baring its fangs. It reveled in her shock. “The Voidshade Sovereign is brilliant.For years he waited in the shadows,biding his time until the right moment to resume his vocation.Your parents only denied him what was his.Their sacrifice was useless.”
Her mind spun. Nausea surged until she retched, emptying her stomach into the chasm of darkness below.
“He fled that night under shadow’s guise,” the creature continued. “While he may not have claimed what was rightfully his,watching Dawnspire burn to ashes was a satisfying consolation prize.”
“Consolation prize?” Alaire choked out. “Those were my people—fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, children! That vampire invasion took countless lives.”
“But your parents’ fire killed more.Trying to shield Elithian from my master’s divine right was an idioticmistake.He is not so easily defeated.You accuse him of being evil,but how does it feel knowing their sacrifice slaughtered innocents?”
Her face blanched, limbs tingling from lack of circulation.
“Enough that it wiped out an entire territory.”
She trembled from head to toe, anger whipping through her like lashes.
“Too frightened to admit the truth?That everyone died soyoucould survive?Your parents sacrificed themselves—and all those people—so you could live to carry the light.How does it feel to wake up every morning with their blood on your hands?”
Her hands stilled. What was it saying? Her thoughts scrambled, fighting to track its words while her body hung helplessly in spider silk. Saliva pooled thick in her mouth.
She blinked rapidly as her mind replayed every memory she’d recovered of her parents. None of this could be true. It couldn’t. Her ribs tightened until it hurt to breathe.
“Fae are such odd beings,” the bat mused. “You claim to fight evil,yet wield it without repercussion when it serves you.” It tilted its head, studying her as though her dangling form might provide answers.
“Where am I?” Alaire rasped.
The bat lifted its wings wide. “Why don’t I show you?”
The veil of mist peeled back, revealing the nightmare in full. Hundreds of bats clung to the cavern walls, rows above and below her. Dozens circled, wings beating the air, ready to descend.
“Welcome to Nebula’s Veil,” the bat crooned. “How fitting that this ends where it began—in the heart of a star.The Voidshade Sovereign sent us to drain your strength,giving us the honor of injecting you with our poison to prepare you for him.Your blood is his gift.We may only sample.”
Horror shot through her veins. The crimson dripping from their fangs wasn’t another victim’s—it was hers. She craned her head upward. Puncture wounds riddled the delicate skin of herarms where the silk bound her. They had fed on her while she was unconscious.
“I have no magic,” she whispered hoarsely. “Nothing he could want.”
“Do not insult me with lies.Our master is generous with his knowledge.He keeps nothing from us.That is why this time,he will bring us into the light.”
Nausea swelled again at the realization she’d been prey, used without consent. Her body shook violently, vision tunneling into black.
“Your pain has only begun,Alaire Vallorian,” the bat rasped. “It will be all you ever know—until the end of time.”
And Alaire believed it. What the creature didn’t know was that since Starfall, the torment had never truly left her.
Blackness claimed her once more.
Forty-Seven
Alaire drifted between consciousness and the numbing pull of oblivion. Her body swayed harshly, see-sawing from side to side. Each jarring movement sent pain through her limbs, coaxing a low groan from the back of her throat. She forced her eyes open to slits, careful not to alert anyone she was awake.
