Page 134 of Shifter King
Yes. Hers. But that wasn't the problem.
It was as if the knowledge had been stabbed into her.
They were going to kill her family. Her family was in danger. She'd tried to warn WroOth. Tried and tried. Poison arrows. Poison knives. All hidden, waiting.
The ground rocked beneath her feet. She caught hold of the wall to steady herself. Shouting and bellows echoed from the chamber ahead. The door had been cracked open.
Everything was hazy and yet painful. The blood thudded in her skull, harder and faster with each minute. She was supposed to be at a wedding. They were marrying her off. To that Bealorn. And Naatos—they wanted to shoot him? Him and WroOth and AaQar and QueQoa.
The Bealorns were going to kill them now!
No!
She flung the doors open and staggered in. The scent of flowers, incense, perfume, and animals struck her, and she at once saw too much and too little. All the cruelty, all the horror, all of it. So many people here. So many voices. So many souls. Safety had been possible in this place. A reprieve from the harshness of the Abliatos. So much potential. And what had these Reskal Bealorns done with it? What had they done with their miserable lives except inflict torment and suffering or failed to stop it?
The voices crowded and surged within her mind, beating and pounding. She had walked into an arena of judgment, and she was the judge. And these people, they thought they were going to kill her family?
No. Never.
None of the faces were clear. They all blurred together. Nothing but forms and voices, thoughts as clear as words spoken into her ear. That and their souls all became so clear.
What good was there in this place? The cold expanded through her.
"You can stop them,"the Ki Valo Nakar whispered."Just grab hold of their souls. It will be enough."
"Shoot him now!" an annoying woman's voice screeched from a platform all the way on the other side.
Amelia reached out, letting her instincts seize the threads of the souls most threatening to her family. "That is enough."
Energy pulsed back to her, memories, thoughts, fears. Contempt brewed within her as the power surged stronger. The thread of the queen's soul was now amid all of them, tight, vulgar, pulsing with wasted potential and horrific deeds. Disgust flooded her. Her fingers spasmed, and she seized more.
"Yes," the Ki Valo Nakar surged up within her, delight filling its voice."Yes! Take them."
Though she couldn't see them, she could feel the threads of those souls. They surged into her awareness even more. Everything became so clear.
What purpose was there in these lives?
They had suffered and caused suffering, inflicted pain and received it. The harried screeches of terrified men and women merged into a cyclone of wailing terror. Terror that could end soon.
Let them answer for what they had done good or bad.
She could end this and save her family. End all of them. Make this world better in one great blow. She reached out for more as she stepped forward, her gaze focused on the back of the room. "I have had enough of you, Reskal Bealorns. With all of you." Her fingers twitched. More electric awareness spread through her.
Yes. Her veskare was here. Here and wounded. They had been about to shoot him. They planned to kill her family. All of them. Right here. Right now. Poison blades and arrows. Slaughter them before all these Bealorns. And not just that.
More truth spilled out before her. Thousands, millions, trillions of thoughts and memories poured out, adding up into one single truth about what all had done.
Guilty.
Guilty.
Enough were guilty.
Why had Elonumato not purged this world and all the others? Wash everything away. Sift and sort. How could this place continue to exist? And how could she know in enough time?
Her fingers remained contorted, energy pulsing through her veins. More Bealorns dropped to their knees.
With each movement of her fingers, another Bealorn lurched forward, back arched as a bulge formed in their chest.
