Page 125 of Of Serpents and Ruins
"I can make it easy for you. All you have to do is look away," he said softly, his voice in my ear.
Then he opened the book.
I didn't look away.
He showed me page after page of sketches of the Gola Resh and Babadon in various forms, of darkness spreading across Sepeazia. The emotion and depth of skill that he had woven into these sketches and drawings took my breath away.
So did the fear rooted within me.
All I saw was their power. Their strength. Their ferocity. Symbols and marks flowed across the page. Portals opened in ink. Destruction wrought in charcoal and graphite.
"If what I have seen is accurate, then the Gola Resh and the Babadon came here because she was dying," Elias said quietly.
I recalled the Gola Resh referring to an illness. It had breezed past my consciousness at the time she had spoken of it. A frown tugged at my brow.
"They could not bear the thought of being separated. They planted their spells deep in our soil and waters to drain the power out of them and grant her new life. They took enough before we noticed for her to regain a fair bit of her strength, but to cement them in eternal life together, they had to finish taking all our life. Those gouges we see are channels. They’re draining us even now."
"Ridiculous," I murmured, my fingers brushing over the page, yet my insides twisted at the thought of being separated from Brandt again. I could understand the fear. The pain.
"I think you’re right that the Gola Resh intends to summon the Babadon," Elias said softly, "to bring him back from the grave. I suspect, too, that the shifter magic is the last bit that she needed to give her the strength to keep going. Otherwise, she would have faded. Something has kept her alive and changed her. I think that’s what did it."
"Someone has kept her going," I said sharply. "Probably more than one."
"Yes." Elias nodded firmly. "And her love for him as well, most likely."
I scoffed, wanting to deny that what the Babadon and Gola Resh shared was love, except it was. A twisted, cruel love. A love that could justify anything so long as it allowed them to be together.
"I keep hoping that there is some way to reason with her. That when the time comes, it will turn out she is willing to be reasonable. That she’ll realize our suffering is enough and gives her nothing." His fingers stroked a line down the page, tracing the patterns of the sigils. "But I haven’t found that answer. I don’t even have an idea for how to convince her to not take everything."
"Ask her to take half of us and spare the rest," I murmured, the words bitter on my tongue. "Condemn half the population."
"If it would save the people I love, perhaps. People do terrible things to save the people they love." He swallowed hard, his gaze fixed on a sketch of heavy darkness rolling across the sea and the cliffs like a fog. "Whoever betrayed us, she had to have offered them something." He kept his gaze fixed on the page. "I’m sorry." He dropped his gaze, his shoulders slumping as if beneath a great weight. "I-I haven't seen any visions that showthe two of you together and alive. I'm sorry, Stella. Whenever I look to your future with you and Brandt, all I see—"
I held up a trembling hand. Nausea roiled inside me. Death. Death was all he saw.
"I'm sorry," he repeated.
I shook my head as I backed away. When I closed my eyes, I saw that livid image of the lava. It was the Ember Lord's Crest. That was where we died.
"Stella, please don't leave," he whispered. "Please."
"I need to be alone." My voice shook.
I hurried to the edge of the camp and then up to the ridge. I had to get myself under control. I had to figure out a way to deal with all of these emotions. My whole body trembled.
Water. I needed water. Needed to feel it rushing over me.
I climbed the ridge, pulling off my necklace and tossing it and the shawl onto a bush. I scarcely remembered to check for anyone else in the area before I pulled my dress off and dove into the hot spring.
The steaming waters were almost too hot to bear. They burned my eyes and reddened my skin at once, the sharpness of the minerals filling my lungs, but I plunged beneath the surface, and the heat encased me.
Heat, powerful and surging. Heat like the lava that would devour Brandt and me somehow. Heat like what thundered in my core.
I emerged and flung myself back against the rocks, gasping.
The need inside me was intense. Heat. Nothing but heat and want.
Curse it all.
