Page 117 of Amethyst and Iron
Scion. Scion. Scion.
That fucking name… it had been haunting me for days on end.
Ever since it had come out of Velra’s mouth and shocked the fuck out of me.
Because it shouldn’t have come.
It shouldn’t have been spoken.
It should be dead and buried.
Quite literally.
It swirled around me, the urgency in it willing me to take heed, to pay attention, to figure it all out. Namely, how thefuckit was being spoken again.
But I… couldn’t.
I couldn’t maintain my focus.
It wouldn’t let me… my own fucking mind wouldn’t let me.
Without my magic, my compartmentalization was collapsing all over the place.
The first day I’d gotten here, I’d managed to hold it at bay. It was actually when I’d been able to crack that antidote and sendit off to Kai. Not earlier today—days later from when I’d arrived back here—like I’d told Velra and Cassius.
And then I’d started working on the Valley of the Dead issue, trying to determine precisely what damage had been done when I’d not only invokedAuctoritas Mortisbut also then killed myself, entered the metaphysical plane, and Kai had subsequently melded his power with mine to pull both me and Velra out. Violations upon violations that had surely impaired the fabric of the death realm—in several ways that would take study from one so incredibly learned in specific death magic and how the place operated, like me, to determine the precise details of.
That was when I’d discovered that Velra’s theory had been correct. That being working withScionhad used my power. They had pulled me in there intentionally in order for that exchange to take place.
The Valley of the Dead had experienced several tears—breaches—during that fuckfest of epic proportions. It was currently holding due to a mix of the black magic fromScion, and the fact that when Kai had reached in, his magic had been protected and enveloped by Cornelius Martel’s Celestial-based power.
But those were just patches.
Temporary ones.
I shoved my hand through my hair as I sat on the floor of my bedroom against the wall, the thing cracked behind me from smashing the back of my head into it in a bid to pull myself from the fucking flashes that had been inundating me.
The reason I’dstretched the truthwith Velra and Cassius was because why I’d really come here and needed space was to researchScion.
It had been my immediate goal.
My number one fucking priority.
But of course, as with so much with me, the way I’d had to live my life, I’d had to throw up smokescreens just to do what I needed to—finishing the antidote work first, determining the situation with the Valley. Although the Valley aspect pertained to the overarching Scion nightmare, so there was that.
I was just… so fucking sick of it.
The pretense.
Having to go around, instead of through.
My hands started to shake, a lightheadedness surging.
Not again.
It was a mark of another brutal flash coming.
“Stop,” I ground out.
