Page 28 of Death God

Chills slithered up my spine, and my heart pounded in my throat. Yet my feet couldn’t stop but quickened the pace to answer the call.

“I’m getting goosebumps,” a guard complained. “This can’t be good.”

“Lady Pip, you said you just wanted to go pee,” another guard argued. “But the lady’s room is in the other direction.”

I ignored them, so they ran after me down another set of stairs. They moved closer to me, their breaths bearing down on my neck, as if they thought I could be their shield.

We were two levels below the ground floor of the palace. I halted to home in on the source, since the phantom voices were everywhere now. A guard bumped into me, since he was standing too close to me. A girl with less strength would be tumbling down the stairs with a broken nose or probably a broken neck.

I shoved the guard back, and he fell on his ass on the stairs above me.

“Personal space,” I hissed.

Power gathered on this floor, dark, depraved, and full of rage, but the power was different than the dark mages and black witches. The power was strong, but there was no life in it, and somehow, it resonated with part of me.

My pulse spiked. I tried not to breathe too hard, yet a trail of frost escaped my lips. At the same time, the temperature dropped dramatically. Ice crystals formed on the ground and the ceiling.

“What the fuck?” the new guard called, darting his wild gaze around, his weapon drawn.

All the guards moved more quietly, as if afraid of waking up the dead. Yet I could hear their heartbeats throbbing frantically in the dim hallway.

I was a chameleon. My senses were sharper than any species.

Sensing me getting closer, the power grew excited, and multiple voices twisted into a clear stream, leading me and enticing me. The direction was clear now.

I headed toward a pitch black door that suddenly appeared on the gray wall. The voices came from behind the door, reaching for me, the energy trapped inside.

Mistress Pip. We’re here. We’re waiting. The unknown force waited for me to go in.

“If the king finds out about this—” a better-looking guard started.

“Let’s just get it over with,” Spaghetti said in a resigned tone and turned the knob before I could. “Then the lady will be willing to return to the throne room.”

A spear of dark lightning shot out, tossing him backward. Poor Spaghetti collided with the opposite wall and groaned in pain. Shifters could take a lot of pain, so the force tossing him like a rag doll must be really strong.

“Fuck, it’s warded,” the third guard said. “This is another of Lady Pip’s bad ideas.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like you know me.”

I reached out and touched the handle before the guards could stop me. The door swung open invitingly, freezing air trailing out. I sucked in a breath and stepped in, a hidden dagger in my hand. The door slammed shut behind me as soon as I crossed the threshold, before any guards could follow me in.

The guards shouted outside the door, a few of them even cursing.

A vast private library presented itself in front of me, and it wasn’t just any library. Leather-bound books and ancient manuscripts filled every row of the tall shelves that reached the ceiling. I sniffed, my gaze travelling over to a glass case in the center.

The cover of every manuscript inside the case was made of supernatural or human skin.

I swallowed, but it didn’t stop me from trekking further into the depths of the library, until a black garden appeared at the end.

Then the voices stopped.

I knew who had brought me here.

The spirits of the dead mages.

I’d felt tens of thousands of deaths when I’d passed the portal, but this was different. Instead of being ensnared, the souls here had chosen to be here. They had a purpose. And they weren’t just the souls of ordinary beings. Every one of them had once been powerful, so powerful that they’d been sacrificed by a dark power greater than their own.

I stepped toward the black stone altar in the center of the garden of withering trees and black blossoms. The blood had dried on the altar where thousands of supernaturals had been sacrificed here.

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