Page 66 of Death God

“Even if it’s a trap, we can’t go back. We can only go forward,” I said, darting my eyes around, a frosty breath escaping my lips.

My heart jumping to my throat, I tracked the great, dark power to the deepest bowels of the tower. Freckles admitted that he’d also sensed a formidable power, but he couldn’t penetrate the barrier and pinpoint it even with his spells. It was as if the power wasn’t meant for the living to find. I was an exception. I had death in me.

He followed my lead, and we reached a narrow corridor that was more like a tunnel. I could see well in the dark, but the mage had to use spells for enhanced sight and hearing.

“Do you hear the dead, or feel them?” I whispered.

The dead cried out from every stone and every brick, their voices increasing with every step deeper down the tower. They felt me. They longed to drink my energy.

I lashed out, whipping them with my power and pushing them back. I was getting better at disciplining the dead and teaching them not to cross the boundaries. Even in death, there was a hierarchy, and I was the new mistress in the domain of death.

“Nope, but I can sense the dark magic in this tower, the foulest ever,” Freckles said.

“Maybe that was why Spartoi didn’t post any guards here,” I said. “I was the primary prisoner here. After I escaped, they might have abandoned the tower.”

We padded down the stone stairs slick with blood. Even the smell of moss and sulfur couldn’t overcome the stench of foul magic and rotten flesh.

Freckles made a gagging sound. “Fuck, I hate this place.”

“It’s a very bad place, man,” I said. “The worst thing is to be trapped here.”

The pull of the hidden power grew stronger.

It seemed to have sensed me and was suddenly fully awake. It carried a bonfire of emotions, so profound and foreign that no human or supernatural could bear it. They beat deeply in my bones like a war drum.

I followed the magnetic force, not a care in the world anymore, as if nothing else mattered except my need to reach that power.

Kinship. The word bloomed in my head.

I flew down the stairs, then down more stairs, leaping over several at a time.

“Slow down, Pip,” Freckles called behind me.

No way would I slow down.

Blood pounded in my veins at the urgency. I hit the bottom of the stairs and sprang along a long, narrow, dark corridor.

Shadows danced on the ancient stone walls, cast by the damned souls.

Many souls still carried light, but there was no light in the souls trapped here. Yet they wanted my light, drawn to me. Before they could reach me and take a sip of my energy, I tossed my death power at them, flinging them back to the stone wall mercilessly until they faded into it.

I wouldn’t be bullied, not even by the dead.

Yet some spirits still lurked in the shadows, waiting for a chance to get a piece of me and unwilling to give up on a snack that might not come again. A menacing hiss arose from the end of the hallway, bearing the darkest power that I’d ever encountered.

It vibrated with formidable, celestial, and merciless heat not from this world, yet I wasn’t afraid of it.

The feeling of kinship seared my blood.

I stalked toward the power, which I was sure came from a long cell at the end of the dark hallway.

Twenty feet away from the cell, my spirit allies left my cuffs and scattered.

We won’t be able to go further, they told me. The power is like a dark sun, too great for us.

Wait here, I told them.

Freckles, who hurried behind me, his breathing labored, also stopped before the unseen barrier.

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