Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 42412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 212(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 212(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
I summoned the essence, and it responded in an icy rush, flooding my veins with power. My will formed in my mind, and the realms answered.
“Casteel!” he roared, surely feeling the surge of energy.
A crackling ball of silver formed and then thinned, stretching wide as the realm tore open. The briny scent of the sea and decay drifted out of the tear.
My lips curved up on one side as the crackling, spitting tear widened, revealing bare branches and a vast colonnade.
Whatever she—and I knew it was her—had done to prevent me from leaving Carsodonia no longer held.
The vines peeled themselves off the floor, retreating to clear a path as I walked forward.
A burst of scorching eather slammed into the doors, throwing them open.
“Casteel!” he yelled. “Don’t! Don’t—” He stumbled to a halt, and his shock rolled across the Hall like a cold wave. “Dear gods…”
I stepped through the opening and into Pensdurth, my gaze rising to the sprawling manor atop a rocky, windblown bluff as the realm sealed behind me.
The port city was full of the dead, but it was not vacant.
Awareness throbbed in my chest, and instinctually, my senses opened and spread out. They were sharp. More…finely tuned. I could sense the essence in those within Seacliffe Manor’s walls, even from where I stood.
There were gods inside. All were old, but only some were powerful. Others were weak, their ability to harness eather in the mortal realm diminished to little more than parlor tricks. My head tilted as I inhaled. At least one was truly more powerful; chock-full of eather. A Primal god.
My lip curled.
They were not alone.
Beings that had once been mortal but now drank from the living were also inside. Vamprys.
Others were present. Those neither alive nor dead. Revenants.
And there was something else. Echoes of fading power. Those I could not…sort through out here, but I…I could feel her in those echoes. Caught the faintest scent of jasmine threaded with decay and fresh blood. Ice filled with smoke seeped into my chest as I straightened my head.
Anger was too tame a word. Rage was too weak. Fury, too polite. What coursed through me was ruinous, soaking into my muscles and tendons, entrenching in my bones, and then igniting a cold fire that burned hotter than any flame.
It was ruin.
Thick clouds formed over the Bay of Pensdurth and darkened, turning the color of charcoal as a flash of intense, silver light flared behind the windows lining one of the manor’s halls. Wisps of smoke seeped from my fingers as I prowled forward. The dead trees lining the road shuddered and collapsed without a sound as I passed. One after the other, along both sides, they shattered, leaving only hazy clouds of ash behind. The remaining trees leading to the steps of Seacliffe withered away as I stopped in the center of the road, the mist swirling as it rose around me. I lifted a hand, turning it so my palm faced me. Eather thrummed. The ice in my chest spread. I closed my hand.
The eastern front wall of Seacliffe Manor split with a crack of thunder, stone and wood wrenching apart. Dust billowed out in a rapidly expanding cloud as larger chunks of mortar smashed through the pillars of the colonnade. The roof heaved and then cracked, caving in as its support crumbled to the ground.
The screams began before the dust had even begun to settle, rising from within as rays of sunlight pierced the haze, finding those who had traded sunlight for power.
I smiled as they paid for that now in fire and blood. Every so many feet, flames erupted in scattered bursts and clusters as the sun ate away at the vamprys’ flesh. Acrid smoke choked the air, and the smell of charred skin rose as the dust cleared.
Behind the smoking, twisted, burnt bodies that had fallen where they caught fire, and those who still burned as they crawled toward the shelter of the manor, there was red.
Revenants.
Revs.
Dozens of them, standing in the partially intact atrium and the exposed chambers, their eyes a milky, lifeless blue, and their features obscured by crimson-painted wings.
A command echoed from the manor like the crack of a whip in a language no longer spoken.
The Revs crept forward as one.
With a flick of my wrist, I moved the debris, sending the wreckage of stone and plaster sliding off the sides of the bluff.
After all, I wouldn’t want anything slowing their eagerness to greet Death.
Apparently, neither did they.
The Revs poured out of Seacliffe’s ruined front, swarming the road like a horde of crimson cockroaches.
They came at me—at me—with swords made of shadowstone.
But they hadn’t seen me yet.
I changed that, letting the mist whip back.
Those closest stumbled, jerking to a halt as the painted wings lifted, and pale eyes widened. If Revs could feel fear, they did then.