Dark Skye (Immortals After Dark #15)(18)

They’d be coming for him, and she needed to be gone when they did. She spied a natural path through the field of boulders, had just taken her first step when she heard another groan.

In a pained rasp, Thronos called her name.

Don’t look back at him, don’t look back. The last time she had, she’d been tormented by what she’d seen for all her days.

Against her will, she found herself turning.

His matte gray eyes were awash in misery as he grated, “Do not run . . . from me.”

The world seemed to shrink down, morning turning to midnight in her head. All at once she was back in the mountainside abbey, on the night her parents had been slain, the night Lanthe had first used her powers to save Sabine’s life. . . .

“Wake, Lanthe.” Sabine clutched her hand, wresting her from her bed. “Don’t make a sound.”

“What is it, Ai-bee?” Lanthe whispered sleepily.

“Just hurry.” As if to herself, she said, “I warned Mother and Father to move us from here, but they refused to listen.”

Sabine hated their troubled mother and distant father. She blamed the pair for everything: not providing food or shoes or new dresses. She railed against them for their constant sorcery outlays that put the entire family at risk: If even Lanthe insists that you’re using too much . . .

Lanthe knew the two weren’t as good as other parents seemed to be, but her heart was filled with love—why not give it to them?

“And now Vrekeners are in the abbey,” Sabine murmured.

Here? “Mayhap they aren’t here to fight.” Thronos was her secret best friend; he would never let his kind attack her family!

“They’re here to kill our parents and abduct us. As they always do with Sorceri.” They’d heard the tales. Sorceri who broke the laws of the Lore were executed, while their children were fostered in stern Vrekener families.

Even with Sabine by her side, Lanthe was terrified as they stole through the abbey, lightning striking all around the mountain.

They stumbled into their parents’ room. Mother and Father were curled together in sleep. Towering stained-glass windows allowed in the glow of lightning, distorting it. She blinked. For a second, she’d thought her parents appeared . . . headless.

When the scent of blood hit Lanthe, her legs buckled.

Their bodies were decapitated; the heads lay at unnatural angles, inches from their necks.

Sabine threw up; Lanthe collapsed with a scream, her vision going dark as she hovered on the verge of unconsciousness.

Mother and Father were dead. Never to return.

Mother with her gaze frenzied as she beheld her precious gold. Father with his lost look whenever he beheld his crazed wife. Both dead . . .

Lanthe dimly comprehended that the room had filled with Vrekeners, their wings flickering in the lightning-filled night. The leader held a fire scythe with a blade of black flames.

Then she saw Thronos. His eyes were wide, and he was trying to reach her, but one of the men held him back.

How could Thronos have led these killers here? After all the time they’d shared?

After my confession just this morning . . . ?

To Sabine, the leader intoned, “Come peaceably, young sorceress. We do not wish to hurt you. We wish to put you on the path of goodness.”

Sabine, the Queen of Illusions, gave a chilling laugh as she called up her power. Her amber eyes started to glimmer like shining metal, stark against her fire-red hair. “We know what you do to Sorceri girls. You plan to turn us into biddable, grave crones like your sour-faced women. We’d rather fight to the death!” She began creating her illusions; at once, the soldiers hunched down, as if they believed the ceiling was pressing down on them.

Even betrayed like this, Lanthe wanted to ask Sabine to spare Thronos, but her lips moved soundlessly. Mother and Father are dead.

Had her parents ever even awakened tonight?

Sabine raised her palms toward the leader, using her sorcery to make him see his worst nightmares. He fell to his knees, dropping his scythe to claw at his eyes.

With a smile, Sabine snatched up his weapon. She swung for his neck, was still smiling when blood spurted across her beautiful, ruthless face.

Thronos gave a grief-stricken yell as the Vrekener’s head rolled to Sabine’s feet.

Was the leader Thronos’s father?

Lanthe’s sight was dim, but she thought Sabine’s illusions were . . . fading? Her sister would be facing these foes alone, all bent on avenging their leader.

Lanthe found her voice just as a Vrekener sidled up behind Sabine.

“Ai-bee, behind you!”

Too late. The male had already struck. He slit Sabine’s throat, blood painting the walls as her small body fell.

Lanthe’s daze burned away. She scrambled to her feet, shrieking, “Ai-bee?” She ran for her sister, kneeling beside her. “No, no, no, Ai-bee, don’t die, don’t die, don’t die!” Lanthe’s own sorcery was manifesting itself. The air grew warm, as electric as the lightning surrounding them.

Sabine is leaving me. Because of Thronos and these men. My entire family taken from me in one night. A clarity such as she’d never known swept over her.

My family dies; the Vrekeners pay.

No longer would she hesitate to use her power. No mercy—for any of them.

She commanded the soldiers, “Do not move! You stab yourself! Fight each other—to the death!”