The Shadowglass (The Bone Witch, #3)(93)

Why are you showing me this?

I have suffered loss as you have. For you, it is visions of Kion in flames. That is your nightmare as much as this was mine. And the irony is that you shall burn Kion to save it.

Who are you?

A friend, if you are willing. The figure walked into the center of that maelstrom, wordlessly bidding me to follow. I hesitated, but there was nowhere else to go, so I trailed after the cloaked figure warily, wrapping the Dark around me should my instincts prove wrong.

The man was content to walk ahead without bothering to look back and see if I followed. He stopped before the remnants of a house whose foundation had since been given up to heat and flames. It smoldered while everything around it continued to rage.

A woman lay huddled on the ground. Weeping, she clasped an unmoving infant in her arms. Her cries were the only sounds amid the crackling of fire.

We all come from broken pasts, murmured the voice from underneath the hood. The Dark attracts the grieving. The sounds of lament are a pleasure to its senses. All who embrace the Dark know loss before they are granted its blessing.



Was this Aenah? I remembered a similar vision when that Faceless had briefly lowered her defenses and gave me access to her mind. She too had clung to a dead infant before a burning city, the first and only time I felt any empathy on her behalf.

Aenah knew loss, but her grief differed from yours. Your brother was old enough to be raised, had enough of his own will to be given his own freedoms. Aenah’s child had no such choices. Her daughter would always remain an infant, never growing up and never understanding what had happened. That knowledge tore at Aenah. Usij may have known similar agonies, though the well of his mind had been poisoned for far too long to draw sanity from its depths.

You all worked together…

No. We shared the same goals and sought to independently attain them by all means. As do you, Tea. Your colleagues sought to hide the truth from you. They are willing to kill you to preserve their objectives. Only you, of all the asha who claim the Dark, seek out shadowglass.

This was the elders’ purpose, then? To kill me under the guise of a trial and an execution? Because my death under other circumstances would incite suspicion?

Have you ever thought otherwise?

I paused. No.

Mykaela they can control. She is too weak. In time, they believe, opposition will fade once you are gone. There will be new empresses and new Dark asha, and the elders shall endure. That is the nature of tyranny, young Tea. Maintaining power is their sole intention. Why worry about retaliation and revolution when they have always intended to wield the sword? Such was Vernasha’s dream.

You have kept yourself abreast of Kion politics.

I am aware of many things.

Why tell me this?

We share the same goals, Lady Tea. We make good allies. What does it matter the means used to bring about the end result?

You want destruction. You seek to complete shadowglass to rule. That is not the same as what I want.

You do not know what it is that you want. You wish to rid the world of magic, yet you do not wish to rid yourself of your dead brother. It is a contradiction you have not yet come to terms with. The only solution is to wield magic for your own good, to suit the world to your principles. You know this. It gives you guilt. We are the same.

We are not the same! You have killed so many! You blighted your own men!

There must be sacrifices. Already we have given up too much. What is the difference if men fall to the blight or if they fall to an uncontrollable daeva? You have sacrificed your own people too.

That’s not true! I refused to think about Telemaine, dead at his son’s hand, a murder I had indirectly carried out. I refused to think about poor Daisy. I refused to think about Fox, and Inessa, and Polaire.



We are the same, he murmured. We were always the same. I knew as much the first time we met.

Who are you?

One of us shall find the First Harvest, Tea. It will not matter who takes the prize, for the consequences will be the same. Once you hold a god’s soul in your hands, you will not resist. You could make a compassionate ruler and shape the world to your liking. One day, you shall understand, and you shall thank me. In the meantime, consider the Drychta a gift, a pledge that we work toward the same objectives.

No! I took a step toward him, but he gestured with his hand and I froze, unable to move.

You have not known true power, Tea. The cloaked figure approached, and I felt fingers against my cheek. He leaned in close, his lips against my ear. I tried to draw back from the unwanted intimacy, but my body was immobile. The only way for you to truly understand me, he whispered, is for you to have a taste.

His fingers marked a symbol on my temple, and power surged into me, more than I had ever taken in at one time. I gasped as I fell, my body my own once more, but still helpless as I clawed at my head and the surges of energy filling my vision.

I was strength! Never had I felt more powerful, even when linked to the azi. I was ice and lightning and fire! I could feel the world at my fingertips! I could raise armies from the dead! I could raise them all—Polaire, Daisy, everyone! I could shape life into my own making, my own pleasure. I could become a god—

Druj and the burning city vanished, and I was back in the cave, stumbling. Kalen’s hand was firm and secure against mine. “What did he do?” he asked tightly, his voice promising violence.

“He wants me to find the First Harvest,” I whispered through parched lips. My voice rose in anger. “He wants to…to make an alliance.” What did you do to me, Faceless?