I do not flinch, nor give anything away in my expression. She hesitates, and I scowl. “Speak freely, or I will loosen your tongue.”
With a curt nod, she averts her eyes, lifting my card, then placing it next to Nyxara’s card—fate. “The more you attempt to destroy the prophesied one, the further you will be buried by the prophecy.”
I lean back in the chair. She’s clearly lying, to save the witch. “Did Nyxara tell you this?”
Slowly, she shuffles her position on the chair, then glares at the cards as if they may save her from my eyes. “My goddess? No. I didn’t know that was possible.” She pauses. “The vision could be wrong.”
“How did you learn of the prophecy? Of the witch?”
Her thumb skirts over the gilded edges of the cards. “I saw the words, in a dream,” she explains, then lets out a shaky breath. Briefly, her eyes flutter close as she recalls a memory I cannot see. Vines of violet magic seep from her eyes, the ropes of power snaking around her head until she is haloed by purple, shimmering swirls.
I lean forward, my fingers crumpling the cards, wrinkling the images of my siblings.
“I saw Tenenocti Island and the Black Sea,” she admits. “The prophecy was etched into a stone. Then, when I looked up, Tenenocti Island was reduced to ash. There, screams rang out, and that is when I saw you, sailing over the Black Sea, blood on your hands, and darkness in your eyes.”
My eyes widen as my mind shifts back to that period, over one-hundred and fifty years ago. Rage swallows my words as heartache claws into my chest. I suck in a deep breath and look at the threader. Her brows furrowed, and her thick lips pulled into a tight line.
“What else?” I demand, impatience lingering on the edge of my words. “Tell me.”
“Nothing,” she swears. “That is all I saw.” Panic threads her gray irises, and I lean back in my chair, glancing down at the six crumpled cards glistening with flecks of gold and silver gilding.
Her posture stiffens as my expression changes, and an accusation escapes my lips. “You know the gods are on the island.”
She shakes her head, forcing a faint, watery smile. “No… I won’t tell anyone. I can try to see more.”
My fingertips blacken as she first picks up Essentria’s card, then Cyna’s. After a few seconds of silence, her eyes trace the darkness in my hands.
“There was so much anguish.” She looks over the large cards, sadness etched into her elongated features. “Your sister betrayed you.”
“How?”
“It’s foggy. I can’t see past that. It’s as if—”
“Nyxara is blocking you,” I conclude, grinding my teeth as I glare at the Threader. “Tell me of the witch who will awaken my siblings.”
Her lashes tremble. “She has ethereal power. Everything will end with her. That is all I know.”
My nostrils flare as she confirms what I already knew. “Then you have outgrown your use for me.”
“No.” She presses her hands together, sliding from the chair onto her knees. “Please, I will do another reading. I will try to find out more.”
Nyxara will not show her anything else. Even in her comatose state, she still tugs the threads of fate where she can. I will fucking destroy her for it. At least I found out one thing: My sister was the one who betrayed me.
I stand to full height and take a step back. The Threader’s expression briefly registers my movement as a sign of mercy, but any relief fades swiftly as tendrils of darkness surge forward, coiling around her mouth to stifle her scream. Two more shadows pin her to the ground, her body quivering with sobs as tears pour from her wide, pleading eyes. Stooping down, my fingers hover just above her cheek as she fights against my shadows, to no avail.
“You cannot be allowed to live,” I state. “It is a pity that even with my sister’s magic in your veins, you did not see this coming.”
My touch lands on her face, and she squeezes her lids shut as my decay magic throbs through her, sinking into her bones and reducing every cell into ash. Her body crumples, embers floating as her eyes dissolve, and my shadows release.
I step back, breathing in the remains of her, as she joins the rest of my dead. Her gray-tainted soul rises like a light, then morphs into an apparition of her younger self.
“I told you everything, and you killed me,” she says with a faint, raspy voice only I can hear.
“You knew too much,” I explain. Wind whips around us as I walk out into the frost-bitten night, her sobbing soul trailing behind. A gust billows out the tail of my cloak as we move through the foggy forest, animals scattering away at the sound of my heavy footsteps.
She cries, her tone aching. “Don’t leave me here to wander this world.”
“I am not,” I reply dryly, and a smile curves my lips as distorted, anguished shrieks echo through the nearby trees. I turn my head as one of my reapers glides through a shadow.
The creature tilts its head toward me. Unlike the decayed arms of the dead that can be glimpsed breaking through the surface of the Black Sea, the bones of my reapers are polished and clean.
“What is that?” the Threader asks as I tighten my cloak around my torso, the whites of my nails scathing with pricks of pain from the blistering gusts of wind.
The reaper bows, its long hood sliding over its skull as its bones creak from the movement. Keeping one hand on the long scythe in its bony fingers, it rises back to full height.
I watch as the creature walks toward the Threader, sliding through a fog, appearing around it with each step. Created in the Darklands, using a combination of Essentria, Astraea, and my magic, my reapers are the most beautiful embodiment of death.
Tattered back robes cover the reaper’s skeletal body, dragging pieces of rock and bramble as it drifts over the mossy carpet of the forest. A faint gasp leaves the soul’s lips as the creature towers over her, swinging its scythe. Cutting right through the woman’s translucent form just as she presses her hands together in prayer, they both disappear in a cloud of black lightning.
Another sound replaces the absence of the Threader’s cries. Shallow breaths and pounding footsteps hammer into my ears from deep within the forest.
My powers tingle, sensing her close.
The witch.
Calista.
She is here.
