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Slowly, I cross the broken and battered ground to her and stare directly into her eyes. When she spits on me, I do not flinch, and I do not wipe it off.
I am numb.
People will grieve their parents.
Their friends.
Their lovers.
Their family.
Their children.
But I am the only person in this entire realm who will grieve their high priest.
Viola Mistflow is gone, for I am the vicious blade of justice. I am the righteous arm of retribution.
I grip Amaryn's face tightly, squeezing her mouth open as she stares at me wide-eyed. She tries to talk, but I don't hear it, and if I did, I wouldn't understand it. With my free hand, I grab her tongue and pull it out of her mouth, stretching it so far and so tightly she has no choice but to stretch her neck to follow it. I drop her face, swiftly grab my blade from my thigh, and slice her tongue off.
Blood pours from her mouth, and the smell of it makes me want to gag.
I have no desire to see what lies within her blood.
I already know her truth.
Dropping the tongue on the ground, I drag the tip of my blade down her cheek, barely breaking the skin. "I think you and I are going to have a lot of fun discussing my high priest." Leaning close to her ear where none of my companions can hear me, I whisper, "You fucked with my family, Amaryn. I may have killed your brothers, but that is only the beginning of thesuffering I will bring you."
I rub the back of my hand on Shadow's large cheek and walk away, leaving Amaryn sobbing with a mouth full of blood. Mace is stirring, Tulip helping him to a sitting position, and I can feel my heart break the moment his eyes land on the place Morrow laid Zeph.
There are no words to describe the sound that leaves him, the pure agony he is in as he crawls through the dirt that has been clumped with gore. He shakes Zeph's shoulders, begging and pleading for him to open his eyes, but we all know it's pointless.
The specter of death hangs over us all, grateful for the offering we have unwillingly provided.
I sink to my knees, feeling as if I am outside of my body. A part of me has been ripped out haphazardly, leaving me with a gaping wound that will never be staunched.
"Mace," I say softly, placing a hand on his thigh.
"What happened?" he chokes out, his voice hoarse and brutalized.
"You were… dying, Mace." I have to take a moment to close my eyes push down the fear and, grief, and despair I felt in those moments as I struggled to heal Mace because this is not about me. This moment is not about the Nightroot who almost died but the one who did. "You were nearly cut in half," I continue, never taking my eyes off the pale face of my high priest. The pallor of death makes the tattoo on his neck stand out vividly, and I focus on those blood-red drops meant to signify my magic.
My magic.
"I can bring him back!" I say, jumping to my feet. "I can bring him back. I have Spring magic. I can bring him back!"
"Only for a moment," Morrow says softly, placing his hand on my arm. "It's only for minutes."
"For a Seasonale. I'm a God, Morrow. Who's to say I cannot keep him here longer?"
Mace grabs my hand, pulling me back to the dirt and wrapping his arms around me as he sobs into my chest. "Please, Viola," he says thickly. "What happened? Can you bring me my brother back?"
I place both of my shaking hands on Zeph's chest, the stillness so eerie and foreign that I want to yank them away and cringe at how unnatural it feels. But I push deep inside me, searching for that unfamiliar, unused magic of Necromancy that I know lies within. With my eyes closed, I can almost see it, like a sticky purple spiderweb wrapping around my high priest's still body.
Opening my eyes, I look directly into the bright green eyes of Zeph Nightroot.
His chest isn't moving, but his face cracks into a sad smile. "Shadowweaver," he says softly. "I had hoped you wouldn't do this."
"What do you mean?" Mace says, anger creeping into the sorrow that has taken over his voice.
