Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
“Or?” Even as she waited for his answer, the creatures below attempted to rise up and reach for her, but they were too weak, kept collapsing in a rattle of bones.
“There was a time when the reborn in this land hauled the dead from their graves and fed on them,” Alexander told her. “Those dead then rose as reborn. It may be that some dead who were so mauled didn’t rise at the time.”
Zanaya’s gorge threatened to erupt. “Are you saying—” She halted, unable to think of the right words. That these wretched beings might be the buried dead whose slumber had been broken just made the entire thing even more obscene. “These creatures,” she finally managed to say, “are they risen from their graves?”
54
“Titus ordered his people to dig up and cremate their freshly dead.” Grim words. “But the reborn wiped out entire settlements—easy for the squadrons to miss a desecrated graveyard or two, especially with the chaos of what was taking place at the time.”
Zanaya heard a faraway and wretched scream in the back of her head as the creature she’d first seen, the one who seemed the strongest of all those below, tried to rise toward her once again, its face bearing just enough skin to reveal a paroxysm of pain.
Unable to bear it, she used her power to scrape the area in a pinpoint strike. There were no more skeletal reborn after she was done, nothing but dust where they’d once crawled. The grasslands fell silent. Suffocated by the weight of that silence, she and Alexander flew a meticulous and sprawling grid to ensure no more hid within the grasses.
I’ve found the graveyard, Zani. Alexander’s voice in her mind. Tucked into a corner of the forest we saw as we walked—it lies adjacent to the remains of an abandoned hamlet, and is difficult to see from an aerial scan. I only did so because of a token left behind in a grave—it glinted in the moonlight.
I’ll come.
There’s no need. I can tell you that every grave is empty, and that trails of dirt lead away from each. This is from whence the reborn appeared. The dead must’ve been partially dug up, then abandoned—after the living who looked after them were all already dead or reborn themselves. A pause. Let me protect you this once, my heart.
Bile scalding her throat, Zanaya swallowed. And allowed herself the respite—and Alexander the need to protect. I see no signs of any other reborn. Let us meet again on the plain.
When she landed, she did so in a patch of grass untouched by the risen dead. “They were coming toward me,” she said to Alexander when he landed beside her. “It was obvious from an aerial perspective.”
Turning before he could answer, she strode through the grass, then came back, the grass prickles against her wings where before the blades had been caressing fingers. Her entire body felt as if it had been beset by tiny insects. “That fucking blackhearted bitch.” She spat out the words. “She infected me.”
Alexander grabbed her hand when she would’ve swiveled away again. “Zani, no. Think.” He squeezed her wrist. “The infected were slave to her will—you are slave to no one. Do you feel any compulsion to serve a master?”
Unable to shake off the sense of violation, she tore away her hand and strode through the grass. This time, she walked until she was far from the memory of the crawling reborn, her mind cooling with each step that passed.
When Alexander flew over to land beside her, she exhaled. “No,” she said. “I feel no compulsion to serve anyone.” It was a relief to say that aloud. “But—” She cut herself off because she didn’t want to say it, but Alexander had to know. “I felt them, those creatures. Like a hum inside me. And . . . I heard a screaming faint but pitiful.”
Trembling not with shock but blackest rage, she looked at Alexander. “How could she live with those screams? They would’ve been so loud for her, the trapped begging her for release.”
“Because she was evil.” Flat words, the silver of his gaze as hard as a sheet of metal.
“I might not be reborn,” Zanaya said, “and my eyes might have settled into their ordinary shade—”
“They changed to gray when the reborn were coming toward you, are only fading back into dark brown now.”
Uttering a small scream, Zanaya kicked at the dirt, hard enough to send a clump flying. “Bitch. Vicious, murderous bitch!”
Whatever Alexander said in response to her tirade was drowned out by Aureline’s voice in her head: Zan! We’ve received an alert on a modern device that bears Raphael’s sigil and that of Elijah. I can’t access it. It’s sealed for archangelic eyes only.
Blood cold, Zanaya shared what Auri had told her with Alexander.