Page 281

Nuri held up a fist—her left one—and slowly lifted one finger at a time, revealing her bare palm. No red Blood Bond Mark adorning it.

“Now do you have a preference?” she asked, her fangs snapping out.

“How? That is not possible,” Alaric barked, taking a step back.

“Oh, you know, Gehenna,” Scarlett said, as if discussing some silly antics of a child. “She justlovesto talk when given the right incentive.”

“It is not—”

But another crash had him whirling around again. “What the fuck are you doing, Juliette?”

“Distracting you,” she answered.

“From what exactly?”

“Scarlett draining your power.”

“Scarlett, cannot—” But he paused then, and Scarlett knew he was feeling it. The steady pull at his stolen magic. Cethin had taught her how after the Wind Court. How to steadily use his gift to drain someone, but to make it subtle, she had to go slow. Her sisters knew. They’d discussed how this would need to go before they’d gone to the Necropolis. It was why it had to be them. They knew him best. How to get under his skin, keep him occupied.

She felt his magic try to fight back, but Cethin’s magic was stronger.Shewas stronger.

Scarlett clucked her tongue, still twisting the rose between her fingers as she casually moved forward. “I discovered my brother has a very interesting talent. He can let his darkness seep into someone’s blood just by touching them. Isn’t that fascinating?”

“No,” Alaric gritted out, taking another step back. He bumped into his desk, knocking his glass to the floor where it shattered.

Scarlett continued her advance, Nuri and Juliette closing in on the other sides with blades drawn.

Cethin had explained that power to her after the Wind Court battle too. When physically touching someone, he could send his darkness into them. She could do the same with her shadows, but his darkness stayed, mixing with blood and soul. Marking them with death. A marking of Arius himself. It poisoned, tortured, and rotted until death was a mercy.

Much like the Wraiths of Death themselves in a way.

She stopped in front of Alaric, her head tipping to the side. Alaric tried to scramble away from her, but her shadows were holding him in place now. His magic tried to claw at them, sink in, devour. Her ice and fire battled back.

Scarlett smiled. Lifting a hand, she reached for him and dragged a single finger along his jaw. Black lines flared out, spider-webbing across his check and down his neck. He let out a cry of pain, unable to move away from her touch.

She sent him a mocking pout. “Together we will keep this world safe. Is that not what you desire most, Alaric?”

The black lines were bleeding from his eyes now, and he let out another gasp of agony as she no longer slowly drained his power. She ripped it out of his being the way he had ripped the life forces from Sloan and Finn, tearing away every last shred of magic.

Alaric sank to his knees, a rattling cough sounding as Scarlett let her finger slide away from his flesh, severing their physical connection. She wished she could drag this out. She wished they could take their time with him. Spend hours showing him just how thoroughly the students had surpassed their once master. But he was right. She could feel Achaz getting closer, and the only way to keep him out now was to make sure the Maraans were dead.

She knew in her being the other Lords were gone. Her court and her family would not fail her in this. She wouldn’t let Callan’s sacrifice be a waste in her own need for vengeance.

Nuri and Juliette drew closer as Scarlett reached for a scrap of parchment on Alaric’s desk.

“I do not think I will be ripping your throat out after all,” Nuri commented while Scarlett dipped a quill into a jar of ink and scrawled a single word onto the parchment. “I do not want a single drop of your blood to pass my lips. It is not worth it when the blood is powerless.”

Alaric made some noise of outrage, and Scarlett turned to find Juliette pushing him onto his back with the toe of her boot. Scarlett rolled the parchment around the stem of the rose before ripping a thin strip of fabric from her black tunic. It wasn’t a ribbon, but it would do.

The three of them stood over him, staring down at their former master. His face was nothing but cracked lines of black that bled into his hair and down his neck into the collar of his tunic.

“I could have saved you,” he rasped out. “I could have saved all three of you. My Wraiths.Mine.”

“We saved ourselves,” Nuri spat. “We were never yours.”

His black eyes went back to Scarlett. “He will keep coming for you. He will come for his entire bloodline. He will not stop until there is not a drop of Arius blood left in existence. The gods don’t stop. They never stop,” Alaric managed around a cough, blood spraying from his lips.

“Oh, Alaric,” Scarlett simpered. Her shadows writhed behind her, a mist of darkness. She lowered down so she could speak directly into his ear. “Weare your gods now.”