Page 145 of Ballad of Nightmares

She chuckled again. “If you grew up as his bastard, then you know all the ways his people struggled to eat and breathe in that gods-forsaken death hole. One inhale down by the mines and shards of metal attacked your lungs. I did your people a favor.”

“You killed innocent people—“

“I destroyed a castle full of pious cravens who did nothing to earn the titles they bore,” she snapped. “I gave those people a chance at revolution—“

“And look at them now,” Jay interjected. “Rioting and killing each other in the streets.”

“What’s left of their oppressors are the ones pitting them against each other,” she argued. “Look at who is controlling the well-equipped militias and tell me I’m wrong. Firemoor is behind that. They are funneling in weapons and money as they have always done, trying to keep the rest of us quiet and subdued.”

“Do not try and convince me that what you did was righteous,” Jay snapped. “You murdered innocent people in every quadrant on your way to power—”

“I’d love to know your definition of innocent,” Ana muttered.

“—People were organized and happy before this. Kingdoms were prospering—“

“Kingswere prospering,” she nearly shouted. “Kings who care nothing of their people, kings whose fathers didn’t give two fucks about their people. All they cared for was control.”

“And that is different from what you want, how? From what Arius wants?”

Ana almost laughed. “I do not know what Samarius wants. Sorry, you took me from him before I could find that out.”

Jay straightened to his feet over her, eyes hardened with rage as he took a step back. Ana chuckled at the sight of him so righteous and raging before her because of a father that never claimed him.

“Don’t tell me you’re angry about these places being destroyed. It’s not my fault that every one of their rulers thought more about how good their cock would feel buried between my breasts or my thighs rather than realizing they were being played.”

“Yes, you’re a right little whore, aren’t you?” Jay toyed.

Ana’s smile widened. “A whore with a thirst for blood and vengeance. Some might call that a Queen.”

Jay stared at her. “You’ve always been confident, Ana,” he said. “I’ve admired that about you since we met. But you deserve everything that’s about to come for you.”

“Oh, is the little bastard boy sad that he promised Daddy revenge on the whore that fucked him senseless and drove a knife through his throat?” She tutted her tongue in a mocking manner, her lips curling upward. “He begged like a dog, too.”

Jay’s knife was at her throat in a second, and Ana couldn’t stop laughing.

“Do it,” she dared him. “Break my skin and bleed me. You’ll only make him come faster.”

“He’ll never find this place,” Jay said. “It’s out of his reach.”

Lightning caught her eye in the far east, and a smile lifted the corner of her lips at the sight of the darkening cloud threatening closer and closer.

“Samarius has a deathhound and a horned demon as his two closest allies,” she said. “Not to mention legions of ghosted demons that he can raise from the cemetery outside his home and the ones that walk the streets that have waited centuries for revenge… And then, a weapon you’ve never heard of.”

“What kind of weapon?” Jay asked.

Ana looked around the camp, surveying every reaper and demon in his legion, her heart swelling. She scratched her nails together, and then…

Ana began to sing.

The words were in the language of the ancient Moorian of Icemyer, where the witches had found their power in the old caves far north. The power of forbidden lyrics and texts and crystals and song…

The song hummed from deep within her as it had the night in the dungeons. When the ghosted demons Sam had stationed with her ripped themselves apart trying to get to her. One going so far as to go into the cell with her, and she’d watched his blood spill from his throat as he shredded his ears and pulled out his own dead heart.

It was no different from the scene about to happen in front of her.

Reapers and demons all froze as though the know-how to walk had suddenly evacuated their tiny minds. They shuddered with every word leaving her lips, and Ana smiled when a sweep of wind circled them.

The noise of motorcycles buzzed her ears. She heard a howl, a monstrous bellow echoing from tree to tree like it was staking claim to this territory. A vulture circled overhead. And she swore the ground began to shudder.