Page 31

Lighter than a feather and softer than an early morning breeze, a voice inside her head asked the question she’d always wanted to hear. “What is it you want?”

Marlena inhaled a sharp breath, but it caught in her chest when the voice rang again. “Do not waste our time.”

She spoke out loud, unsure of how she was supposed to respond. “Power.”

The voice changed this time, becoming something new. “So does everyone else. What makes you so special?”

“Because I want it the most.”

A laugh tickled her insides, the sound lazy with a hint of pity. “Everyone who's tried has wanted it, Marlena. You’re no different.”

She stopped talking out loud, turning to the voice inside her head—leaning into the part of her who knew this was her destiny. “Then why are you here? If I’m no different, you would have killed me already.”

No one responded, but Marlena could still feel the whispers swirling around her. The voices mixed together like the hiss of an unintelligible argument. “I am the first of our kind to have two powers. I’m not like the others.”

“What about your sister?” a new voice that was somehow different, yet still sounded like the others, clamored.

“The sister,” another new voice hummed.

“She’s not here!” Marlena screamed. She was so fucking sick of talking about Vega. “She’s not here and she had the opportunity, but it’s too late.”

“What makes you so sure you’re the one for us?” the first voice asked.

“Because I don’t just want to rule. I want revenge. Revenge just like all of you. I want the people who doubted me to suffer. The ones who made me question my worth… I want them dead. I want to wa tch the life drain from their eyes. I want to give you a body to call home again.”

So many sighs of agreement rattled in Marlena’s brain like a sweet caress.

Marlena knew she had them. It was the same feeling she’d had when Lucius joined her, when Ivelle fell in line.

Like a fish to a worm… She just knew. “I’m not like Mira.

Summoning you isn’t just for me. It’s for all of us.

Imagine the world we could rule if your powers became mine. I can get your revenge and mine too.”

Marlena’s skin burned with a fire she’d never felt.

“And what are you willing to give us in return?”

Marlena hesitated, and it wasn’t nerves that kept her from answering right away. It was strategy. Her hook had sunk where it should, and now it was time to reel them in. “Anything.”

The caress she’d felt inside intensified, as did the flames of her candles.

“Anything?” a new, louder voice hissed.

“Anything,” Marlena confirmed.

Silence surrounded her at the same time the clearing went completely still. Her mare reared, braying in fear, and took off. Marlena could hear the twelve individual voices this time. “Would you give us your heart?”

Her heart.

Hearts.

Mira’s still beating heart.

Before her nerves told her to run, Marlena shoved them down. Showing an ounce of weakness would get her killed. The gods didn’t care about her… and she didn’t care about them.

She wanted their powers, and she would lie however she needed to get them.

Marlena wouldn’t let them take over. She knew it was what they wanted—to make her body their host, erasing her own mind and taking over as they pleased.

She’d told them she would be their vessel, but what they didn’t know was Marlena would never stop fighting for the control she desired.

She’d lost too much already. She wouldn’t let anyone else take more from her. Dead gods or not, Marlena would rule. This was her overtaking.

“What does my heart do for you?” she asked, watching the wind sweep around the treetops.

“It shows us who you really are, who you’re meant to be.”

Marlena’s heart.

My broken fucking heart.

She’d lost everyone.

Vega wouldn’t choose her.

Her parents had never loved her.

Bridger wanting anyone other than Vega was a complete pipe dream.

Khort would follow her sister anywhere.

And Arlet…

Oh, Arlet.

She had given up when Marlena needed someone the most.

What did Marlena need her useless heart for anyway?

“It’s yours,” she agreed, this time saying the words aloud again.

Power surged through her like the heat of Vulcan’s flame, like the surge of Neptune’s water, the strength of Mars’s bones. All of the dead gods rushed into Marlena one by one, taking up space that had once been only hers.

“Show us your heart.”

“Give it to us.”

“You’re ours.”

“Such a wicked little thing.”

“Rip it out.”

You have nothing to lose.

The last voice wasn’t that of a god… it was the one she’d had in the back of her mind since before she could remember .

“You must let go of it all, let go of every piece of yourself. That means ridding yourself of who you once were—of the people you once loved.”

The gods chimed as Marlena’s hand rose to her chest, her manicured fingernails growing the claws of a beast. Pain blinded her, rushing through her body as her vision spotted, and she fought to stay in control.

The voices were so loud. So loud.

A scream erupted from Marlena’s throat, shredding her vocal chords until her voice sounded like that of an animal being devoured by its predator.

Her new claws pierced through the exposed skin on her chest, blood trickling down until it soaked into her dress.

“Kill them.”

“They must die.”

Marlena could barely hear the whisper of her own voice anymore, but before she plunged her hand into her chest, she could hear it saying, “They don’t deserve to die.”

It wasn’t enough to make her stop. She couldn’t stop.

The scream bubbling out of Marlena’s chest must have rattled the entire realm, but she couldn’t hear it through the pain ripping into her body, shredding through muscles and tendons, and breaking bones to wrap her fingers around her beating heart.

It pumped in her grasp, ticking in time with the pounding in her ears. Marlena took one last breath and pulled.

Her vision blurred, and blood splattered on the clean white snow… and in her hand, Marlena held the heart of a villain.

Marlena dropped to her knees, fighting to inhale a breath when everything went black. Her hands sank into the ground, and a green fire soared from her palms, melting the ground below. It consumed all it touched.

The wax of her candles didn’t stand a chance and melted in the blink of an eye. Fallen pine needles lit, emerald sparks soaring in the growing wind to catch in nearby trees.

The embers of what Marlena’s life had once been caught fire, spreading with a heat this world had never known. It didn’t matter that the snow had saturated the greenery around her… Marlena’s built-up anger set the forest ablaze.

Marlena’s eyes snapped back open, and she was thrust back into her body. A gasp of air reentered her lungs, and her gaze fixed on the flames pouring like lava from the palms of her hands.

The world around her shimmered with a new gleam—a power reborn.

The forest glowed, sputtering from her fire’s heat. Marlena stood, and when she took a step, her body moved through time and space. Nothingness swallowed her whole, and when it spit her out, she stood behind her mother in the room where Marlena’s story began.

She caught Ryanna's gaze in one of the mirrors, and reflected back to her was the face of a newborn woman. Her head dipped down, and Marlena’s lips spread in a smile so eerie, she felt Ryanna’s breath leave her lungs in a gasp of fear.

Claws shot out of Marlena’s hand at her disposal, like a power that had always been inside her, and she caged Ryanna in like the animal she’d always treated Marlena as.

And for the first time in her life, Marlena saw the world as she’d dreamed it to be.

As mine.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING.