Page 224 of Scorched Earth

“You mistake grief for uncertainty, for you have stolen someone dear to us.”

Killianknewthat tone. Knew that in the depths of rage and despair, Lydia was descending to a place where she had the potential to become very dangerous. He could tell that Agrippa heard it, too, as he pushed Malahi away from the threat.

“But were you dear to him?” the blighter asked. “I dare say that even left to his devices, he’d have gladly revealed your secrets. You, who caused the only person he cared about to abandon him over and over.”

“Finn wasn’t like that,” Lydia hissed. “I never met a more selfless person, and I will not allow you to use his body.”

“Will you order Killian to cut off his head?” the voice asked, using Finn’s eyes to look at Killian. “Burn his corpse? This boy, who you swore to protect but abandoned with little thought. Who you left to make his own way, fed and watered, but forgotten by the one who mattered to him most. He was easy to take given his propensity to seek out those in dire circumstances. He died alone in Serlania’s sewers. Died in agony and in fear, then rose on my strings to listen to you prattle on about a thousand concerns, none of which were him. What agony for him to watch you use his corpse to unburden your soul, with no care for how he suffered.”

Killian clenched his teeth, hating the awful words because they weretrue.He had abandoned Finn to Sonia’s care knowing full well that she wasn’t who the boy needed. Had barely given him a second thought, every part of him consumed by other concerns. And because of that, Finn had died alone.

“Finn is gone!” Lydia snarled. “His soul is with the Six and his cares no longer of this world.”

The voice laughed, the sound grating and awful. “Are you sure about that, Kitaryia?”

“Yes.” Lydia’s voice was stalwart and certain, but Killian felt her waver. “There is no life in him.”

“Is a soul alive? Or is it, perhaps, something else entirely? Something that might be chained by the very power that puppets this body, made to watch while his friends turn on him. Will you lock him up, as you did dear little Emmy? Or will you order the one he loves like a brother to cut him down? Will Finn finally bear witness to how little he mattered to you both?”

Oh gods, no.

“Liar,” Lydia whispered. “You’re a liar. The greatest of all liars.”

The voice made a humming noise, then said, “Lies never hurt quite as much as the truth.”

Killian’s skin crawled, instincts screaming that the threat was no longer the blighter but Lydia. “Agrippa, get everyone out!”

A heartbeat later, Lydia lunged, wrenching Finn’s body from Killian’s grasp, her hands clamping on the sides of the boy’s head. “Let him go!” she screamed, her voice wrath incarnate.

All around them was chaos, Agrippa forcing everyone from the room as Lydia wrestled with Finn’s struggling corpse.

His eyes were bottomless pits, his screams of rage inhumanly loud, the sound piercing and cruel. Black veins rose to the surface of Finn’s skin, pulsing with a throbbing beat of a dark heart, the flow moving toward Lydia’s hands.

Then into her.

She screamed, and Killian clenched his teeth as black veins crisscrossed her pale hands, rising up her wrists. As she took death into herself and warred against it, drawing in life from across Reath to aid in her battle.

A battle he was helpless to help fight.

He lunged for her, but then Agrippa had him by the arm. “Don’t!” he shouted. “She can do this. She can defeat him!”

Lydia howled, her voice a mix of agony and rage. Then the black veins down her arm seemed to set aflame with brilliant light before disappearing entirely.

She’d won.

Finn slumped in her arms, the Corrupter vanquished from his body, his eyes once again a soft brown. But they were also glassy and lifeless.

Yet the determination on Lydia’s face remained as she reached out her left hand to the open air, her right pressed against Finn’s cheek.

One cannot heal death, and death to the healer who tries.

Killian lunged, reaching for Lydia to pull her free.

But he was too late.

He could not see the life that she manipulated, but he felt it. The surge as she dragged upon all of Reath, the windows around them exploding, the pressure knocking him to the floor. Holding him down and tearing at the fabric of his clothes, glass and shredded flowers swirling around them in a maelstrom.

Then everything went still.