Page 135 of Shifter King

"I have had enough," she said again, louder this time. She lifted her other arm and started moving those fingers. More Reskal Bealorn guests arched back. Oh it was easy. So easy. She lifted her hands up. White energy spun between her fingertips, trembling.

She continued. "And I am tired. So tired. There has been no peace since I came here. Only torment. Not my own. In the city. In the pit. The suffering. So much. Cruelty just to be cruel. Nothing except cruelty. And you didn't try to stop any of it. You didn't try to make it better for anyone. Not one of you!"

"Neyeb," the Ki Valo Nakar said."Neyeb, you have to eat a soul first. Yes, you can rip all these souls, but if you don't eat the souls, you won't be strong enough to survive. Just take some. Eat the queen's. It won't take long. She deserves it. Surely you can agree that she deserves it."

She couldn't even see the queen through the light, but she had her soul, a scarred unpleasant thread that whispered of all sorts of horrors and suffering. "Maybe. But I won't. Let her be judged."As she herself would be judged. Because what she was about to do was wrong. It was forbidden. These souls weren't willing. She could hear their screams even now. But it was worth it to get rid of this nightmare. She could save her family, but she would be a monster. A ragged laugh rose within her. No. She was one. Just not one who ate souls.

"Neyeb!" the Ki Valo Nakar shouted.

There were limits. As long as her family—Naatos, AaQar, WroOth, and QueQoa—their faces flashed into her mind, and her chest swelled with emotion. Tears brimmed in her eyes. They had each other. They had all these other Vawtrians who needed them now. Needed to learn how to shift and live and thrive. How to be free. A monstrously oppressive regime to overthrow. People to pull up out of that pit and find new homes for. So many things that needed their strengths. And she was already broken. She wasn't even close to finding all of herself. What Dry Deep hadn't crushed, the psychic wine shattered. So she could be a monster right now, so long as it meant that they lived.

* * *

Naatos lurched,stunned as something smashed against his mind. Everything went black, spinning and fading in and out. His entire being burned and throbbed, aching like an infected wound.

What had happened?

How much time had passed—wait.

He straightened.

Something had changed.

Someone was here.

The air—it was—oh—that smell.

That presence.

That.

That was his veskaro.

Yes.

Her.

He turned, desire and relief surging through him.

Beautiful glorious stunning her. White-blue light shone around her as she spread her arms wide, her face tilted up. She wore a caribou-antlered headdress, and great red streaks ran down her cheeks.

It didn't quite look like her. But that was her.

Finally.

Everything else blurred. He staggered, all his senses focusing on her. She was here, alive, and vibrant. And that was all that mattered.

He leaped off the platform, then charged down the aisle.

His veskaro!

* * *

"No, you do not do this,"the Ki Valo Nakar howled. "Amelia, stop now! If you won't eat a soul, then release them."

Voices shouted at her. They echoed in her mind. Not just those of souls she held but of those whom they had wronged. Blood poured out. Lives shattered. They screamed and begged for mercy, for compassion, for anything but the harshness they'd drowned in.

"If I release them, nothing changes. They all—they all go back to what they were doing because we won't catch everyone. This has to end now. It's not what I wanted."She closed her eyes as she focused her energy. Such a cosmic irony that now that she so dearly wanted a life with Naatos it was time to lay hers down.