Page 65

You Can Never Escape

“ E xcuse me, what?”

“Surrender yourself to the gods. And choose.”

“Choose what?”

“A god. Now!” Jelethia spins her lip rings, her face flushed, streaked with the red smear of ape’s blood. “Before the next moment.”

“I’ve already chosen. That’s why Acranta marked me with serpent tokens, right?”

“Gorgeous! Then we shou?—”

A roar splits the air.

The deep sound sinks into my bones, rattles through my chest, and sends a shudder ripping down my spine. My blood surges, crackles, and bursts like a thousand tiny explosions.

We drop to the ground, silent, fevered, filthy, soaked in blood. Some laugh, some giggle, fingers trailing over each other’s skin in teasing, playful touches. All of us kneeling. Foreheads pressed to the cold stone.

We listen to the roar as it grows stronger and stronger until it fades, vanishing just as suddenly as it came.

“We need six volunteers!” a man shouts, his voice rough and grating as we rise. “Step forward!”

“Volunteers for what?” I hiss to Jelethia, but she doesn’t hear me. Her hands are wrapped around someone else’s, his eyes burning with hunger, his sweat-slicked skin glistening under the firelight.

“For the ritual,” Iaxa replies, stepping up beside me. She holds her head high, delicate yet commanding, as if she looks down on everyone but herself.

Her eyes waver, blurring and sharpening like the visions Stara and Ceywen always whisper about, the ones brought on by their sacred mushrooms.

“What kind of ritual?”

“The Volunteers strip bare and offer their blood.”

“Why?”

She sighs, exasperated. “Are you slow? To gain power. What else?”

“It strengthens their Arzakean?”

Iaxa tilts her head, studying me. “Why so curious, Ipjgepaleg? You’d never survive it.”

“And why not?”

“Because you’re a sun elf.” Her lips curl in amusement. “Fragile. Delicate. Adorable. What would the gods want with your blood?”

“Two more!” the man shouts.

“You’d bleed out,” Iaxa continues, scoffing as she runs her fingers through her blood-streaked white hair. “If you even dared to cut yourself. I bet you wouldn’t even?—”

“One more!”

“—dare. You would never dare! Because you’re?—”

“Not like other sun elves.” I shove my way through the crowd.

There’s no circle anymore, just bodies moving everywhere. Over each other, under each other, against each other, inside each other. Kisses, hands, mouths. Sex, moans, and screams. Laughter, elbows, sweat. People falling, people fighting, people crying out to the sky.

I reach the fire. The man who called out stands before the flames, gripping a staff, his gaze firm. Five tall, commanding star elves stand around him—Baalvon, Zondan, and the rest unfamiliar.

The heat here is suffocating, yet it fuels me. It seeps into my skin, feeds my core, and sets my blood alight. The moonlight cuts through the haze of the drink, sharpening my thoughts. Its silver rays brush my arms, mending, steadying, preparing me.

The man’s eyes bore into mine. “Are you a Volunteer?”

“I’m a Volunteer.”

“You’re a sun elf.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No. If you wish to stand before the gods, so be it. The choice is yours alone.”

“Zel! Zel!” Acranta’s voice. Maybe she’s seen me. “Zel!”

“ Let the offering begin! ” the man thunders, his voice rolling over the drums, the pounding feet, and the night’s frenzy.

The star elves fall silent, their movements stilling as they gather like a shadowed mass around us. One by one, the Volunteers shed their clothes and step to the cliff’s edge, toes dangling over the abyss. With arms raised to the sky, they call out to the gods.

The crowd follows, their voices rising in unison, echoing every word. Hands stretch toward the stars, mirroring the ritual.

Then the blade glides across bare flesh. A crimson line opens, and blood drips slowly and steadily into the volcano’s restless maw. The molten depths swallow each offering.

When they turn back, they’re changed—wild and radiant. Their eyes burn with a feverish light, as if touched by something beyond mortal understanding.

“Your turn, sun elf!” The man’s rough voice cuts through the silence as he pushes me toward the edge.

The world holds its breath. The crowd watches, eyes glazed. I find Acranta among them, her mouth open in shock, her head shaking violently, and her hair whipping in every direction. Jelethia is gone. Iaxa stares at me, defiant. Fax and Salahfar… are kissing? Huh.

Closer to the edge. Naked. Clothes discarded, forgotten on the ground.

A few more steps, and I’ll see over the precipice. See what waits below. A dragon? A beast? Or just… stone.

“Ipjgepaleg, Ipjgepaleg, Ipjgepaleg!”

The name spreads, murmured at first, then swelling into a chant. A hum rolling through the crowd, repeating over and over.

And I don’t know if it’s respect or ridicule this time, if they praise me or call for my fall.

Still no sign of Netharu’el. He isn’t here. Neither is Vaast.

Maybe that’s for the best.

Maybe I shouldn’t reveal everything, not yet. Not my gift, not my secret lessons, not how I learned Arzakean through whispers and dragons. Perhaps it’s better that he’s not here to witness this.

I step to the edge and swallow, hard.

The abyss is vast. Dizzying. It plunges deeper and deeper until it disappears into a seething mass of molten rock.

And the lava isn’t still. It writhes and snaps, spitting fire and fumes.

It hisses, smokes, bubbles, and boils. It lashes against the rock, surging upward, stretching outward as if something beneath it is alive and hungry.

It rolls and folds, heavy and fluid, its glow pulsing like a monstrous heartbeat.

Red, gold, white, and yellow. Chunks of blackened stone drift across its surface like ice on a burning sea.

“Need help with the words, sweetheart?” Iaxa calls. “You don’t know Arzakean, do you?”

I lift my hands to the sky, staring at the sparkling stars. Souls lost to Orth, just as he devoured our world, Sarador. Then I close my eyes.

I reach inward, grasping for something ancient buried deep within me. I echo the words of the others but twist them, shaping them into a prayer for my goddess, Serapha, the goddess of vengeance.

“Hum selhor ni fbe bay, mi um vin zeh he oh ep!” Take this blood as my offering to you. My voice rises, carried by the wind, soaring toward the stars.

“Ilgumewrm, un eg irnew oh ep!” Serapha, I call to you.

“Venwl al oh ep eg welg!” Grant me your strength.

“Venwl al oh ep eg welg ez ihg lejvrh mjd glew lejvl!” Grant me the power of fury and retribution.

“Ez sepg mevl mjd febdjlii!” The courage to strike.

“Ez lhl gjemb el gin ihl jso!” The will to never waver.

The crowd stirs, a ripple of unease spreading through them.

“She knows Arzakean?”

“How did she learn it?”

“Sun elves can’t wield Arzakean!”

“She could die!”

Power crashes through me, sudden and overwhelming, like a bolt of black lightning. And then it arrives. A presence. Heavy. Massive. A force woven from a thousand circling spirits. Dark spirits. Spirits that crave blood. Creatures that thirst for blood.

I drag the dagger across my forearm. The pain doesn’t register. Maybe it’s because my heart is pounding too fast, and the world tilts beneath me. The first drops fall. Then more. Rushing eagerly down, swallowed by the volcano’s hungry maw.

“Mjd un nbay ilg wel oh ep.” And I’ll serve you.

“Zegl welg.” Forever.

The presence withdraws, ripping away like a storm passing through, leaving me shaking in its wake. The volcano roars, the ground trembling beneath me. My blood is gone, buried deep in its molten depths.

And I feel it. Strength coils through my veins, pulsing like fire. A power that smolders, waiting to be unleashed. A hunger, sharp, undeniable. For vengeance.

I stagger backward, my body giving out and falling until hands catch me.

The star elves hum again, their voices rising like embers into the night.

They lift me, pass me between them, raise me toward the sky, and rock me back and forth.

My head spins. My limbs tremble. Drained of energy, yet strangely powerful.

As if the gods have stirred something awake.

Something buried deep, now risen to the surface.

A darkness that wants Akares dead. A darkness willing to do anything for vengeance.

No matter the risk. No matter the cost.

“Febaydipjun, Febaydipjun, Febaydipjun, Febaydipjun!”

Torches flare. Flames flicker across tangled bodies. Screams and howls tear through the night.

“Febaydipjun, Febaydipjun, Febaydipjun, Febaydipjun!”

The name rings in my ears. Febaydipjun. Blood Sun.

Why are they calling me that?

Iaxa pulls me down, her eyes wide, face glowing with exhilaration. “You did it! You survived!” Then she kisses me, laughing, spinning me into a dance.

The world tilts. My vision warps. Is it even Iaxa? Or someone else?

“You’re insane!” Jelethia’s voice, sharper, closer. Her face streaked with dried blood, blurred around the edges.

“Why are they calling?—”

“What?” she shouts over the chaos, gripping my wrist and yanking me away from Iaxa.

Elves pressing in. Bodies tangled. Heat. Sweat. Blood. Ash.

“Why are they calling me Blood Sun?”

Iaxa yanks me back. “You’re one of us now, sun elf. Bound by blood.”

“Oh, give it a rest. I found her first!” Jelethia snaps, throwing a heavy arm around me, her eyes hazy.

They argue over me. Shoving. Shouting. More hands reach for me. More voices call my name. More star elves I’ve never even spoken to. They want my attention. They want to dance.

And then I see him.

Akares.

Or someone dressed like him.

Someone with hair as white as ice and skin as black as polished ebony. But the face. It’s just as I remember. Yet wrong. Blurred. Unfocused. Too many eyes. And he spins. Spins. Spins. Or am I the one spinning?

Suddenly, I’m in his arms. Held fast. How did I get here?

He pulls me into the fire circle, hiding me behind the wall of heat. His hands slide over my body, and the drums thunder in my skull.

I strike him. Wrench myself free. Don’t touch me! And especially not you. Not when you look like the man I hate. Even if I know it’s not you. Of course, it isn’t you.

“You’re so sexy,” he whispers, his breath hot against my ear, his hands swaying in perfect rhythm with my hips. “Blood suits you well.”

“Not as good as it’ll look on you when my fist breaks your nose.”

I smirk and spin away, teasing him with a slow blink. Then I step backward through the fire, letting him see that the flames don’t touch me.

“Why would you hit me?”

A shudder runs through me. The voice comes from behind.

And there he is. Again. Standing in the crowd, unmoving amid the chaos. Surrounded by sweat-slick bodies, tangled limbs, and arms swaying in a wild dance. Still. Smiling. His hair as soft as brushed spider silk.

“How in the fires did you get here?” I step back, closer to the fire.

He catches me. His hand firm and hot to the touch. Not just warmth. Flame.

“Don’t leave yet. The night is just getting started.”

“You look like Akares.”

He lifts his brows, the movement drawing attention to his massive horns. “Oh?” But he doesn’t look surprised, not really. Even as he feigns it, his eyes remain sharp and clear, nothing like the dazed, glassy stares of the others.

His robes are elaborate and flowing, every inch of him clothed where the rest are naked. And that smile. I know that smile.

But the world spins, and his hand is the only thing keeping me upright.

“Are you Akares?” I mumble through the haze.

“Does it matter?”

He pulls me closer, pressing me against his warmth, forcing my body into his rhythm. He smells of wild roses and thorns, with a faint trace of vanilla.

“You can’t?—”

“I have you wrapped around my sharp, sharp claws.” His voice hums with satisfaction. “Exactly where I want you.” His teeth skim my neck, razor-sharp, like the tips of daggers. His breath is hot. Ragged.

“I watch you. Always. And if I wanted to kill you, I would. You can never escape me and will never find me unless I let you.”

I’m trapped. Frozen. My body is stiff as stone. I can’t move.

I can’t speak. Only drift, caught in his grasp, swaying in time with him.

“Do you like our dreams?” he whispers. “You’re just as tempting now as you are in them. I do enjoy seeing you naked.”

“What do you mean?” My voice is barely a breath, swallowed by the crackle of the flames.

“Well, what do you think, Iszaelda?” He speaks my name with a thick, guttural accent, each syllable pronounced with a distinct, foreign sound.

“I can shape dreams, bend them to my will. You thought you were kissing Netharu’el?

” His lips brush my ear, his voice a purr of amusement.

“Sorry to disappoint you, darling. It was me. All along.”