The Deck of Omens (The Devouring Gray #2) - Christine Lynn Herman Page 0,116

am here to take the powers I was promised when I made my sacrifice. There’s still room for you to take that power, too. Do you understand that if you go through with this, all you’ve worked for will just… disappear? You’re so talented, May. What a shame to throw that away.”

May took a deep breath and tried to focus. Richard had raised her to believe that she was meant to be useful, not loved. That no one would notice her or care for her if she was ordinary.

But May knew better now.

She was more than her power. More than the Deck of Omens, more than the Gray. Strong enough to make a monster listen, and strong enough to know it wasn’t right to command it at all. It was time to end this now, make it so that no child would have to go through this ever again. She would not let Four Paths do this to anyone else.

She’d come here to give all of this up, and she was not about to let her father stop her.

“But it isn’t your power,” May said, reaching for the roots in her mind. “It’s never belonged to any of us.”

As she exhaled, she let the hawthorn’s endless pathways spiral through her. Her mind spun, visions dancing behind her eyes, and in that moment it was as if she held the entire forest inside her, as if she was at the heart of the whole town. Her mind spun as she felt the collective pain of all of those who had died here, their horror, their sadness and fear in their final moments.

She collapsed to the ground, her hands twining in the roots, and pushed.

The effect was instantaneous. The roots around her friends uncoiled, releasing them; they tumbled onto their sides, gasping for air, as the founders’ symbol began to shake beneath them.

“Give it your power!” she called out to them. “Finish this.”

Wordlessly, they pressed their hands to the roots as she had; May felt the collective hum of their power as it joined hers.

“What is this?” Richard snarled, stretching out his own hands. But nothing moved.

“You’re too late to stop the ritual,” May said, tipping her head up to meet his eyes. “I am not your tool. And you will never make another sacrifice.”

As she spoke, gray mist poured out of the cracks in the founders’ symbol. It hung in the air, coiling and uncoiling, and from it, three figures emerged.

At the sight of them, Richard blanched, and May gasped.

“You betrayed us,” Lydia Saunders whispered. She was ethereal in gray, her braid dissolving into smoke at the ends.

“You destroyed us,” Thomas Carlisle said, his eyes dark pits of despair.

“You have been running for a long time,” Hetty Hawthorne snarled. “But not anymore, Richard. This ends here.”

They advanced, and he ran, scrambling back toward the edge of the clearing. But they were far faster than anything living, and the moment they reached him, their hands grasping at his flesh, Richard began to scream.

He fell to his knees, writhing and twisting. May gasped as she realized that his hair was turning from blond to gray to snow-white, thinning across his scalp, his flesh puckering and changing as his magic seeped away.

His body turned ashen; his spine twisted and spasmed just as the founders’ had in the memory Richard had shown May. Just as the body had in that vision the Beast had shown her.

Around her, the others bowed their heads, unable to watch. But May did not look away as her father’s flesh disintegrated. As roots spiraled down his arms and legs and his eyes faded to white. Soon there was nothing left of him but iridescent dust spread across the edge of the founders’ seal.

May got to her feet, shuddering not with pity, but relief.

Richard Sullivan was the only real monster in Four Paths. And this death, at the hands of those he’d wronged, was exactly what he deserved.

She blinked again, and the founders were gone, their bodies dissolved into a mist that coiled in gray ropes around the seal. The Beast’s voice murmured wordlessly in her ear, fading in and out of focus. Wind whipped through May’s hair; the mist spun, and she tipped her head back, gasping as a great crack appeared in the center of the Gray’s off-white sky.

A wave of light-headedness washed over her, and she beckoned the others. They crouched together at the edge of the shaking seal, their arms wrapped around one another as the world