things. People would be better off without them,” Nero said, slowly sitting up.
Quinn squatted in front of him. “That’s the thing. Everyone feels something. Even if you can’t understand others, you still have emotions.” She reached out and ran a fingertip over his cheek. The magic he’d expended to bring so many back left him weak. Crippled.
“You’re bold for one that knows killing me means their own death,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
Quinn tsked. “I believe you said, ‘any harm done unto me shall have the same done back to you.’ They are not the same.” Quinn grinned maniacally, and she swore that somewhere out there she heard a laugh, deep and dark and sultry. As if Mazzulah knew that they’d won.
“They are,” Nero said.
“I can’t feel fear. It does not touch me. I may die. I may not. Either way, you don’t scare me—because while I might not feel fear, you do.”
Quinn placed the palms of her hands on either side of his face.
Nero’s good eye rounded, the pupil dilating. He reached for her with tendrils of light, but Quinn evaporated, taking her truest form.
In the death realm, she kissed his lips and surrendered both of them to the consequences.
Nero’s eyes turned black, and his mouth opened as if to scream.
She peered in his mind and saw all his little wicked games. The terrible things he’d done. The even more horrendous things he would do.
And then, she showed him her darkness.
Ramiel’s gift.
An eye for an eye.
Quinn had spent three days quietly thinking on it. What weapon could kill him and not her?
No blade.
No poison.
But when Risk brought her a message from the dark realm, she knew the answer for certain.
No other power would succeed except fear.
She could kill him with it and end this, but fear, it never harmed her. It was her truest friend and her oldest companion. It was where she felt safest.
If she feared the ends, it never would have worked. It would have eaten her alive as surely as it did him. But she didn’t because Quinn was Neiss’ true heir.
Mazzulah was right. She was the best and the worst.
She was Quinn Darkova.
Right-hand.
Survivor.
Fear twister.
Fear itself.
And she would end this.
Nero’s heart shuddered, skipping a beat. His eye fractured under the weight of power, faster than most of her victims, in truth. His body shook, and scratchy rasps escaped his throat.
She didn’t even need to send images into his mind. She let it play all on its own because when all other emotions were stripped away, what was left of him was no god.
Nero, Emperor of Triene, was just a man. A horrible, awful man.
A mortal driven to slaughter for power because he feared what he was without it. He feared being small and meaningless. He feared powerlessness, and it was that fear that ultimately was his own destruction.
Not even the power of six gods could protect him from that.
As dusk settled, the game finally ended.
Nero—son of no one, loved by no one, mourned by no one—died.
Quinn could have sworn in that final moment before the light left his eye that a cold wind, not from this world, drifted over the continent to greet her.
The door to the dark realm opened, only for a moment.
Just long enough for the king of gods to whisper across the world, “Thank you, my beauty. We are finally free.”
Chapter 53
Return and Be Free
“For some, death is the end, but for others, it is just an extension of living.”
— Mariska “Risk” Darkova, beast tamer, Mazzulah’s heir
One by one, hundreds of thousands of men fell dead in an instant.
Risk urged Rainier on, encouraging her to fly faster. As fast as she could.
The storm cleared, and the Leviticus’ eye slipped below the horizon. Night was upon them when Risk spotted it, a massive darkness that could only be one person.
Rainier neared the ground, and Risk jumped from her back. She landed awkwardly on her ankle but pushed herself forward. The grass was dead. The men in the semi-circle along with them. Beside her sister’s unconscious form lay two men.
The first was what Risk could only assume was the emperor. His skin had turned black. His eyes exploded. Nothing more than a husk that appeared to be black glass remained of him.
But the other . . .
Risk knelt between him and Quinn.
She searched her sister’s form first. It wavered between the dead and living realms, unconscious but alive. At least in some capacity.
Her worry lessened as she turned to the other man.
He wasn’t dead, but