A Strange Hymn
Page 74
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“I gave you lilac wine.” The normally remorseless Bargainer is beseeching me with his eyes to understand. “I couldn’t let you die.”
Do the dead ever really die?
It was a trap. One the Thief of Souls set, and Des, the master of trickery, walked right into.
I drank the wine and escaped death—for a price.
This is our little game—and trust me, enchantress, it’s far from over.
All that dark magic the Thief wields can now be used against me. I’m more vulnerable as an immortal than I ever was as a regular human.
And the Thief of Souls knows it.
I’m still coming for you. Your life is mine.
Epilogue
Deep in the queen’s sacred oak forest, the royal trees bleed, rotting from the inside out. The sound of chopping and the unearthly howls of the oaks fills the air. Tree after tree is cut down, and the bodies of sleeping men are pried from them.
The Flora Queen keeps herself locked away in one of her towers, weeping over her fallen mate, her missing harem, her dying oaks.
One by one, each great fae kingdom leaves the Flora palace grounds, heading home from Solstice and carting their sleeping comrades with them.
All are somber, all are solemn.
Dark days lie ahead.
Across the Otherworld, strange, deadly children lie in wait, their glassy eyes staring at some distant point.
An ocean of glass coffins rest in four separate lands. The women inside them lay unmoving, their bodies sheathed in their uniforms, their weapons laid across their chests. Months and years may have passed, but their skin is just as supple as the day they closed their eyes.
They sleep away the sands of time, waiting, waiting …
It’s coming.
Something is coming.
Fingers flutter. Muscles twitch.
Not dead, but also not alive—not yet.
The sacred oaks groan, their branches swaying as a network of vines retreat from their inner membranes.
A crack forms along one of the glass coffins, spider-webbing across the transparent surface. Wood splinters down the center of an oak. A devilish child smiles.
And then, as one, a thousand upon a thousand eyes snap open.
The time has come.
Do the dead ever really die?
It was a trap. One the Thief of Souls set, and Des, the master of trickery, walked right into.
I drank the wine and escaped death—for a price.
This is our little game—and trust me, enchantress, it’s far from over.
All that dark magic the Thief wields can now be used against me. I’m more vulnerable as an immortal than I ever was as a regular human.
And the Thief of Souls knows it.
I’m still coming for you. Your life is mine.
Epilogue
Deep in the queen’s sacred oak forest, the royal trees bleed, rotting from the inside out. The sound of chopping and the unearthly howls of the oaks fills the air. Tree after tree is cut down, and the bodies of sleeping men are pried from them.
The Flora Queen keeps herself locked away in one of her towers, weeping over her fallen mate, her missing harem, her dying oaks.
One by one, each great fae kingdom leaves the Flora palace grounds, heading home from Solstice and carting their sleeping comrades with them.
All are somber, all are solemn.
Dark days lie ahead.
Across the Otherworld, strange, deadly children lie in wait, their glassy eyes staring at some distant point.
An ocean of glass coffins rest in four separate lands. The women inside them lay unmoving, their bodies sheathed in their uniforms, their weapons laid across their chests. Months and years may have passed, but their skin is just as supple as the day they closed their eyes.
They sleep away the sands of time, waiting, waiting …
It’s coming.
Something is coming.
Fingers flutter. Muscles twitch.
Not dead, but also not alive—not yet.
The sacred oaks groan, their branches swaying as a network of vines retreat from their inner membranes.
A crack forms along one of the glass coffins, spider-webbing across the transparent surface. Wood splinters down the center of an oak. A devilish child smiles.
And then, as one, a thousand upon a thousand eyes snap open.
The time has come.
