Page 61 of City of Snakes
Asterie reluctantly reached into her robe pocket and withdrew a smoothed iridescent gem. “You owe me more explanation than ‘I am fine here’ first. Also, the moonstone has been spotty about responding to me recently. My power as an Oracle has waned since that night in Luz. It may help if you channel some of your power with me.”
A lump grew in my throat. I owed my friend answers.
Asterie spun the stone between her fingers while I told her about the attack in my bedchamber, about speaking with the prisoners and where they’d claimed to be sent from.
She listened intently as I told her about having full Reverist abilities, being the Last Daughter of Isleen and trying to figure out Krait’s fixation on my involvement in destroying Caym.
“Darvanda believes the Death Origin sent them? And that he is in Helos?” Asterie reeled back, her brow dipped into a deep crease. “Doyouthink that?”
“It’s a ridiculous claim. There’s no proof that the Death Origin has risen...No proof that the Sources are even sentient.” Doubt coated my voice. Because Ididbelieve in Krait’s worries. It bothered me how easily that belief had developed.
My friend shook her head. “I once thought the same. But when I was...” Her voice caught, and I touched her shoulder. “When I died, I met Origin Asterie, my namesake. She told me something peculiar. She said, ‘Try not to make Death more than an acquaintance. He is difficult for me to negotiate with.’ At the time, I’d been convinced the Lacero curse would summon Death himself. But she’d intervened.”
Staring at the hutch across from us, where a dustless collection of ornate clay bowls was displayed, my mind raced. Amara’s actions that day in the bailey of the Keep, as my city was being saved by Darvanda’s army, corroborated Asterie’s story.
“Amara,” I mused. “That day, she summoned the Sun Origin too—they must’ve pulled you back together. The texts say Astros and Asterie were siblings. Do you think theycheateddeath?”
Asterie straightened and extended the moonstone between us. “Maybe…or they bargained with him. That was what the Lacero curse was supposed to have allowed me to do.”
My eyes widened as the moonstone between us glowed an iridescent blue. “We need to try to see what’s coming,” I said and placed my hand atop hers. “I’ve never done this before.”
Asterie put her other hand on top of mine. “Stick with my thoughts. I’ve only tried taking someone with me once.”
I nodded in anticipation, but sweat gathered on the back of my neck and my throat constricted.
Asterie’s eyes glassed over in a milky hue, and then she pulled me in. It felt like slipping out of my own consciousness, like being torn from the plane of existence where we sat.
Murky water. I walked, alone, through a shallow pool. Asterie was gone.
Had I failed to follow her so quickly? Darkness engulfed me—like being at the center of a lake at night, with no moonlight or stars.
“Asterie?”
I heard no answer.
“Hello, little Isleen. I’ve been waiting for you. Watching you,” a grating voice whispered, and breath hit the back of my neck. The voice felt familiar, as if it had been guiding me my whole life.
When I spun around, no one was there. “Who are you?”
“You do not remember?”
The hair on my arms stood. “I am not Isleen.”
“You are the one they say can stop me. Your blood. But you will not!” That vicious snarl was ingrained in my mind.
Mattock.
Memories of being sixteen, of slipping into the North King’s mind, of being pushed out by another entity flooded my senses. That was the voice I’d heard in Mattock’s head all those years ago.
“Yes, you remember now. We’ve met many times from many faces.”
Out of the shadows in front of me, a cruel countenance appeared, shrouded beneath a veil of darkness—featureless yet tormenting, depthless yet sharp. His eyes glimmered green and danced with amber rage.
Death approached me.
I stepped back, but my shoulders met a cold black fluid wall that bound my wrists and ankles. I was trapped—trapped here with the Death Origin. I strained against whatever material was constricting around my limbs.
I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t plead. “You…you sent men to kill me.”
