Page 165 of A Touch of Poison

---

It seeped out of me like every angry word I’d only thought and not been able to say.

It deafened me like every scream I’d ever held in.

It rose and rose like a flood fed by every emotion I’d locked inside and poisoned myself with.

Except now, that poison spread out, filling the space at the base of the cliff.

Dimly, I registered that there was still a fight. Bastian. Alive. Only one half of him had been killed.

But I’d seen it. I’d felt it—a fissure in my fucking soul.

And I wasn’t about to let it happen again.

I clawed more power to me. The trees on the edge of the clearing turned brown, their branches wilting.

You are mine. You will see to it that I don’t die today—that he doesn’t die today.

He turned wide eyes upon me, a cut on his chin dripping, more blood on his cheek.

Around us, fae stumbled, their attack forgotten. They clawed at their shins, first, then the dark tendrils reached above their collars and up to their faces. They scratched at their cheeks and throats, like they could scrape my poison out.

Bodies arching, eyes screwing shut, the fae opened their mouths in cries I couldn’t hear over my own roaring rage.

One by one, they fell, disappearing in my poison’s haze.

Only Bastian and I remained standing.

He was alive. I’d saved him.My magichad saved him.

Lips parted, he regarded me. “That was… incredible.”

Needing to touch him to be sure he was really here and really all right, I started towards him, but my foot hit something. The mist swirled and revealed a body.

A woman, curled up, her face contorted in death.

It was the easiest thing I’d ever read.

Pain.

Terrible, terrible pain.

That I had caused.

I swallowed and edged around her, but there was another. A young man, this time, scratches down his cheeks from where he’d tried to rid himself of the creeping agony.

My rage evaporated.

All these people. I’d killed them.

How many? Twenty? Thirty? More?

Lives ended in agony.

I stared at my hands stained deep, dark purple, the poison still rolling off of them.

Stop, I told it.Stop.

But it didn’t… I couldn’t…

---