Page 113 of Wolf of Ashes
The whole space is maybe fifty paces from side to side and, other than what I suspect is some kind of pulley that I’m hanging from, the only furniture in the room is a pedestal. Its top is slanting away from me, so I can’t tell if there’s anything resting on it.
The shadows above me move at the corner of my vision.
A deep voice sounds, a low, rumbling whisper. “I’m surprised you haven’t freed yourself already.”
I fight against the pure chill that passes down my spine. I can’t quite place its point of origin since the shadows I crane my neck to see are swirling at multiple points above me.
I wonder if the speaker is hanging from the rafters like a fucking vampire.
“I’m enjoying the view,” I say. “It’s really quite lovely from this angle.” I shrug my shoulders, a weird-feeling gesture in this position. “In fact, you’ve given me a new perspective on life. I might do this more often.”
The shadow closest to my right dives to the ground, landing with a softthumpbefore wings become visible. They separate with awhooshto reveal the man they belong to.
He’s the same height as the keeper’s blue-eyed form. His hair is black and his skin is even fairer than Lucian’s. Looking at him is like gazing at a distant star.
His golden eyes graze over me, as if I’m a curiosity, a thing to be studied.
He can only be my uncle. The false Ultima Nostra.
Mom once said there’s no creature so ethereal, or so deadly, as a dark angel.
Of course, she never met the keeper, but even so, I can’t disagree with her claim.
This angel is beautiful in every way. Every perfect angle of his face, every curve of muscle in his chiseled, yet lithe, form. Even in the softening of his eyes, as if he can convince me that he won’t hurt me.
He has the same basic features as my father in the image I saw, torn fromThe Book of Dark Magic, but this usurper is leaner, gaunter, and his smile is cruel.
“Well, hello there,” I whisper. “I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.”
Finally bunching my stomach muscles, I curl upward, my claws extending in a flash. I cut through the bindings around my ankles, twisting before I fall and landing at a crouch. I make sure I miss the puddle of blood in which I would surely slip.
Slowly, I rise upward, ripping the little metal contraption from my finger while I keep my uncle in my sights.
I take a moment to reach back to my hair, loosening it from the looped braid it was caught up in and checking the strands. They’re black with golden ends once more.
My real hair.
No more illusion.
My uncle doesn’t appear alarmed that I’ve freed myself so easily. He himself said he was surprised I hadn’t done it already. Although I do wonder that he didn’t try harder to chain me in the first place.
No doubt he wants to play a game now. Like the dark creature he is.
“My son tells me you call yourself ‘Veda,’” he says. “Did your mother give you that name?”
“No.” It might be one of the few truths he gets from me. “She gave me the power to name myself.”
“So very like Galeia.” He chews the inside of his lip, a similar mannerism to his son’s. “I would ask you why you’re here, but your name tells me everything.” He steps closer. “You’ve come to kill me.”
My claws remain extended. “I have.”
He gives me a nod.
Then he calls out, “Lucian, come down here.”
A second shadow shifts on the ceiling before it dives to the floor.
My cousin opens his wings, folding them to his sides, and I hide my surprise at what I see.
