The Essence

I stepped in pools of blood and left footprints of my own. I no longer grimaced. I barely noticed.

Moving with determination, I followed my instincts.

“Angelina!” I shouted again and again and again, stepping over bodies and daring those responsible to show themselves.

The estate was large, nearly palatial, and they could have been hiding anywhere. I hadn’t come across Brook or Aron or anyone else who could have helped me. Instead, I turned corner after corner, and I reached one dead end and then another. I choked on my own frustration until it nearly replaced the fury that spurred me on.

Then I heard it. Just a mewl, really . . . the smallest, palest sound that seemed to materialize from out of nowhere.

But it hadn’t. It was my sister.

Hope extinguished all else, and I whirled toward the sound.

“I’m coming,” I breathed as my bare feet pounded against the floor in my effort to reach her.

When I saw her, I nearly buckled.

She was tiny and fragile, as any child should be, but her eyes were brimming with the same inner turmoil I felt. She saw me at the same moment I spied her, and reflexively, she lurched in my direction.

It was the knife, though, the one poised at her throat that stopped her from taking a single step toward me. The man holding it—holding her—was surrounded by three other men, all of them large, all of them imposing, and none of whom I recognized.

But I would have known Jonas Maier anywhere. I’d seen his face hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. He’d invited me into his home. He’d fed me and given me shelter.

Now he threatened my sister’s life.

“Please,” I whimpered, feeling the first fracture in my new armor. “Can’t we talk, Jonas? Can’t we do this peacefully?”

His eyes, so much like Brooklynn’s, yet so very, very different, appraised me, making me feel vulnerable and exposed. “Don’t you think we’re past peaceful here?” His eyes roved from the blood on my feet, to that on my knees and hands. His lips curled into a loathsome sneer. “Besides, you have no intention of listening to my demands, any more than I intend to leave here peacefully.” He jerked the knife he held, and its blade burrowed against the soft flesh of my sister’s neck.

My jaw tightened and I took another step toward him. “Let her go,” I insisted, the words failing to deliver the menace that raged within me as I gazed at Angelina. The look of panic in her clear blue eyes was my undoing.

Blood smeared the front of her nightdress, and I scoured the length of her, searching for signs that it might be her own, that Jonas and the others had hurt her. I held my breath, wondering what had happened to her. I wondered, too, where her guard was. Eden would sooner die than surrender her charge.

Jonas grinned back at me. It was an ugly grin that made my stomach flip. I could scarcely look at the men who stood at his back; their knowing leers and grunts of approval made my vision blur with rage. Each one of them was steeped in the blood of others.

“You’ve done this,” Jonas shook his head, speaking to me in Parshon. “You brought this on yourself. The Vendor

queen . . .” He let out a derisive laugh, and the other men followed suit, chuckling and mocking me, as if they were in on some secret joke.

But all I could see, all I cared about, was the blade at Angelina’s throat.

“Let her go,” I repeated, my voice constricted now.

“What did you expect, Charlie?” He spat my name at me. “Did you think you could just take the throne and change everything at your whim? Did you think no one would care? That there would be no repercussions?”

Fire shot through me, a sensation both familiar and foreign. My skin began to tingle and my fingertips itched. “Don’t you dare harm her.”

One of the men sneered at my words, drawing a knife from the back of his waistband. Another pulled a handgun from inside his jacket, laughing at my attempt to stand firm.

“Let’s get out of here,” the man with the gun said to one of his cohorts in a language that was neither Parshon or Termani—not Ludanian at all. “Tell him to stop toying with the child and finish it.”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow, but somehow I knew what to do. What I had to do.

Closing my eyes, my fists followed suit, clenching into angry balls. Energy sizzled through me now, and I was no longer confused about what it meant. “I warned you,” I hissed.

“Well, here are your repercussions!” Jonas shouted, still unaware that he was in danger at all. He drew his blade right up against Angelina’s throat and I heard her gasp. If I’d had misgivings, they’d have been silenced in that moment.

But I had none.

I didn’t need Sabara now. I could do this on my own.

Behind me, in the distance, I heard the sound of footsteps closing in on us. I didn’t know who might be coming—if it was my men, or more of Jonas’s, but I couldn’t take the chance. If I waited any longer I might be overrun, outnumbered by an army I was unable to stop. I had to act fast. I had to save Angelina now, or we could both end up dead.

I lifted both of my hands, raising my fists in front of me. The sensation that ripped through me was welcome, and I had no intention of stopping it. Not this time. In fact, this time, I summoned it.

I targeted Jonas first, concentrating on his airway, imagining it, willing his windpipe to slam shut. Intentionally fueling his death.

Jonas shrieked, but not for long. I didn’t blink. I didn’t even hesitate. I concentrated instead on Angelina, on the terror I could see in her wide eyes. I concentrated on what these men had done, not just to her, but to the others as well. I thought about what they were willing to do. In my mind, and with my fist, I squeezed, even after he released her, as he tried to tear an opening through his own throat so he could breathe once more.