But the void ended. I fell from it with a cry, my voice alien and small in my ears. Not like me at all.
I landed on my stomach, skidding several feet as if thrown headfirst from a moving car. I was too stunned to fight it—I just went limp, letting momentum carry me across hard-packed dirt. I didn’t feel a thing—no pain, not even the impact. It was the sunlight that immobilized me. So bright, so unexpected, I had to close my eyes. Hot air blazed through my lungs, but I felt no heat on my skin. Through my lashes I glimpsed my arms, black with the boys. All muscle and claw, cut with veins of silver—and those red eyes, glinting at me, wide open in their dreams.
I rolled over, sat up. Had to catch myself, dizzy. Still sick. For a moment, I did feel hot—but it was internal, gathered in my chest and back, in my gut, and head. The heat faded, replaced by a chill—and then it swelled again, full force. Made me nauseous, like a bomb was going off, contained within my skin.
I looked around without trying to stand. Had to shield my eyes. Found nothing but rocky desert filled with cactus and scrub. Blue skies shone without a cloud, and the mountains in the distance were cut with shadows. Felt like the American Southwest, but I’d just left Texas in the night.
So. Somewhere else, on the other side of the world.
I glimpsed movement on my left, so quick and fast it was as if the world shivered. I knew it wasn’t my imagination—not with the boys tugging against my skin, raging to wake. Never a good sign. I looked again, harder, holding my breath.
I didn’t see anything. But I heard a scream of rage.
I staggered to my feet, blinking hard, ramming the heel of my palm into the side of my head—like that would somehow keep me upright. Or at least stop the pain throbbing in my skull. I did manage to stay standing, but the headache was a total fucking beast.
I ignored the pain and started running. Kept my hand pressed to my skull, eyes little more than slits against the bright sun. The boys kept struggling, rippling across my skin in flat, obsidian waves that shimmered and sucked at the light.
Another sharp crack hit the desert air—the detonation of a woman’s voice, still shouting in anger. I stopped at the crest of a shallow outcropping, staring down at a small oasis: a line of green grass, a few stubbly trees casting diminutive shadows—and a woman held on the ground by three robed figures, fighting like crazy as one of them muzzled her. A Mahati warrior lay near them, sprawled face-first in the dirt.
I knew who those robed figures were even though I’d never laid eyes on them before. Scouts. Soldiers. All with the same gift as my husband: able to control and kill, with just their voices.
But they were slaves. Genetically engineered and brainwashed to be obedient to those they considered gods: the Aetar, who had captured their ancestors and raped their genes for millennia.
I had to stop them. Fast.
I ran down the hill. Almost tripped, stayed on my feet—then, moments later, felt a tremendous impact against my lower back. I went down so hard, the rocks cracked beneath my knees.
Going down that hard, that fast, made my head spin. But that wasn’t enough of a distraction to keep me from noticing one very strange, impossible thing.
The impact hurt.
I rolled over. And got stabbed in the stomach.
I couldn’t see my attacker—sunlight blinded me—but the tremendous force behind that blow pushed me so hard into the dirt, my body made a dent.
It should have been nothing. A feather should have made as much of an impact, pain-wise—I even heard the weapon break against my body. But none of that was important.
Because I felt it. I felt pain. In my back.
And in my stomach.
CHAPTER 19
VULNERABILITY does not run in my family.
That’s the lie we tell ourselves. It’s a good one. I think we’ve been clinging to it for ten thousand years. It’s as much a tradition as nameless fathers, bad tempers, and black hair.
But again, it’s a lie. Our skin is unbreakable, but not our hearts. And besides that, we do have one strategic weakness.
Our daughters.
Doesn’t matter that Zee and the boys are the most paranoid and dangerous nursemaids in existence. Some things are just out of their power. Nature. Accident. Freak stuff.
A volcano erupted in 1610 B.C. on the island of Santorini. Mount Thera, it was called. An apocalyptic explosion, with the energy of several atomic bombs—followed by massive ash clouds, huge tsunamis, climate change. Totally fucked people up. Inspired myths. Changed history.
My ancestor was nearby when it happened, right in the middle of the Minoan settlement of Akrotiri. Actually, two of my ancestors were there: mother and young daughter. I don’t know why—that’s not part of the story that’s been passed down—and the boys have never been good about sharing details. All we know, all we’ve been told, is that right before the eruption happened—in the seconds before—my ancestor knew.