TROUBLE , kaz brekker

xxiv. your past will do it for me.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

TWO THINGS WERE BECOMING dangerously clear.

The Darkling was her father. Sure, the jagged puzzle pieces had been falling into place since the maniac had stood by her mother's side in the Grand Palace and congratulated her on a success that wasn't her's, but hearing the words fall from her own mouth like blood drips from bloodied knuckles? That was something else entirely.

And he laughed. As the revelation settled, The Darkling had laughed because hadn't he won? No matter if he killed them or they killed him, it would matter so very little. Because his treacherous roots were buried somewhere deep inside Echo Caddel and not even death could stop them blooming. Now she wasn't just a disappointment, she was a poison.

The second thing? Well, it was going to take more than a knife to kill dear old dad.

Inej's blade had severed the skin that shrouded his blackened heart, piercing the withered muscles in a move that would have felled even the strongest man. But Echo doubted the Darkling was even a man, as he moved and pulled the knife from his chest until it came away drenched in a blood so dark it should have been black. Grisha were unnatural, she knew that much, but that was beyond the bounds of merely unnatural, that was a perversion of nature. This was the theft of a life that should have been taken the second that dagger pierced flesh.

And yet there he stood, smiling, clutching the blade in his hand.

"It will take more than this!"

The Sun Summoner looked up at her with pleading eyes, begging for a respite that Echo could not give. However cruel she sounded to the cosmos, the red-head found little sympathy for the supposed Saint that had so easily began her own descent into a game she had no idea how to play. Echo had seen her, at the Little Palace, the way she smiled and preened and followed the script so perfectly that he had been able to do all this. Perhaps she truly had no idea what the Darkling was, but just as Echo had , all those years ago, she would have to suffer for it. And never make the same mistake again.

All Echo could do was stand and watch because this man was her father and the power he wielded, no matter how despicable, called to her like an ancient longing that permeated her flesh and sang songs of home and belonging. From the look in his eyes, he knew, he could see his own power-hungry gaze reflected in . He extended a hand. Perhaps she would have taken it.

A gunshot rang through the air, the familiar heat of a bullet singing the darkness around her cheeks and lodging in the General's armoured kefta with a thud. They were bulletproof, thanks to the man who Echo used to called father. Saints, did he even know? Was Manya Orlova's infidelity the Little Palace's best kept secret, or just another sacrifice made for the noblest of causes? It matter so little now.

Jesper was stood in the arched skeleton of the skiff, holding his pistol aloft and finally realising his gravest mistake as the Darkling, free from bullet holes and very much alive, raised his hands. Power curled in the space between them. Darkness hummed and Echo knew she had seen that before. Her mother, in fits of intrepid rage and wallowing moments of self control had made the same motions. She'd watched the power it made crumbled buildings, castles of stone. Jesper was no stone creature. It would turn him into ribbons.

She lifted a futile hand, cried out ( or was it all just inside her head - everything was so fragmented now ) and lunged for the source of power as if she could drain it from the Darkling's veins but like always, it wasn't enough and the living shadows hurtled towards the Sharpshooter.

But Kaz, Kaz was poised behind shadows of the doorway and as he watched Echo's face meld into utter panic - he realised. He jumped forward and collided with Jesper, sending them both sprawling towards the floor as the Darkling's power sprawled over their heads. They hit the floor with painful shattering and she could have sobbed in relief but no tears would come. They were alive, both of the boys, even if one of them was unconscious atop a burlap sack. It was the best any of them could hope for.