Book 16: Word from a Friend

Kaleb

The night sky melts into shades of orange and red as the first pyres are lit. Small crowds gather to throw flowers, coins, and other personal tokens into the crackling flames and smoke, which paint the sky a deep, rolling black, swallowing the stars.

I stand in the shadow of the space between two buildings, my arms crossed, my skin already prickling with the heat fanning off the funeral fires. The flames will burn all night. It’ll take a massive amount of energy to burn through four-hundred bodies, but by morning, only ashes and flickering embers will remain, and the souls of those we lost to the fae and their twisted games will have been released into the world that waits for all mortals.

I’m not sure I’m going there, to be honest. I’ll meet every fae king, their lords, and their warriors who allow this to happen at the gates of hell, and that’s a promise.

A smooth, graceful shadow melds with mine as robes carrying the perfumed scent o