“Poppy,” Kieran whispered. “There was nothing we could do. Cas…he handed himself over. We had to leave. Isbeth said Tawny was a gift—a sign of her goodwill. One that she said she hoped you would return.”

“No.” Tears rushed my eyes as I tried to make myself go to Tawny. My stomach dropped as I jerked straight and looked at my left palm. The imprint was still there. I closed my hand and then my eyes, and I saw Ian…I saw him falling. I heard her laughing. I heard him begging. “No. No.” I gripped the hair that had come free, pulling until I felt my scalp burn. I could hear Casteel saying: “I was nothing more than this thing without a name.” That was what she’d done to him. What she would try to do again. “No. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Poppy,” Delano said, and I hated how he said my name, how softly he spoke it. I hated the sorrow pouring into the air around him, soaking my skin. I shook my head, twisting toward Vonetta.

“We’ll get him back,” Vonetta promised, but she…she couldn’t make that promise. “We will, Poppy.”

Kieran inched closer, his hands at his sides. “Look at me, Poppy. “

Still shaking my head, I backed up. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t breathe again as my chest throbbed with eather. The pain tore through me—the pain and fear because Ian was gone, and I knew what would happen to Casteel. I knew what they would do to him—I knew what she would do because I knew what she had already done to him, to Malik, and to Ian.

Ian.

My gaze fell on Tawny, and I…

Throwing back my head, I screamed as the rage erupted from me. Over and over, I saw Ian falling. Over and over, I heard Casteel shouting—begging for her to stop. Lightning ripped through the sky, heating the air. A deafening boom of thunder exploded, rattling the trees and sending birds flying in every direction. Hisa and the guards froze. Delano pressed back, bumping into Naill. They began to back up slowly—away from me as my fury charged the air, whipping up a storm. And in the distant parts of my mind, I realized it had always been me. It hadn’t been the gods that’d caused the storms. It hadn’t been Nyktos. The blood rain had been them, but this…this was me—the violent stir of energy colliding with the world around me. It had always been me—this absolute power.

But I…I wasn’t me.

I wasn’t the Queen of Flesh and Fire.

My chest rose and fell as my fingers spread wide. I was vengeance and wrath given form, and in the moment, I was exactly what Alastir and the Unseen feared. I was the Bringer of Death and Destruction, and I would tear down the walls they sought to protect themselves with. I would rip apart their homes, scorch their lands, and fill their streets with blood until there was nowhere to run or hide.