Fate's Surrender (Eternal Sorrows Book 3) by Sarra Cannon (android based ebook reader txt) 📕

down on the woman’s head with a crack, and the light in her eyes went out as she fell to the ground in a broken heap.

At the same time, a giant beast of a man appeared around the other side of the bus.

Parrish grabbed her sword and held it toward the beast, but Karmen ran around the corner after it, her hand raised.

“Stop,” she said. “He’s mine for now. We still need him.”

“Yours?” Parrish asked, her body trembling.

Her best friends stood around her, all staring down at the lifeless woman in the black dress.

“Was that her?” Noah asked.

“Yes,” Parrish said. “That was her.”

“She’s growing stronger by the day,” Karmen said.

Parrish looked around at their group.

Noah seemed to have regained his strength in record time.

Crash had lightning crackling between his fingertips.

Karmen had tamed a beast with her mind.

Parrish could control both ice and fire with a single thought.

And the boy? He’d just saved her life from hundreds of miles away.

She held the fatalis stone out for them to see, the five symbols all glowing brightly.

“So are we,” she said with a smile. “So are we.”

Part Two

The Beach

Sixteen

The Witch

The witch wandered the streets of the city just before sunset, the edges of her black skirt trailing across the asphalt. All around her, rotters who had hidden inside during the heat of the day stumbled into the cooler evening air.

If she had been a normal human, they would have been feasting on her bones by now, but the rotters she passed hardly noticed her at all. They staggered past, moaning low and keeping their distance.

She could sense them all around the city, as if she’d somehow been plugged into the power of their deaths. Millions by now. All commanded by her Mistress.

Ever since she’d been blessed by the Dark One inside the ice cave, the witch could feel nothing but adoration and awe for what her Mistress had created here. How had she ever dreamed of betrayal? Of choosing anything but love and loyalty?

A scene flashed before her. Unimaginable pain and torture. Burned skin.

She winced but quickly pushed those images down. Something took their place, like a soothing balm being placed on a deep wound.

In seconds, she had no memory of the pain at all, and everything inside her was back to love.

For a moment, some part of her wanted to fight against it, recognizing deep down that whatever magic the Dark One had cast on her was taking her over, erasing her emotions or maybe poisoning her.

The same way the Dark One had taken over all these humans.

With her new perspective, the witch had a greater sense now of how that power worked. It was an exchange of sorts.

The virus had worked like a siphon, draining the life-power of every infected human and transferring it to the Dark One. In return, as her powers grew, she reversed the process, letting a small trickle of her own power flow back into these dead humans.

The magic not only allowed the necromancer to control them. It also allowed her to see through them. To be them. To connect them up like a hive mind in order to increase her power even more.

It was chilling and elegant. Why wouldn’t the witch want to be a part of that exchange? She was lucky to be included in the Dark One’s plans, even if it meant losing a piece of herself along the way.

No one in the Council of Fire had ever displayed an ounce of power this great when the witch was growing up. They pretended to know so much, but compared to the power witnessed here, they were nothing.

What would it be like to re-enter that world as the top ally of the most powerful necromancer to ever live?

The women of the Council would throw themselves at her feet and tremble when she spoke. They would beg to be commanded by her and mourn for the way they had treated her.

But I will never be loved.

That tender part beneath the surface—the part that still belonged to her own soul—wanted to weep at the thought of never being loved. It made her stop for a moment, wondering where in the world she’d just been headed.

But then a voice whispered inside her mind.

What good is love? Another way to make you weak and vulnerable. Another chance for someone to hurt you. Isn’t it more powerful to be feared? To be followed?

The witch closed her eyes, listening to the voice that sounded like her own but did not belong to her. The sound seemed to wrap itself around her doubt and squeeze it out of existence.

She felt every drop of resistance evaporate, and suddenly her mission was clear to her once again.

Yes, I want to be feared. Powerful.

All she’d ever wanted was respect and a chance to prove her power, and she’d almost ruined it all. She’d almost given it up, and for what? Friendship?

The witch gathered flames on her fingertips and watched them dance. Her power had grown since her time inside the ice. A gift from the Dark One?

Always. Her entire life was a gift at this point.

And all she had to do to keep it was one final task.

Find the girl and, if possible, kill the fifth.

In a city with infinite places to hide, that might have been impossible for some. But the witch was a tracker. It was her business to find things.

She brought her fingertips together, forming a single flame between them, then focused her mind on the image of that spiral symbol she’d seen on the window of the Four Seasons.

Zoe, a normal human girl, might be difficult to find, but she was with the fifth now, and he’d been using his magic.

She tuned into his power, like tuning into a specific frequency.

When she caught the edge of it, she leaned in, pouring more of her energy into the search.

For now, she could only sense the slight pull. It had been too many hours since he’d used magic, but the residue