“You’ll share a grave with him!”
“Good! Let me go!” Death kept taking me farther from Jack. I stretched my arms out, fingers splayed toward the heat. “He can’t be dead.” I sobbed. “Can’t. NO, NO, NOOOO!”
“You want to follow the mortal? Get your revenge first. The Emperor mocks your pain.”
I could hear that fiend in my head—laughing.
The red witch exploded inside me, a force that could never be contained. I shrieked, “You will PAY!”
As the Emperor laughed and laughed, Death murmured in my ear, “I have your grandmother, sievā–. That was the gift I spoke of. We’ll teach you how to kill the Emperor. You’ll avenge Deveaux.”
“Don’t you understand? Jack’s not DEAD!” I screamed that over and over. “He’s alive!”
With my mind teetering on the brink, I spied something in the skies above us. I gaped, disbelieving.
Real? Unreal? Just before oblivion took me down, a mountain of water curled over our heads, racing toward that hell of flames. . . .