Because she controlled them.
It was a different spell than the one weaving up around my body. I wondered how she knew them, but then I felt Grigory wince inside my mind and it suddenly became clear.
She’s absorbing your power, I said to him.
More… like… devouring it… His eyes rolled back in his head as her tongue slithered along his jaw.
Narissa had warned us of her mounting power, but now we knew how Napia had done it.
By paralyzing and eating her victims.
How snakelike of her.
And here Narissa thought all the beast-like creatures of her kingdom resided in the barren lands.
“Mmm, maybe I’ll make you into a proper statue to decorate the throne room. All your former demonsss can visit you that way.” She ticked her nails up his shirt, her face glowing with power. “I wonder how long you’ll last? Frozen. Unable to feed. Weakened by me. You’ll be forced to watch the fall of your kingdom. Yesss, I rather like that.”
Grigory retorted loudly in his mind, his statement a vow of vengeance, but as she turned her gaze toward me, true concern etched into his thoughts. Her hurting him, trying to take his kingdom, and threatening to turn him into a statue to watch infuriated him. However, as she stepped toward me, his heart literally stopped in his chest.
No! he shouted, fighting harder than ever to break his binds, to get to me, to save me from the pain of her true threat—her tongue.
I’m okay, I promised him as she began to circle me. She shoved the guard backward, causing him to land with a loud thump against the ground somewhere behind me.
Zaya, Grigory whispered, sounding utterly broken.
Shh, I’m okay, I repeated.
But I couldn’t stop the mental scream of agony that followed Napia’s first lick. It burned. My heart pounded in my chest as energy seeped from my soul to hers, my power flickering in a bright light behind my eyes.
“Oh, you’re deliciousss,” she hissed, immediately licking me again.
Grigory yelled into my mind, but I couldn’t hear him over the agony ripping apart my spirit.
Her searing tongue met my skin once more, shooting off stars in my vision.
This wasn’t right.
She couldn’t do this.
She needs to be destroyed, a dark part of me whispered.
She’s dangerous, another voice answered, followed by an echo of more.
A threat. Wrong. A vile creation who shouldn’t exist.
Her soul is the blackest of black. An abomination of nature.
Must be exterminated.
Yes. Full annihilation.
Absorb the soul and obliterate it.
Gone from the Underworld.
To keep others safe.
My head spun with the thoughts, all spoken in my voice in a variety of tones as if my mind had fragmented into bits to cheer the other side on.