Excerpt: The Thing About Heroes

As he approached the top of the hill, the ravens grew louder, a rising cacophony that threatened to deafen with every fall of his foot until he reached the top and in an instant the world was silenced, and Liam hit one knee before the iron throne of the Terrible Queen.

The silence pressed against his ears with as much force as the raven's screams, until the goddess herself spoke, her voice like the roll of thunder clouds promising relief and destruction in the same breath. "They send the wrong person to plead their case. Begone, Liam, ua Eoin, uí Duibhne. I will not hear their pleas from your lips."

Liam raised his head to meet her terrible gaze, and still found himself breathless at her majesty. His own god could hold as much of an effect, but he had never needed to. Morgan... she wanted to. There would be no leniency here, no mercy for his pale mortal mind. He would deal with it, or he would fall before her and weep as his sanity cracked under the presence of the divine.

"They're fools, my Lady. Utter, complete fools, and they have suffered enough. Release your horrible wrath, and let them live to spread the tale of your might so that such offense will never happen in these lands again."

From her throne, her eyes flashed, and thunder cracked without sound in his ears, sending jolts of pain down through his bones. "Do you think I am so short-sighted, child of Cern? I have chosen two to survive their family's death, the starvation of every last person who lived here. They will be enough to spread the word of what has happened here to the towns and countries of our isle. It will be a hundred years before anyone dare assault a black bird again."

"You have already achieved that, my Lady." Liam tried to think fast, on one knee before her, Arcane's reigns squeezed in his fist resting atop it. "From here on, you only grow hatred. Let them live, and let them whisper your name in fear and reverence for the next hundred years instead."

Morgan stared at him from her throne, her eyes narrowed and her red lips twisted with disdain. "I have no desire nor need for their worship. I want their blood and their dying breaths, boy."

"Have mercy, Morgan." Liam knew it wouldn't work even as the words left his lips. Morgan threw her head back and laughed.

"Mercy? Mercy?" She pushed off of her throne, rising to her feet in a dress that covered all the grays of deepest twilight, and it took every ounce of his will to keep from flinging himself backward as she approached him with a mocking smile on her red lips. "I do not give mercy, Liam ua Eoin. You are fool to approach me and your god is a fool to send an idiot to do a man's begging."

She reached out, and the grip of her white hand in his hair was an assault, death's chill eclipsing him as the Terrible Queen leaned down, her red-lipped smirk all he could see as deep tremors took him and he fought to remain on one knee. He had dealt with her before; to do otherwise would be a grave mistake indeed. "How long will you kneel here?" She murmured, her fist tightening in his hair, "Knowing that I will not relent and wracking your feeble, mortal brain for some clever argument to turn my mind?"

"As long as it takes." His voice was strained even in his own ears half deafened by the tinny ringing that rose with the heat of her breath burning his ice-cold skin. "They are but mortals, they have paid for their mistake. Please, Morgan. There must be something that would stay your hand."

The ice was agony, and he knew he shook visibly as he struggled to kneel there, struggled to keep his lock on her gaze, to not be drawn in by those blood red lips and fall into the void of her death-hunger for eternity.

She let go of his hair and it was as if a boulder fell atop him. He crumpled to the earth, heaved a pained breath and struggled to his hands and knees as she turned away from him and walked back to her throne. He lifted his head as she once again sat, her death-pale face watching him regain his position with the emotion of a lifeless mask. It was only when he had replaced his fist on his knee that her expression shifted, her red lips turning in a playful smile that struck terror into his heart.