Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
REMUS
Well, shit.
I see the terror on my Lo-Ren’s face and feel it in her tense body. I swore to protect her and that she would never have anything to fear being at my side.
Now, the world as she knows it is about to end. For the second time today.
And at least part of it is my fault. Phoenix never would’ve gotten the power boost from Grandpa-Dearest if I hadn’t given him the intel on my family, including Kharon’s plane-crossing abilities.
Granted, I didn’t know that was how Phoenix’s family’s power worked, but still. Not sure it’s worth quibbling about the finer points when the sun that warms my beloved’s skin is about to go dark.
It would be just my luck to finally find love and then watch her die cruelly along with all of her kind, only for my brothers and me to be left all alone on a cold, lifeless planet.
No.
Fuck no.
I squeeze Lo-Ren to me. She’s warm and breathing and alive now. I twist her toward me and kiss her.
She tries to pull back. “What are you—”
“Just kiss me, my love.”
Her eyes pop open wide.
“I love you,” I say to her shocked expression. “You’ve made my pointless existence worth living, and all I want in this moment is to taste your lips.”
She closes her eyes and breathes out, nodding as her body goes limp against me in surrender. “One last time.”
I kiss her and she throws herself into me, her body coming back to life as our lips press furiously together. I’m glad to feel some of her fight return because it’s what I live for. What I’d die for, apparently, since that’s where I’m headed.
I pull back, the fire inside me roaring. After all, I am the angel of War. And for the first time in my life, I have something to fight for.
“I’ll see you soon, my love.” I grin at her, all glamours gone, wanting it to be my face she looks into just in case it really is for the last time.
She clings to me, but I pull back. “Wait, where are you going? Don’t leave!”
“I’m always in your heart,” I say, pressing my hand to her chest. “Some things are eternal.”
And then I yank away from her clinging grasp, turn, and sprint out of the room and down the hallway. Running is an inefficient way of travel, though, especially for where I’m going.
As soon as I reach the courtyard, I flare my black wings wide, leap, and take off into the air. Time for the battle of my life.
For all the many places I’ve been over this globe, this is my first time flying through the outer atmosphere into space. It’s very cold. Not to mention the whole lack of air thing.
It feels strange at first to not breathe and feel my feathers crystalize in the beyond freezing temperatures.
My flight slows as I struggle to adjust to the darkness lit only by a million stars. I can’t imagine the warmth of the woman I just left behind. But just the thought of her is enough to spur me forward in spite of the discomfort.
I am a Horseman of the Apocalypse, and a little discomfort is nothing to me. Finally, I have a worthy opponent.
Not that I have any idea how to fight them.
I don’t have sword or spear, and I don’t think they’re capable of language, so I doubt I’ll be able to persuade them to turn back. But I am rage, and I am chaos, and there is no turning back now.
So, I press on.
Ten more minutes, and I cannot feel my legs, arms, or face.
But my wings continue to propel me, and what is the point of feeling one’s limbs anyway?
My tail has curled around my legs as if that can stave off the sub-freezing temperatures, and I’m vaguely afraid it might snap and break off completely.
The thought doesn’t deter me.
I am made of eternal material. My father grew back to full strength from a mere ember of ash. Granted, my brothers and I are not the same as him—he was merely our architect.
But surely being eternal means being able to survive a little interspace travel? Too late to turn back now, anyway. I’m closer to the sun now than I am to the Earth, and I can just see the tail end of the Devourers. I press myself to move with even more speed.
I hear the crack but don’t look over my shoulder to doublecheck. All feeling is secondary at this point, but I think it’s what I feared.
I think I’ve just lost my tail.
By the time I reach the back of the line of glowing Devourers, my mind starts growing fuzzy.
I may be eternal but I’m starting to suspect that doesn’t mean indestructible. Maybe there is something beyond hell-metal that can kill us. Huh. All this time, it was waiting in the deep sky above our heads, and we simply didn’t realize it.
I mean, even I had heard the story of Icarus.
The storytellers just got it wrong. He didn’t die because his wings melted off.
They froze, and then he fell from the sky.
But there’s no gravity here. I won’t fall back to Earth, my body to be mourned by my beloved in the moments before her sky goes dark forever.
At least I will have finally killed Romulus.
The thought should bring satisfaction. That’s what I’ve wanted all this time, isn’t it? Joking that I wanted to get rid of the parasite was a coward’s euphemism.
I’ve wanted him dead. Not only that, I wanted to kill him.
Like Cain and Abel, I wanted to fight him to the death, standing over my brother as the sole owner of this body.
That’s who we are, aren’t we? War? Two souls locked in eternal battle for one body.
If I get the both of us killed, will that bring half the satisfaction? I’m too cold and exhausted to even laugh.
Chaos reigns to the end. It’s all meaningless. There is no satisfaction here, but there never is. There never will be a victor, only ever this useless, endless struggle between us and then…
Darkness.
Cold.
I can’t flap my wings anymore; it’s just the propulsion I began with that continues me forward in the airless void of space.
My mind blinks in and out of consciousness, but at least the vampire’s blood coursing through my veins allows me to stay in the barest of control. I’m glad for that.
It would feel even more cowardly to sleep now and give this final battle to the tactician. Even if he’s better suited to coming up with some brilliant last-minute strategy.
I shake my head—or try to. Everything’s so cold and fuzzy. There’s no time for second-guessing now. I’m barely conscious as it is.
I reach the front of the line of Devourers, so bright from their internal lights, as we all approach the burning ball of the sun.
What will I do now that I am here and can barely move? I have no idea. They take no notice of me, their attention solely on the combustible sun in front of them.
Now that I see them up close, I can see that they are such strange, otherworldly creatures. They’re huge, obviously, with eight bulbous sections to their long torsos, covered with filaments propelling them forward at incredible speeds through space.
Here, at what feels like the end of all things, it seems as ridiculous as anything else in my chaotic life to pause and take in the strange beauty of these luminescent creatures.
I never paused to notice beauty before Lo-Ren burst into my life.
The creatures aren’t filled with the spark of life fire that my father first stole from the Great Hall. Instead, they’ve turned one of Earth’s most destructive forces into nourishment, conquering without intent or greed. Just through the simple, honest need of hunger.
The line of them glows as bright as the stars in the distance. For another moment, right before the creature at the head of the line gets to the sun, all its filaments reaching toward the bursting fire that leaps forth from its surface, I feel completely calm.
Absent of rage.
Absent of want.
Absent of greed or jealousy or any other thing.
For one stretching, infinite-feeling moment, I think of Lo-Ren’s smiling face and I feel peace within myself.
This will have to suffice as my final victory. Being in control and stealing the last moment with Lo-Ren that was mine and mine alone, to play over and over in the echoing chamber of my mind
“So it’s fine for you to command me to tell you things, but I can’t ask about the elephant in the room?”
Her voice, sharp and unafraid, echoes in my head. That first day, when I’d tried to order her around and she’d called me on my bullshit.
I loved it. Loved her fire. Loved that she didn’t just roll over and take what I dished out.
“What, are you two big men gonna go and decide the fate of the little woman without any input from me? That’s bullshit.”
Standing up to both of us. Demanding her place in the conversation. In our lives.
Lo-Ren.
That’s when I blink and realize that the warmth of the sun has brought feeling back into my limbs and, with it, the memory of her.
The woman waiting for me back on Earth, and what will happen to her if I let these Devourers eat this star.
My eyes widen, uncrystallized and regenerating as memories and fire and fury rush back into my blood.
No. I will not let this happen. I have come all this way to stop it.
Suddenly, everything sparks at once. Thought and purpose connect. The witch told Kharon he could do much more than he ever thought. He only ever traveled to one other plane because it was all he thought he could do. Because our father told him it was his only purpose.
We saw it with our glamours. We can do so much more than we ever thought. We were limited only by our own beliefs about ourselves, holding us in manageable leashes for our father.
But I’m done with leashes and cages.
I’m not just War. I am Chaos and Destruction.
I am Division.
In all things large and small.
So, with my wings warmed just enough to be able to use them again, I race to the front of the line, aim my body like an arrow, and fly straight at the lead creature’s head.
I pass straight through it, and at first, there’s a spike of panic. Can I still accomplish my purpose if the creature is not even corporeal?
But as I feel the warmth of its inner fire, all that remains murky becomes clear. I don’t just divide brother from brother in war.