Chapter 32 Tessa #3
Brecken grunted, falling face first to the ground, and that was when she saw the blade sticking out of his back, right between his wings.
“What did you do?” Tessa gasped, trying to comprehend what she was seeing, but it wasn’t connecting. She couldn’t— This couldn’t be happening.
“Taking care of a traitor,” Oralia sneered in that too high voice. “I tried to tell Dex he was double-crossing us for years, but no one ever believed me.” She bent down, gripping the hilt of the blade and twisting.
An agonized sound came from Brecken, and Tessa raised her bow, taking aim.
But Nylah and Roan were already attacking, knowing what she wanted.
Oralia snarled, moving to wrench the blade from Brecken’s back, but she was too slow.
Nylah reached her first, her teeth sinking into her forearm, while Roan tackled her.
“Don’t kill her!” Tessa cried.
Not yet anyway.
“Tris, keep her here,” she added as she ran the remaining distance, dropping to Brecken’s side.
“Brecken? Brecken, don’t move. Let me… We’ll take you back,” she said, her words becoming too jumbled as she watched the blood pour out around the long dagger.
He turned his head, one arm moving and his hand seeming to search.
She snatched it up, squeezing his fingers.
“We’ll come back another time,” she tried to soothe.
Oralia started laughing. A high-pitched thing that grated on her ears as much as her voice did. As much as anything the female said or did.
Roan was pinning her to the ground, his massive paws on her chest. Nylah still had her teeth in her arm, and Tristyn was crouched beside her, a hand wrapped around her throat where a sage glow was emanating.
And she was laughing.
“What is so fucking funny?” Tessa demanded, her voice hard.
“You can’t save him,” she said between her laughter. “Not even the fucking Witches can save him. Look at his wings.”
Tessa blinked, her gaze going to the feathered appendages, and she tried to swallow her gasp as the tips of the feathers turned deathly grey, slowly decaying and starting to disintegrate.
Brecken’s fingers squeezed hers weakly, and she lifted her gaze to Tristyn, once again trying to understand.
He was somber when he said, “Just like there are special blades designed to end the dragons, Arius and Sargon answered in kind, creating blades to end the seraphs. It is absorbing the magic he stole while killing him from the inside out.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. Not again. She couldn’t be watching someone she cared about dying in front of her again. Maybe Xan would know. Maybe—
A fresh burst of laughter came from Oralia, and Tessa could see nothing but red.
She stood, striding around Brecken’s body as he tried to push onto his knees. Looping her bow over her chest, she plunged the arrow deep into Oralia’s side.
That laughter turned to a cry of pain.
“Stand her up,” Tessa sneered.
Roan backed off, but Nylah still held her arm while Tristyn yanked her to her feet.
“What are you going to do, Tessa?” Oralia managed to taunt despite her gasps of pain.
“Create yet another mess? Sooner or later, you’ll fuck up so badly, no one will be able to fix it.
Sooner or later, everyone will finally realize what a fucking waste it was to keep you so pampered and hidden.
‘Go to Tessa, Oralia,’” she mimicked. “‘Make sure Tessa isn’t alone, Oralia.’ ‘Make sure Tessa isn’t doing something stupid, Oralia.
’” She paused then, her face twisted with hatred. “Why the fuck are you smiling?”
And Tessa was. The smile on her face was pure madness as she stared back at Oralia.
“Because I am going to kill you,” Tessa said, the madness seeping into her voice.
She was calm. Too calm. Even she knew that.
“I’m going to kill you, and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.
Then I’m going to leave the mess behind for Dexter to find.
Let him clean it up and know that the same fate is waiting for him. ”
“They should have let me take your magic when Katya was taken from me. You are such an ungrateful, spoiled cunt—”
But her words became a garbled scream as Tessa pulled a sword from her power, the same dark blade and runes as her arrows and daggers.
Tristyn barely moved out of the way in time as that blade sliced one of Oralia’s wings clean off.
It fell to the ground, and Tessa made sure to step on it when she raised her sword and did the same to the other.
Her screams filled the dark night; Tessa’s smile only grew.
Oralia sank to her knees, her back pouring blood.
“How utterly pathetic to be so weak,” Tessa said casually, dragging the tip of her blade on the ground behind her as she circled Oralia.
Tristyn had released her throat, but that strange glowing power of his was still wrapped around it. Nylah still held firm. Between the two of them, something was preventing Oralia from Traveling. The bitch wasn’t going anywhere.
“Shut up!” Oralia snapped, catching herself on her hands as she fell forward. “They kept making me wait to take my power. They kept telling me that something better would come.”
Her words were garbled gasps, and Tessa stopped in front of her once more. Pressing the tip of her blade beneath Oralia’s chin, she tipped her face up. Tessa’s head tilted to the side. “You were the back-up plan.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Oralia snarled, blood dripping down her neck where the blade had pierced flesh.
Tessa smiled. “Without any power, you were easily controlled. They needed you powerless so that if things went wrong, if Dexter or Brecken were killed, they still had an option. It was never about finding you the perfect power.”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“And now you will die as powerless as the day you were born. You got to watch everyone else get their gifts and learn to use them, while you were told to save yourself for something special.” Tessa barked a humorless huff of laughter. “I know the feeling. I almost pity you. Too bad I don’t.”
Before Oralia could speak again, Tessa plunged her sword through her chest so thoroughly it protruded out of her back. Then she was dissolving into nothing but golden embers and darkest ashes that were scattering along the beach.
Her wings remained though.
And true to her word, she’d leave them for Dexter to find.
She turned then, rushing back to Brecken and dropping beside him once more. He’d managed to roll onto his side, but gods, his pallor was as grey as his decaying wings.
Wings that were scarcely there anymore.
“No,” she breathed, her hands hovering over her face, his chest, trying to decide what to do. Something inside of her was breaking, the pain searing.
“There’s…nothing…Tess,” he gasped out, reaching for her hand.
His fingers were freezing and bony. Frail in her trembling hand.
“We can take you back,” she said through tears. “We can take you back. Maybe Xan knows…”
But she trailed off as cracked lips tried to tilt up in his mischievous smile.
They never made it.
“I’m…fine,” he rasped, his cheeks sinking in as she watched on.
“Brecken!” she cried, feeling Tristyn come up behind her. Gods, this hurt as if she was feeling his pain, his death. “I’m sorry. I’m so… This isn’t how things were supposed to go!”
His fingers flexed in her hand again. “I’m fine,” he rasped again. “I can face Arius…knowing I was…on the right side.”
She shook her head, smoothing hair back from a damp brow.
Hair that fell out as she brushed it back, and she yanked her hand back.
“Breck,” she cried again, his name a broken sob as that thing in her soul cracked even more. “I’m so sorry.”
“Be…who you…were meant to be, Tessa,” he gasped.
With tears streaming down her face, she looked up at Tristyn. “Give me some lull-leaf.”
He didn’t question her, crouching down to reach into the pocket of his jacket she was still wearing. He lit it, handing it to Tessa, and she brought it to Brecken’s lips.
“A fucking…saint,” he gasped, before inhaling a ragged breath.
One more.
And then he stilled.
Tessa tipped her head back and screamed. Another sacrifice made because of her. Another life taken because of her. She was beginnings and endings, and what good was it if she couldn’t save those she loved? And why did she feel like she was dying right beside him?
“Um, Tessa? I know you’re grieving, but we have another issue,” Tristyn said, suddenly standing. He had two curved blades in his hands now, and her wolves were closing in, staying close, as inky darkness rolled along the ground, mixing with the dense fog.
She barely had a moment to panic before it caressed her, sliding up her body like a lover.
Then it tightened around her throat, and her magic bit back as Theon stepped from the rolling black mist.
He looked from her to Tristyn, then to the broken body of Brecken and the lone wings on the ground.
His voice was lethal when he said tightly, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m interrupting, but we need to go.”
“I can’t—” Tessa started, the ache in her chest agony now, but Theon interrupted.
“Something is wrong with Luka. Cienna said he’s dying.”