Chapter 27
The street performer’s whip lay abandoned on the ground, its handle still warm from his grip. I snatched it up and sprinted, shoving Yvonne and Poppy behind me just as the Thirst demon coiled to lunge.
The whip was heavier than the silk ribbons I used for dancing, but the motions were the same. Muscle memory took over. I twirled it above my head in a fluid arc, the supple metal snapping through the air like a blade.
“Looking for a dance partner?” I taunted, my voice steady despite the wild pounding of my heart.
The demon stilled, its grotesque head tilting, black drool stretching from its too-wide jaws. Then, with a guttural hiss, it lunged.
I cracked the whip forward, the steel slicing through the air before striking the demon’s thick, pulsing hide. It recoiled, not in pain but in surprise, slitted red eyes snapping to me with renewed hunger. I knew the whip wouldn’t take it down—but it could slow it.
That was all I needed.
I planted my feet, ready to strike again, and screamed over my shoulder, “Run!”
Yvonne hesitated, her wide eyes locked onto the demon, frozen between fear and instinct. Poppy whimpered in her arms.
I lashed the whip again, snapping it across the creature’s leering face. It shrieked, its grotesque mouth stretching wider, teeth gnashing.
“Now!” I barked. “Go!”
This time she moved, stumbling back only to freeze again.
Two more demons slithered out from the shadows behind her.
My stomach dropped. We were surrounded.
Rubi, what is happening? Flame’s voice crashed into my mind, frantic. They’ve locked my stall. I can’t get out. All of the tygers are in an uproar.
The tygers were all locked up? Blazing hell. Someone had planned this.
It’s all right, I lied, my voice even. I’ve got this.
My hand tightened on the whip. I definitely did not have this.
The demons closed in, their mouths stretching, that black drool dripping in long, glistening strings. Yvonne clutched Poppy tighter, her breath ragged, but I stayed in front of them as best I could.
One of the creatures lunged. I snapped the whip out, its tip slicing through the air, wrapping around a cluster of wriggling little appendages on its torso.
I yanked. The appendages ripped clean off. The demon shrieked, its severed limbs twitching on the ground like dying worms.
Another demon pounced. I barely twisted out of the way in time, slamming against a large block of stone fallen from the building behind me, the thing’s claws raking through the space where I’d just been. It landed hard, but it was fast, faster than something that size should be.
Before I could snap my whip again, it lunged a second time.
I sprawled on the ground, dazed. My head swam, my limbs weak as I stretched for the whip again where I’d lost it.
Snap out of it, Rubi! Flame cried.
I shook my head, feeling a trickle of blood wet my ear. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Focus!
Then, just as the demon closed the distance—
Clang.
A metal object slammed into its head, knocking it sideways. It let out a guttural snarl, shaking its grotesque skull.
I turned, breathless.
Poppy was in her mother’s arms, her tiny palms outstretched, sun-shaped yang Marks glowing orange. At her feet lay the crushed remains of a huge metal lid, the thing she’d just thrown with magic.
A female yang. Blake’s daughter. What was she, five years old? The ferocity in her eyes was pure Axefire.
It wasn’t much, but it had bought me a few precious seconds.
The demon snarled, recovering. Its slitted red eyes locked onto Poppy now.
Hell no.
I surged forward, striking out with the whip as the demon lunged again, but it was too fast. Too close.
I slammed into it, but it flipped us in midair, its weight crushing me against the ground as we landed, its claws digging into my shoulders.
Its mouth latched onto my skin, biting the side of my neck.
I screamed as an unnatural pull wrenched through me, a black hole opening inside my chest. It was feeding on me.
I’d be dead within seconds.
I thrashed, but my limbs were weak, draining, like my strength was being sucked straight from my bones. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears, my vision going hazy at the edges.
Please, please—I wasn’t sure who I was entreating—Flame, the goddess of compassion, the Kingdom of Sky. Flame was locked up, unable to help. Calla, Edith, Quinn, all gone and, hopefully, safe. Blake, who was out there somewhere, fighting.
Something inside me cracked open.
I opened my mouth.
A melody pulled from the marrow of my bones, from the pit of my lungs, from some primal place that had been waiting, dormant, for this exact moment. It pushed its way up my throat, spilling from my lips.
The sound was pure power.
It was the crack of thunder before a storm, the wail of wind through jagged cliffs, the shudder of the earth before it splits apart. It didn’t just ring in my ears; it thrummed through the air, through the very fabric of the space around us.
The demon shrieked and flung itself off me, its entire body convulsing as if I’d burned it. The sound kept rising, a melody that wasn’t entirely mine but something raw and ancient and terrifying. It poured out of me like floodwater breaking through a dam.
Slowly I struggled to my feet as I kept singing. Blood trickled down my neck, but the wound itself seemed to be small.
The demons’ red-slitted eyes went wide, their bodies seizing as if held in invisible chains. Some had already fed and were red and engorged to double their normal size. They jerked and convulsed, but I was already losing my hold on them.
I didn’t know what I was doing or how I was doing it. And I had no way of killing them.
When my hold on them broke, they would tear us apart. One demon wrenched itself away from my power and took a step toward us.
They were breaking free.
I couldn’t hold them. My voice started dying out as I crumpled to the ground, exhausted.
And then soldiers amassed.
Rebels, I realized, heart sinking. The ones who were attacking. But their attention wasn’t on me or Yvonne and Poppy—it was entirely on the swarm of demons.
They began striking them down as my body crashed from the adrenaline, eyes nearly closing in pain and dizziness.
Only—damn it.
It wasn’t just rebel soldiers. It was the Ravager himself, slicing his way through.
I had no energy left, nothing in me to defend us against him, but I would try. For the happiness I had seen in Blake with his daughter, his wife. For the man who had tucked me into bed.
The Ravager was dressed from head to toe in black, complete with a full mask that covered his entire head—hair and face, with just a slit for the eyes. No part of him identifiable by the king’s men.
Flame—can you call for Blake through Kingsolver? Tell him where we are.
The request made little sense, but I was desperate.
And perhaps if Blake got here, he could stop the carnage.
I might have been on the rebels’ side before this, but they were slaughtering innocents—Azures and Silvers alike.
They might have unleashed the demons tonight, even if they’d had to fight them off in the end.
The Ravager lifted his free hand, no glove, and a storm of metal answered. His hands were blazing, his sun yang Marks so bright that they lit up the night.
Oh my gods. Not an Azure—a goddess-damned Silver.
The city itself seemed to shatter around us as metal surged to life, debris from shattered weapons, broken streetlamps, shards of steel and iron rising like a storm of blades.
The wreckage hurled forward, a maelstrom of jagged edges and raw power, impaling the nearest demon straight through the edge of its shell. It let out a shriek as it crumpled, not dead but pinned.
Metal twisted and snapped, bands of steel wrapping around clawed limbs, crushing, slicing, restraining.
A shard of a broken blade tore through one demon’s throat before pinning it to the ground.
Another lunged from the side. The Ravager flicked his wrist, and a whip of steel wrapped around its midsection, ripping half its appendages off. Now, he turned toward us.
One demon managed to break past the storm, scrambling toward Yvonne, Poppy, and me.
The Ravager flicked his fingers, and a serrated piece of metal shot forward and speared its leg, sending it sprawling.
Another snap of his wrist, and a wall of twisted iron rose in front of us, cutting off any chance of attack. Was he defending us?
Still the demons fought. They writhed and shrieked, limbs twisting, pushing against the metal.
The Ravager moved through the carnage like death incarnate, his dagger flashing.
One by one, he ended them.
He drove the blade—thundervein, I realized—into a demon’s skull, twisting, tearing it free just as another surged at him.
He turned, ducked, drove the blade up, and gutted it in a single motion.
Another tried to lunge past him, desperate to escape.
He caught it by the throat, slammed it against the metal barrier, and drove the dagger into its chest.
Over and over, the storm of metal pinned and shredded, and the Ravager finished them all. The other rebels were leaving, to wreak havoc elsewhere.
I turned to check on Blake’s wife and child—surprised to see that Yvonne seemed calmer, almost relaxed, smoothing a hand through her daughter’s hair.
Still, I kept my guardian’s stance before them.
One by one, the demons were destroyed, their darkness seeming to melt back into the night as their corpses turned to ash.
Suddenly, we were utterly alone with the king of the rebels. The streets were deserted except for the bodies of the dead and dying. Everyone who could move had run from the violence.
My hand locked onto my ribbons, the whip long gone from my hands—and easily manipulated by the Ravager now that I knew he was a Silver yang.
“Don’t come any closer,” I bit out, hating how exhausted and broken my voice sounded. Fragmented, as if the fight had stolen more than I meant to give. I was running on fumes.
“Wait—” It was Yvonne who yelled, but I couldn’t focus on that as the Ravager took another step forward, palms up and facing me.
I unfurled my ribbons, whipping them at his hands. His dagger was put away, so I only had moments before he retrieved it to incapacitate him.
He dodged, sliding under the arc with practiced ease. And still he kept coming closer—closer and closer.
“Stop,” he said, voice gruff.
I didn’t.
“Wait—”
I spun and tried to run, before his arm barred me in, a terrified noise coming out of my throat, lips opening to sing, before his other hand slapped over my mouth.
My eyes grew wide and panicked as I struggled against his grasp, weak but determined.
“Rubi,” he snapped, and I froze.
What?
“Calm down.”
Letting go of my mouth, which was now just as frozen as the rest of me, the Ravager reached up and pulled off his mask.