Chapter 66 #2
But when she took a step, Deimos stepped in front of her. “You’ve been weakened by the siphon. Sire would not want you in danger—”
A violent blast scorched along her nerves like a brand. The Sloth host broke first as Wrath cut through them in a roar of flame and iron, the ground vibrating beneath their charge. Somewhere to her left, Hadeon battled Ira, his presence a steady burn against the inferno.
To the right, the lithe Succubus of the Lust host crept low and insidious, silk-thread spells slipping between ranks, seeking weakness. The Greed court wavered under it, gold and fear tangling together as Nexia struggled to hold against Morvenna.
Alora’s jaw tightened and she searched the ridge for the sun sorceress. The beacons had all been destroyed. The sound of a frightened screech drew her to spot Lady Solara flying among the clouds on her griffin, dodging the snapping teeth of Drakon while returning fire.
The fae fought well against the Gluttony host, but any who fell were torn apart and gobbled into gaping maws. Balgor was tearing through the ranks, making his way to Zinnia.
“Deimos,” Alora gritted her teeth. “You have your Queen’s leave. Unleash.”
The Harbinger’s mouth curved sharply. He drew a pair of wicked blades from the shadows at his back and vanished in smoke.
Alora hated standing there. She cut down any stragglers that came at her, but she was torn between joining the fight or going after Rune.
The toss of bodies and frightened cries rang out as a flash of magic detonated. Demons and mortals fell to a slew of glowing webs, falling to pieces.
Sal’vathar cleaved through the Pride host without mercy. Killing many with every swing of his spidery limbs, his manic laughter rising above the cries of the dead.
Sensing the turn of the tide, half of the Envy host split off and charged like a black sea toward Calla and Argyle’s depleting cavalry.
Hadeon screamed her name and the distraction cost him. He went down beneath Ira’s hammer. Calla was already speeding toward him before Morvenna hit her with a blast of crimson magic.
Horror crested through Alora.
The air shifted.
Light rolled off her skin as she leaped into the air. The force carried her over the battlefield, and she hit the center of the Envy host with a boom.
A sweep of white fire ripped out of her in a flood. Demons fell back, screeching, all who were caught by her light turning to ash. Her body shone bright, her hair flickering with divine flame.
Sal’vathar turned to her with a sneer, and Alora readied her glaive. “Come on then, little queen.”
A rupture of lightning resonated through the air.
And the bond flared open in her chest.
She gasped softly.
The battlefield went still and the world darkened.
The Blood Moon still blazed above, but something rose into the surface of its light—shadows rolling in a massive tide across the Heavens. The ground trembled. Wind howled, spiraling upward, thick with ash and smoke. Every eye turned skyward.
Through the red haze, a vast shape ripped down through the atmosphere, cloaked in storm and shadow. Wings unfurled like cloaks, blotting out the moonlight.
Rune.
He descended in a torrent of black flame, shadows trailing him like comets. When he struck the hilltop, the impact sent half the demons flying back. The air itself cracked with the force of it, a shockwave of shadow blasting outward, echoing through her bones.
Rune stood before the seven factions, wreathed in darkness, his crimson eyes flickering with Hellfire. Long black hair streamed down his shoulders, spilling like shadow-fire down his back. New armor clung to his form, shifting and alive, as though the Nether itself clothed him.
And no glamor hid his true form. Horns gleamed like a crown of night from his brow, his barbed tail coiling like a snake. From his back unfurled draconic wings, wreathed in shadow so thick they looked endless, a void given form.
Then he turned, that burning gaze locking on her.
Her mate, commander of the night, marched toward her, power humming off the plates of fortified armor. He felt different. New magic sparked violently through their bond. Bright and wholly divine.
His large, clawed hand cupped her cheek and she smiled.
“Well? Attack!” Sal’vathar shouted at his host.
But no demons dared move.
Their shifting gazes flickered from Rune’s terrifying form, then to each other.
“What are you waiting for?” Sal’vathar snarled. “I command you to—”
Shadows lanced through the air like spears.
Instead of dodging, Sal’vathar attempted to cut them away with a snap of his webs. They pierced his limbs with bone-breaking force, pinning him in an instant.
He tore them off with an angry growl and sneered when the wounds healed. “Your shadow tricks will not work on me anymore, Rune. I am a Primordial now.”
Alora clenched her teeth. He had not finished the spell, but he had retained a piece of her dark magic.
Rune turned to face him, and when he spoke, his voice echoed in eerie layers from the writhing shadows in the air. “Vahl’Tor.”
Sal’vathar paused, chest heaving as he became aware of every demon watching. He laughed. “Why would we fight now for the right to reign? I have already won!”
“Have you?” Alora mused. “If you want the throne, then prove yourself worthy and let the court stand witness. Unless… you’re afraid to lose.”
He snarled at the taunt.
“A challenge has been invoked,” Segrith said, standing among the ranks of Sloth. “This sacred custom will not be denied.”
The demons growled in agreement and somewhere drums beat.
Sal’vathar tore off his cloak, drawing out four wicked blades. The edges were serrated bone of some massive beast.
But his sneer faltered when Rune drew his weapon. A hush fell over the field.
It was not Noctharion, but a sword with a luminous blade.
It shone in the haze of smoke, and she realized exactly what it was.
The blade shone like trapped sunlight. Each flicker of it made her chest ache, for it was the light Rune had sworn to shun—now blazed in his hand like retribution.
Sal’vathar’s smile faltered when he saw it, but he covered the tremor with posturing. “You are nothing but a forsaken pretending to be flame. The court now sees you for what you truly are.”
Rune said nothing.
“Well, you are not the only one with divine power.” Sal’vathar levitated into the air with a low cackle, magic flaring at his hands.
But he never got a chance to cast it.
Alora blinked and Rune vanished from her sight.
He was there one moment, then gone. She only saw the moment the Sunstone blade arced down like a stream of light clean through Sal’vathar’s arm. The Dominion screamed as his flesh sizzled, the sunstone eating into his webbed veins like acid.
His hand twitched in a pool of black blood.
And he did not heal.
Sal’vathar staggered back, his eyes widening.
Rune advanced, shadows wrapping him in a storm.
Summoning more webs, Sal’vathar roared. The serrated edge of Rune’s tail parried the strike and the next slash split Sal’vathar’s second arm apart from the elbow.
Alora flinched at his sharp scream. Whatever spell he cast, Rune’s claws tore through them, ripping those lethal strands to shreds as if they were nothing but cobwebs in his path.
While the Dominion fought with a desperation that reeked of terror, Rune met every blow with cold precision and brutal calm. Each swing blistered his palm, sunfire flaring up his arm, yet he didn’t react to it. Didn’t slow.
Sal’vathar’s voice turned frantic, desperate to fill the silence. “You are nothing without her! Even now, your court crumbles because you were never meant to rule!”
And Rune still did not answer. His silence was worse than words; each severing was a sentence, his judgment written in sunfire and shadow.
Alora’s heart pounded as she watched, transfixed as the glowing sword sang through the air. Rune was completely calm. Measured. Every strike precise, cutting Sal’vathar down piece by piece until nothing remained but a mangled demon falling to his knees.
Sal’vathar screamed, black ichor spilling across the ground. Smoke curled from the stumps, the scent of charred flesh thick and acrid.
Rune kicked him onto his back, bringing the blade to his neck.
And it was done.
Sal’vathar’s chest heaved as he panted, his complexion pale. “I am a Dominion…” he rasped. “You… you cannot simply kill me.”
There was only one way a Dominion could be removed.
Absolute censure.
Rune looked to the Court of Envy. “Who will petition mercy for his Lord?”
Sal’vathar smiled at his faction expectantly. The wind blew over the still sea of glowing red eyes. But no voices rose in favor.
No one moved to aid him.
Because what the demons despised above weakness was cowardice.
Sal’vathar shook, complexion paling.
The silence broke with movement among the ranks as the Harbingers came through.
Hadeon was missing an eye, and Calla pressed on the gash at her waist but that was the worst of it.
They dragged the Dominions of Wrath and Lust forward.
Blood leaked from Ira’s many wounds, antlers severed, his face burned so badly that his ears were nearly gone.
Morvenna whimpered, blood leaking from her lips.
Deimos’s Shades did the heavy lifting by hauling Balgor over next.
His bulging body had been sliced to shreds, his eyes gouged out.
They forced the Dominions to kneel.
“We yield, sire.” Balgor immediately groveled, reaching out to him blindly. “We were fools to ever question our king.”
Morvenna wailed like a petulant child. Her mouth was a gory mess and Alora realized with a sick churn that her tongue had been torn out. Calla stood with her arms crossed, flexing her bloodied claws.
She quieted to soft sniffles when Ira took her hand.
He drew his shoulders back, defiantly facing the consequences of his actions.
“No one will speak for me,” Ira barked when his court began to petition. “I will not beg pardon for my treason. I go to my death willingly.” His gaze lifted to Rune’s. “I ask only that you send me through the Gates with my dignity.”
The court fell silent, every demon turning toward their king.
Rune held Ira’s gaze for a long moment, his cloak snapping in the wind. Through the bond bristled with his cold fury, deep beneath it lingered the quiet weight of what was being severed. Centuries of rule. Battles once fought under the same banner. A Dominion he once respected.
They would die for their betrayal, but Rune would honor Ira’s request.
He sheathed the Sunstone blade.
Then air pulled as he summoned Noctharion into his grasp. The evil blade whispered in an eerie Hellspeech and Alora shivered at the taste of its bloodlust.
Rune didn’t swing.
Shadows lanced from the black blade like scythes across the hilltop, death slicing cleanly through their necks. The Dominions instantly turned to ash, crumbling away in the hush.
Only Sal’vathar remained.
But when Alora looked at where he had fallen, she found a drag path of black ichor leading to the altar. Sal’vathar lay among a patch of spider lilies, hissing a spell into the remnants of her blood. The array flashed with scarlet light.
She gasped, sprinting to him. “No!—”
The earth shook with a violent quake.
The altar crumbled, the hilltop buckled, the ground ripping open beneath them in a crimson fissure. Rune snatched her away in the air, everyone fleeing in opposite directions.
The Rift tore wide.
It split through the land like a gaping wound of the world. The earth quaked, and claws tore skyward with a roar that shook the valley. A black mass tore free from the breach, rising into the storming sky.
“He is through,” Rune said gravely.
A horrid chill sank through Alora’s bones.
Men bolted. Demons scattered. Fae and Minotaurs fled for the ridge.
The air was thick with screams.
Through the smoke, vast forms writhed, pressing at the Rift, their skeletal shapes screeching. The Wild Hunt was coming next.
Sal’vathar’s manic laughter rang out as he watched. “Even if I fall, the Titan rises! What will you do now, Rune? Your souls cannot bind a second Rift!”
Alora had enough of him.
The shadows whisked her to his side in the span of a breath.
She seized him by the throat.
“You are right, spider,” Alora growled. “We cannot bind a second Rift. But now that you hold a piece of my power, your soul is enough to anchor it.”
Sal’vathar’s eyes went wide, his laughter choking to a shriek. “No—no, wait—”
Alora hurled him into the tear.
The Dominion’s scream was swallowed at once. The Rift snapped closed with a deafening crack, shadows severed mid-claw, their howls cut short, leaving behind nothing but smoking dirt.
Silence fell, broken only by the thunderclouds rolling over the eclipse.
All looked up as a black shape rose above them, blotting out the light.
A silhouette took form, vast enough to swallow the sky. The body writhed with tendrils of shadow and lightning, broad shoulders and clawed hands distorting like smoke caught in wind. His face was a void, featureless save for two pits of molten light, furnaces burning cold.
The Devourer had arrived.
He loomed like a storm of flesh and ruin, his maw dripping fire and shadow, his claws carved with ancient hunger. Eyes older than time fixed on Alora, sending a horrid chill coursing down her spine.
And the storm shifted.
The black mass drew inward, condensing. A clawed hand cut through it and limbs emerged, shaped from shadow into something almost human.
His body was fitted with armor, black and crimson plates gleaming in the light.
His white hair spilled like moonlight down his shoulders.
The same slitted eyes from her nightmares burned brighter than fire.
And beneath his breastplate, where his heart should be, pulsed a vein of scarlet light—beating slow, steady, like the rhythm of a drum.
He was beautiful. Awful. A force clothed in ruin.
Vorak’s crimson gaze fixed upon her, and for a moment she understood. She understood how her mother could fall, how a god’s beauty could masquerade as salvation.
Alora’s heart pounded beneath that terrifying stare.
Frozen in place.
Vorak leisurely descended from the air. The moment his feet lightly landed on the ground, the earth shook. Shadows surged as if to attack him, yet they bent to him, chained to his will.
“Lashar,” Vorak called, his distorted voice echoing like several at once. “My awaited daughter.”
Alora’s legs trembled, her soul so cold she already felt Death’s presence on her skin.
“Come and greet your father.”