Chapter 88 #2
Everything feels a little less heavy.
Again, Ignos gathers between her shoulder blades, those flaming wings an extension of her body, flicking and dancing with our explosive duel—our teeth bared, screams and snarls blasting free.
But try as I might, it’s hard to forget that each clang brings me closer to being parted from her. Knowledge that makes me feel like I’m about to be shoved down one of the dark holes Pah tormented me with. Only this time, no escape, no matter how hard I stutter and scream.
This time, Raeve will be in the hole with me. Eventually. She swore her grief would be loud if I left this world first, and I believe her.
The thought makes me stumble, the crowd gasping as I realize I’m entirely out of breath—chest blazing, so much wetness leaching through my binds that I’m surprised I have any blood left for my heart to pump.
My sword clatters to the ground.
I fall to my knees, hands plunging into embers I barely feel as I try to catch my breath, lungs squeezing through short, sharp jerks.
A torched parchment lark flutters past, snatching my attention. It wobbles straight for Slátra and splashes against her arm, making her flinch.
She snarls, looking up into the crowd.
I follow her gaze toward the jutted balcony crowned by flaming bowls of oil, finding Arkyn perched behind the gnarly balustrade, topped with his macabre crown.
He dips his head, a silent command that pitches ice through my veins.
It’s time …
I drop my chin, grinding breath while I listen to Slátra collect my sword off the ground. When I lift again, she’s before me, fisting dual weapons while a gusty storm of embers tangle with her loose hair, whipping it about.
On my knees for her, I rest my hands in my lap, chest wrestling with each wet heave.
She raises both swords, sets the blades at my throat—one on either side—my skin tingling, heart hammering with such explosive might I’m certain the entire world can hear it.
For the final time, I savor the fullness of those red lips, wishing I could see them smile. See those cheeks dimple from the force of it.
What I wouldn’t give for a proper goodbye. To dig my nose to the crook of Raeve’s neck and plant a kiss behind her ear—
I stop torturing myself, closing my eyes so she doesn’t have to bear the brunt of my vacant stare once the deed is done.
“Do it,” I growl, leaning into the cool press of the blades.
I don’t bother begging her to love Raeve. To care for her or protect her. The fact that she’s taken this burden upon herself tells me she’ll do everything in her power to keep Raeve from shattering.
“Look at me, mate of my Precious One …”
A pained lament moves up my throat, but I do as she says. Only to see those flaming wings stretched so wide and proud I can almost picture her as herself.
“When you see Raeve, tell her that my heart still beats with hers.” Her cheeks fill with a melancholy smile. “And that I’m waiting for her to come to me.”
“Wh—”
Slátra closes her eyes, and those flaming wings sputter before a silver shimmer tangles around both her hands. Something I’ve seen before … when we were in Bothaim.
She jolts, then gasps; the heaved breath of someone starved. When she opens her eyes again, they’re bold, startling blue—focusing, scanning me with frantic haste, slitting across the arena, the crowd.
Me again.
Relief softens her gaze, warms her face. And it hurts. A punch to the ribs that almost caves them in. Because although this is everything—seeing Raeve is everything—I’d hoped she wouldn’t be the one to have to end me.
She drops the swords to the heckling tune of a disgruntled crowd, and panic flares.
“Raeve—”
She steps close, grips both sides of my face, then kisses me—hard.
Soft.
Everything in between.
Her lips and tongue taste like embers—something I don’t question as I fall apart beneath her spell, like being serenaded during a war.
Quietly, I pray she’ll do it now. Slip a dagger through my heart while I’m tangled with her, in the only spot I’d happily die.
She pulls away, tilts my head until our foreheads are pressed together, then looks at me with an aching abundance of … of—
“I love you, too,” she pledges with such assertive poise, it’s like she’s slamming a stake in the ground and hoisting a flag atop it. “And you have nothing to be sorry about.”
I struggle to catch any air in the wake of her declaration, opening my mouth to speak—
Everything shudders, rumbling in synchrony with panicked screams from the crowd, like something huge just hammered the mountain from above.
Like a moonfall.
Raeve’s eyes widen, and I look over her shoulder, up past Arkyn’s terrace. Even he scans the distant ceiling etched in glowing runes supposed to protect against the moonfalls.
Another full-mountain shake causes a storm of squeals and cries.
I push to my feet, wobbling. Frown when I sense a flicker within myself, right where Rygun’s flame sits. A single pulsing flicker that seeps through my veins like a glug of warmth.
The tonic’s burning off again …
Raeve spins, giving me her back. “Put your arms around me.”
I do as she says, flattening my hands against her abdomen, aching with the closeness as I ask against her ear, “What are you doing, Moonbeam?”
“Ending this,” she grits out—confident.
Determined.
“But Kyzari and Veya—”
“Won’t make it out of that cell alive unless we break them out ourselves. I’d stake the fucking world on it.”
There’s no sadness in her tone. No uncertainty. Nothing but potent abhorrence for the male on the terrace above, now leering down at us, skewered by Raeve’s bladed stare.
Arkyn leans sideways, passing some words to one of his masked followers, stilling as Raeve begins to raise her hands—both looped in those luminous silver ribbons.
She makes twin fists, flips them over, then lifts her little fingers. A universal fuck you that causes a collective gasp.
“Raeve—”
“Guthh in thaissah vaugh, Ignos!” she belts out, a sizzling sentence that pitches my pulse—every word executed with the perfect hissing vitriol of Ignos’s ravenous accent. “Geist shooth baghh, shekin tah!”
Her words echo, chased by a listening quiet pebbled by the odd mocking laugh. But she has their attention.
So they all see the exact moment every ember or smoldering stone ignites, throbbing with glee. The hungry chuckle of a Creator unleashed, preparing to sink his teeth into a meal … answering Raeve’s call to arms.
Meaning they all realize, at the exact same moment, that they’re caught in the cage with a beast unleashed.