Chapter Thirty-Nine
I blink and squint in disbelief. It is Roshan, dressed in his royal armor with a golden crown on his dark hair. I watch as Razulek flies him down to where his army is marching.
Then who the fuck was that in the dungeon? I sensed Roshan’s blood.
I whirl as Anahima starts cackling. “Gods, you truly are fucking gullible. They say the weakest minds are the easiest to convince. I expected more, Starkeeper. My acting was truly spectacular—‘Don’t worry about me. Get to Darrius. Get away from here, Sura!’” She says the last in a desperate singsong copy of Roshan’s voice that makes me flinch.
That should have been my first glaring red flag. Roshan calls him Nightsong, not Darrius. But I’d been sucked in by Anahima’s complex illusion. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“How did you get his blood?” I ask.
“A single drop is all it takes,” she says. “One nick on his pretty little face. Did you like the scar I left you?”
“I’m going to kill you,” I say, power rushing to my fingertips. Now that both Papa and Roshan are out of her clutches, she has no collateral.
“You can try.”
Anahima’s stare is taunting as I launch the hottest blast of starlight I can amass at her, screaming in rage . . . and it passes straight through her body. Another fucking illusion!
“Where the fuck are you, Anahima?” I shout. “Face me and fight me. Or are you too cowardly to do so?”
Her response is to set the entire spire on fire. I immediately conjure ice magic to douse it, but it only grows stronger and turns blue. I try a gust of air, and it doubles in size. It’s magical, feeding on counter-magic.
I hurry over to Helena, who doesn’t look good. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“I’m not going to make it, Suraya,” she whispers.
“You will.” I pick her up and hoist her over my shoulder, rushing to the edge of the parapet as the unnatural bluish-yellow flames grow bigger.
I could try a portal, but my brain is too scattered and too many things could go wrong.
Besides, I don’t trust that Anahima hasn’t spelled this entire tower in some way to fuck with my magic like she did earlier.
Razulek!
The now riderless azdaha banks on his powerful wings, soaring just below the spire that’s engulfed with fire. Jump, little queen. I will catch you.
Easy for him to say! Gritting my teeth, I close my eyes and leap as I feel the lick of flames on my neck, landing right on Raz’s back. Luckily, I have the wherewithal to use magic to stabilize us, especially since Helena has passed out. Thank you, old friend. You saved me.
From what? he rumbles.
The fire, I say.
I feel his confusion. There’s no fire.
Baffled, I blink and look over my shoulder.
Sure enough, the spire is free of any flames.
Stars, had I just imagined that? Or did Anahima somehow construct that whole intricate vision in my head?
Gods, it had felt so real! I shove my mental shields up so hard that I nearly get whiplash, and I swear I hear the sound of mocking laughter.
Focus on what you need to, my simurgh cautions, then you can hunt her down.
The ferocity of the battle below us has grown, now that the massive revenant Scav forces—who are very hard to kill—have come through the portal. Thanks to me. But regret is a useless emotion without action. I have to help drive them back or kill them.
Raz directs a huge stream of fire at an ugly chimera when it gets too close for comfort with its talons and fire breath of its own. It lets out an earsplitting screech and tumbles from the sky, its wings shriveling to embers.
Brutal, Raz, I say.
This is war, Starkeeper. It’s us or them.
We need to do something to stop it. I peer down at the bodies, seeing so many fallen on the field. The death toll is enormous, the sight of slaughtered horses and mutilated warriors making my eyes sting and nausea rise in my throat. Where are my kings?
The king of Oryndhr is with his army, fending off the dead ones from the east. And King Darrius . . . He goes quiet. I see my mate but not her rider.
Heart pounding, I focus inward and follow the bond to find Darrius on the ground, his magic a vicious, ravenous whorl of shadows.
He’s taking out whole lines of the enemy, but there are too many of them and he is expelling a huge amount of magic.
But what makes it exponentially worse is that even though the king is pulverizing the dead to dust, the rot is alive and latching on to anything .
. . including slain Aspa?anā and Everlean soldiers.
I stare in horror as Karan? ruthlessly removes the head of one of her own horde who has come back to life . . . and that’s not the only one.
The rot is spreading like a plague, just as Anahima had intended.
Raz and I swoop low to hand Helena off to one of Darrius’s guards before I leap off to land at Darrius’s side. My incandescent magic flares out in tandem with his to incinerate the revenants marching toward us. But the more we kill, the more they seem to spawn.
A blood-spattered kingsguard comes toward me, eyes riddled with purple smoke.
Fuck! I duck his swing and release a blast that bores a hole in his torso, and he still keeps coming.
Maxur, in partially shifted wolf form, appears from nowhere and cleaves off his head.
I exhale and nod my thanks. He jerks his head in return and disappears back into the fray with a battle cry of rage.
“Dare, we need to kill the source of the rot magic,” I shout with a gasp. “We have to find Anahima.”
“You’re right. Hold on,” Darrius says, snatching me about the waist and pulling me back against him. In seconds, we are enveloped by shadow, time and space rushing by, before we materialize on Indira’s broad back, and then suddenly everything goes preternaturally quiet.
The sound of clashing steel dissolves into a pregnant sort of silence, one that portends horrors unknown. The hairs on my arms stand straight, goose bumps rushing over my skin. A terrible roar pierces the air, and a three-headed flying nightmare appears.
“What the fuck is that?” I yell, watching the huge beast fly toward us.
Darrius stiffens behind me, arm flexing around my middle as if to keep me close. “An azhi, a demon I thought was dead. And my sister.”
“A demon?” I choke out.
“Summoned from the abyss.”
Sure enough, Anahima is on the middle head of the massive creature, which has to be five times the size of Indira. “Is it an azdaha?”
Indira lets out a derisive snort. That thing is as much one of us as an ogre can be called a mortal. It is a merciless, ill-fated monster that only knows how to kill.
At her words, I stare at the incoming aberration, chills erupting all over my body. My breaths start to come hard and fast, and I force myself to calm. Panicking isn’t going to help any of us survive the next few minutes. But the terror sinks into my bones anyway.
“So, mindless and monstrous,” I say, going for bravado. “Got it. How do we kill it?”
Darrius grinds his teeth, frustration evident. “There’s only one thing that can harm that creature and it’s a god-touched sword. The center head is immortal.”
Of course it is.
“Let me guess,” I say, dread spreading through me. “We don’t have one.”
He nods. “The last one was lost during the hundred years’ war.”
“So what do we do?”
His expression is grim. “Survive.”
The closer the azhi gets, the more terrifying it is.
Those fangs crowding each of its mouths have to be as long as my legs, and the myriad spines on its necks are tapered to lethal points. Its wingspan is massive, and it moves gracefully despite its considerable bulk. Designed for death, I have no doubt it will be formidable in battle.
As it nears, I can see bumps and oozing boils marring its greenish-gray body, leading down to twin spade-edged tails and four legs capped with talons resembling curved scimitars.
But it’s the deep purple tendrils of rot I can see that make alarm curdle in my gut.
I feel my simurgh rise inside me, magic curling along my spine.
If it’s being controlled by Fero’s corrupted rot, who knows what it’s capable of.
I stare at its gaping mouths. “Does it breathe fire or poison like you, Indira?”
Indira chuffs. Worse. One breathes a corrosive acid gas that eats away anything from steel to scales to bones, one blows out a nightmare plume that causes hallucinations and delusions, and the last and worst is the nullifying breath that erases all magical powers.
I blink at the last. “Null? For good?”
It depends on the strength of the magi.
“Is it immune to magic?” I ask.
“The middle head is to most numena,” Darrius says. “Kinetic magic fuels it, so we have to avoid elemental attacks, or it will become stronger, reviving the two other heads. All three are resistant to psionic magic.”
I grit my teeth. “So we can’t attack it, we can’t control it, and we need a lost god-sword to even have a chance. What the fuck can we do?”
Behind me, Darrius rolls his neck, the deity in him coming to the fore.
“The best we can hope to do is weaken it by working together in a collective approach. Evade the breath attacks, aim physical assaults at its underbelly and its wings. If we can take it down first, even better. Indira, call to your kin—our fight will be in the air, while the Aspa?anā and King Roshan’s forces keep the focus on the ground. Tell your azdaha army no magic.”
I belatedly realize that Indira must be alpha of the azdahas when she lets out a trumpeting call that nearly makes my eardrums explode and echoes across the valley.
Answering cries come back and dozens of azdahas, a few with riders and most without, join our ranks.
My jaw falls open, eyes widening in wonder.
If we weren’t fighting for our lives in battle, it would be the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.