Prologue #2
He straightened for a moment, addressing Faldyr. “Get the Blood Saints to Hell and the Benevolent Saints to Heaven. I want everyone sheltering in their respective places until he’s dealt with. Fortify the barriers and do everything you can to keep him out. We’ll meet you there.”
“Yes, sir,” the Saint of War answered, and one by one, the Saints filed through the door, each of them dropping their heads as they passed by the Keepers and their daughter. Noros remained, his eyes on the floor.
Katia slowly lowered herself to sit on the dusty bed, staring one last time into her daughter’s face.
Rhedros found his place beside her, his vision going cloudy as tears continued to gather in his eyes.
“She really is perfect,” he breathed. And for a moment, he wasn’t the Keeper of the Blood Saints.
He was a father, sitting beside the woman he loved, staring into the face of the life they created together.
A life that never should’ve been but somehow was.
He leaned forward and pressed a single kiss to the baby’s forehead, inhaling her scent as Katia sobbed beside him.
Without looking away, he choked out a plea. “Please, Noros.”
“On my honor,” he answered, stepping forward, arms open.
Katia wasn’t breathing as she placed her entire world into Noros’ arms. Her fingers curled around the emptiness as Noros stepped back. Rhedros rose to his full height, and stared steadfastly down his nose at the man before him.
“Noros, Saint of Pain,” he began, his voice taking on an authoritative timbre. “You are hereby cursed to the Human Realm, never to return to the Saints’ Realm for the rest of your days.”
And so Katia and Rhedros did the one thing that could keep their daughter safe.
They let her go.
Noros and the baby were there one moment and gone the next.
Katia’s cry cut through the air, a mournful, howling sound that echoed over the din of Malosym’s fury beyond the walls.
She hit her knees, the heel of her hand pressed hard into her chest as she roared along with her drivas.
She had no doubt they felt her pain, because their roars grew from thunderous to ground-shattering, the streams of their fire from blistering to incinerating.
“Darling, we have to go,” Rhedros managed to say, reaching for Katia’s shoulders.
With eyes that were reddened and hauntingly empty, she stared at Rhedros. “I can’t move,” she whispered as a group of stones crumbled from the wall near the window. He dove to cover her, gathering her close as dust settled over them. “It hurts.”
“I know,” he whispered, his tears spilling freely now. “I know. I can carry you, I can– ”
“No. Here,” she croaked, her hand landing in the middle of her chest again. “It hurts here. There’s a hole and I…” Her head shook. “I can’t move.”
His jaw tensed, unable to conjure up a single word to soothe any of the same pain that bloomed within his ribcage.
And instead of fighting her, he nodded. Because there would be no arguing with the obstinate, headstrong, perfectly stubborn woman whose soul was tied to his.
He simply gathered her to his chest and laid her on the bed, rounding the side to settle into his spot beside hers.
Katia remained still as she felt the line to her kelpies weaken and wither in her mind, her tears as salty as the sea they returned to.
She remained still as the line to her soulhags turned to dust, and the earth rumbled with the sound of great crevasses snapping shut behind them.
She remained still even as the realm fell to darkness lit only by the fire of her winged beasts.
It wasn’t long before the strongest members of the Occulti found a way around the drivas and pushed through a weakened spot in the exterior wall.
And though they were in their true form, all jagged, snapping teeth, translucent skin, and fingernails sharpened to lethal points, fear had left both Katia and Rhedros.
No, there was no more room for fear, even as the demons surrounded them, hissing and screeching.
The only thing within their chests was a raw, gaping wound they knew would never close.
Malosym strolled through the doorway at a leisurely pace, his mouth pulled up in a smirk.
Blue light crackled and sparked around his shadowy form as he beheld the Keepers of the Saints.
There was no wickedly terrifying display of power, no column of black smoke.
He didn’t need that. He’d shown just how powerful he’d become when he broke through from the Darkness Beyond to the Saints’ Realm.
“She’s gone,” Rhedros snarled, pulling Katia closer.
Malosym’s head cocked to one side, his eyes narrowing antagonistically. “Oh, I know where she is. ”
Katia’s eyes flew wide, but Rhedros held her tighter still. Malosym was an instigator at his core, willing to say anything to elicit a reaction, to elicit pain he could use to bolster himself. Rhedros knew this well.
“So go ahead, then,” Rhedros answered. He laid a soft kiss against Katia’s hair, but his eyes remained hard on Malosym. “Kill us. End it. You claim we are different from the Forgotten Saints. You claim you can kill us, so show us you can.”
A throaty bellow of a laugh erupted from Malosym’s chest. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Rhedros tensed just enough to cause Katia to do the same. “So what, then? Torture?” He kept his voice even, just as he had learned to do as Keeper of the Blood Saints. But dread was creeping in.
“Yes, torture,” Malosym answered, his tone far too casual. “Though, not in the way you think.” Before Rhedros could respond, Malosym raised his hand and waved. “Seize them.”
Rhedros threw his body over Katia, but it was useless. In a single breath, a dozen Occulti had them restrained.
Katia cried out in pain, no doubt feeling the effects of what she’d endured just minutes before the walls had begun to crumble, but her eyes were no longer vacant. No, she was searching for something, something deep inside, something–
A horrible, bone-shaking screech sounded over the city.
It was a synchronized flexing of vocal cords deep within five scaled, sinewed throats.
It was a cry that signaled danger. A cry that signaled the five beasts of legend had put forth all the effort they could, that even though they were pure power incarnate, they were not powerful enough.
It was a cry Katia had only ever heard practiced in the training arena, reserved solely for the most dire of circumstances.
It was a cry that signaled the end.
They weren’t strong enough. She wasn’t strong enough. Not strong enough to save her realm. Not strong enough to save herself .
But strong enough to save her daughter.
There was no use letting them fight until the end.
The end was here. She went to that place in her mind, that desperate, lonely place where she found the line connecting her to the drivas, and she let it go.
Their calls turned mournful, and the sounds faded as the beasts flew back to the eyrie.
Katia felt them go, just as she felt the kelpies return to the waves and the soulhags to the earth.
“Lock them up on opposite ends of the Darkness Beyond,” Malosym ordered flippantly, heading back for the door.
“ No! ” Rhedros bellowed, thrashing against the Occulti members that restrained him in a desperate attempt to get to Katia.
“You’re right,” Malosym said, turning on his heel to stare at Rhedros. “Lock them up together. I’ll delight in knowing you’ll witness each others’ suffering.”
“You won’t find her,” Katia ground out between gritted teeth. The fury of Hell burned in her eyes as she glared at Malosym. “She’s gone, and you won’t find her.”
“Noros took her, didn’t he?” he asked. It was as if all the air had been sucked from the room. At the shock on Katia’s face, Malosym clicked his tongue. “Noros did take her. I was right.”
Katia’s lips parted in shock. “How did you–”
“Are you forgetting who made you?” Shock left Katia’s face, her brows furrowing as she stared at Malosym.
“You Saints of the New World are all a bit predictable, you especially,” he continued with a bored sigh, ignoring Katia’s words.
“Of course Noros would volunteer to save her. Love and guilt are a potent mixture, aren’t they?
” His eyes hardened on Rhedros. “And I’m sure you were all too eager to curse him after what he did. You did curse him, right?”
Rhedros was silent except for the sound of his molars grinding between his jaws.
“I’m not sure why I’m asking you. I know you cursed him. Like I said, you’re all very predictable. Made my task easier. ”
Rhedros’ breathing stopped altogether. “What did you do?”
“I placed a curse of my own,” Malosym answered with a smirk. Rhedros’ eyes flew wide.
The blood drained from Katia’s face, but a low growl rumbled in her chest. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”
Malosym tutted. “But you didn’t. Mercy and fury. Another potent mixture.” He nodded to the Occulti restraining the Keepers. “Take them away.”
“This isn’t the end, Malosym,” Katia called. “This will end with you reduced to ash.”
“That might be the case,” he answered over his shoulder. “But everything you love will be reduced to ash along with me. Including your daughter.”