Chapter 52 #2
I’d believed Malosym. I was a stupid, foolish fucking idiot who thought he’d come alone.
When had he ever been honest? When had he ever told the truth?
Still, I believed him, and here I was with no weapons but what I could conjure myself, no army, nor aid.
And Araqina and the entirety of the world was going to fall because of it.
Had Adorex gone back to Araqina? I’d asked her to stay close, but the silence on the other end of our connection was deafening. Was she… Could she be…
Nope. Not considering it.
My mind landed on the soulhags, summoning them forward, pulling their essence to me the way I did the drivas’.
Crack open the earth. Crawl forth and tear the Occulti apart limb from limb .
But there was nothing. The sand didn’t shift.
No crevasse ripped across the shore. The only sound coming from the ground was the rumble of the incoming Occulti.
I reached for the kelpies next, but I was met with more of the same. Silence. The sea was no rougher and waves no larger than when I arrived. That unyielding fog didn’t stir. The kelpies remained wherever they dwelled in the deep .
No one was coming. I was on my own here, just as I’d agreed to be when I answered Malosym’s summons.
I was going to find him and kill him. And if I didn’t find him, if his Occulti fuckers managed to capture me, I’d kill him then. He was going to die.
The clouds churned above me as I tunneled into myself. The wind whipped over the beach, the wild, untamed trees that bordered the sand swaying and rustling.
We’d slain a dozen Occulti at the ball in Araqina.
They were in their true form then, and it had been a bloodbath.
This was the first time I’d taken on such a large number in their true form, and I was all alone.
I could feel the dark surge of their essence from here, power that reverberated through the ground with an earth-shaking rumble that traveled through my feet, into my ankles and knees.
“Come and get me, motherfuckers,” I growled under my breath, taking a step in their direction.
Petra. Here.
Adorex’s presence slammed into my mind, and I whirled, scanning the horizon for any sign of her. “Where are you?” I screamed out loud, knowing it would also filter down the line to her. “Adorex!”
And there she was, silhouetted against angry clouds. Menacing and fearsome and beautiful . Even all the way up there, I could see her slitted blue eyes focused on me. I waved my arms anyway, a hysterical laugh bubbling up at the sight of her.
Where had she been? Had she stayed close after all?
Adorex tucked those massive, leathery wings and dove straight for the ground, nose pointed and thick, scaled neck elongated.
I threw my arm over my face at the sand that flew up when her wings flared and she landed, a horrible, thunderous roar ripping from her throat in the direction of the oncoming Occulti.
Help. Come. Petra. On .
No need to tell me twice. I clambered onto her back, and before I’d even found my seat, the ground was twenty feet below us, then fifty, then a hundred.
I didn’t bother to fasten the strap over my legs.
I stared out over the horde as they rushed down the shoreline, my eyes scanning for any sign of Malosym.
The dense fog hanging over the ocean had suddenly shifted, rolling slowly onto shore.
My eyes caught on the object the same time Adorex’s did — at the edge of the fog, just visible in the haze, was some kind of…
wooden cart? A large wooden cart. It was pulled by six horses, each mounted by a single Occulti.
Adorex descended just far enough that we could see what it was they were hauling.
Something atop it was pivoting in place as we soared by. It was…
No.
Adorex’s jaw dropped open and fire streamed from her throat, colliding with the massive crossbow aimed directly for her.
The wood sparked and lit immediately like nothing more than dry kindling, a cloud of flame and smoke billowing into the sky as the Occulti around it scrambled away from the explosion.
My lungs pumped wildly as I stared at the pillar of smoke. “Holy shit! You okay?”
Adorex huffed in response. Adorex. Okay.
With a raging heartbeat, my eyes scanned the horde below us as the demons furthest from shore began disappearing into the treeline.
The fog obscured my view and I couldn’t tell how many were still to come.
But their noise was deafening, and I didn’t need to see to know our outlook was bleak.
There was no sign of Malosym’s light, no columns of smoke besides what floated from the smoldering crossbow. He was nowhere to be found.
Fucking coward. Couldn’t show his face? Had to send his minions out to do his dirty work? He always was good at that, wasn’t he ?
A high-pitched screech left Adorex’s mouth and we dropped ten feet just as something rushed past my head. I spun in my seat, watching as a spear the size of a small tree arced through the air and plunged toward the ground.
Through the fog, another cart emerged, another crossbow atop it.
Fuck.
Adorex’s movements grew more erratic as she tried to avoid the aim of the crossbow, my stomach plummeting then lurching only to plummet again. She banked hard to the left then to the right, dancing through the sky as she tried to shake the target from her back.
“You didn’t go back to Araqina, did you?” I yelled to her, my eyes scanning the mass.
Adorex. Stay.
I didn’t want to think about what the city looked like at this moment, because I knew if I let my mind go there, I’d hear the screams, smell the smoke, see the panic-stricken faces crowding the streets.
How many had died already? How many were wounded who would be forced to face the pain without my help to heal them?
“I was so scared when you didn’t answer.” My fingers flexed against the scales beside her spike. “I thought maybe–”
Pain erupted in my head as it slammed into Adorex, thrown forward by a force so sudden and great, I knew it hadn’t been an evasive maneuver.
The sound that left Adorex’s throat tore through me, my chest seizing as her head reared back and her jaws snapped wildly at the air.
Her wings flapped furiously as she tried to right herself, another pained screech echoing over the shore.
“Adorex!” I screamed. We were losing altitude, plunging through the air in a free fall. No! Her back straightened until she was nearly vertical, her wings fighting to keep us airborne.
Adorex. Hurt .
“It’s okay!” I shouted to her, tears blurring my vision. “It’ll be okay!”
She jolted again, and this time I saw it happen — a spear tore clear through her right wing, leaving behind a gaping hole twice as wide as I was tall. I clung to her with everything I had as her body tilted, quickly spinning out of control, air whirring through the hole in her wing.
I squeezed my eyes shut, the force of the spin ripping me from my seat and throwing me from her back. “No!” I roared, and I had no control as my body was pitched one way and Adorex’s went the other.
And as I hurtled toward the earth, I caught sight of the empty stirrup of a crossbow, tucked into the foliage bordering the sand.
I frantically summoned the wind in an attempt to break both of our falls. As soon as I was close enough to the ground, both hands shot in her direction, but it was useless.
Adorex hit the dirt.