Chapter Fifteen #2
I cursed under my breath, heart hammering as I snapped my gaze toward the outpost, its gate still wide open.
My instincts screamed at me to stay, to help Calyx and Rathiel, to kill Ezrion and Miriel.
But I had to trust that Calyx and Rathiel knew what they were doing, that they would survive.
I had a job to do, and it was finding and killing the damn dragon before it killed us.
I broke into a mad sprint, shoving through my own ranks and into the enemy’s.
We’d discussed me flying into the outpost, but Rathiel had felt it best that I remained on the ground, where he could flank me with my army.
To him, the sky equalled target practice.
Down here, surrounded by my people, it would be harder for Lucifer’s hellspawn to reach me.
As proven now when a massive brimlord barreled toward me, one Gorr instantly took down.
He fell into step beside me, muscles rippling and horns dripping with blood.
His heavy paws struck the ground hard enough to kick up dust and ash, and his barbed tail lashed at anything that dared to stray too close.
Another hellspawn slid into step on my right. Calder, with his sword already in hand and a smile stretching wide across his face. “Going after the big prize without me, Princess? I’m insulted.”
“Just try to keep up,” I said, dodging a fallen hellspawn that hadn’t survived the first clash.
Varz emerged out of the chaos slightly ahead of us, his twin daggers clutched in his hands. He didn’t speak, but that didn’t stop me from smiling. It felt good to have my people back at my side. Like the good old days—except, we had a new addition, one that had my smile growing into a massive grin.
Steel flashed, and a heartbeat later, Eliza burst forward, her blades singing through the air as she carved down a demon twice her size.
She ended the move with a tight roll that took another out at the knees, then she caught up to my side, breathless but grinning, a streak of blood painted across her cheek like war paint.
“You didn’t think I’d miss the fun, did you?” she called over the clash.
“Never,” I called back.
“That was hot!” Calder shouted at Eliza.
She just rolled her eyes and continued killing.
Eliza fit in seamlessly, and as a unit, we didn’t slow.
We fought our way through the outpost’s ranks, the four of us fighting together.
We cut our way through until finally we burst through the front gate.
My hellspawn ranks surged through with me, tearing into the defenders wherever they bottlenecked and giving us our opening.
The scent of blood hit me, and instead of curdling my stomach, it steadied my pulse and sharpened my focus.
The dirt terrain morphed into uneven stone slabs as we crossed into the outpost itself.
“The cage is at the back,” I told the others, pointing to where I’d seen it when Calyx and I had scouted.
Varz nodded and altered his trajectory, while Calder ran his blade through another hellspawn and tossed the corpse aside. Eliza stayed close, cutting down anything that tried to flank us. Her movements were all precision—quick, brutal, economical. She didn’t waste a strike.
Above us came the sudden rush of displaced air as a shadow swept over the outpost. I glanced up in time to see Mephisar drop from the sky, wings stretched wide.
His serpentine body coiled midair before he snapped his head downward and opened his maw.
Fire poured from his mouth in a roaring torrent that engulfed the entire guard tower.
“Quite effective,” Calder shouted as he ducked past a burning support beam that crashed down beside him.
Varz shot past us and buried one of his daggers into the neck of a soldier that had the poor sense to rush us. He yanked it free without breaking stride and maintained his position next to me.
Eliza spun and caught another attacker mid-charge, slammed her blade through its chest, then kicked the body free.
Past a half-collapsed weapons cache sat the massive cage—bars as thick as my arm, etched in sigils I assumed were meant to hold the dragon and keep it from escaping. Except, where I expected to find molten eyes glaring at me, I found a completely empty cage, the door hanging wide open.
“Shit,” I hissed under my breath.
Eliza came up beside me, breathing hard, sword dripping black ichor. “Well, that’s not good.”
The dragon was gone. Out there. Somewhere.
I whirled back around and scanned the sky, my eyes cutting through the smoke, searching for any glint of scaled armour or a shadow of wings that didn’t belong to Mephisar.
Nothing.
The damn thing was nowhere to be found. And I had no way of knowing when they’d let it out or where it’d gone.
“Lily.” Varz’s voice snapped me back right as a small group of hellspawn rushed us.
Calder and Eliza took them out before they could even lay a finger on me.
My head spun as I tried to piece everything together.
We’d come expecting to find the dragon, and instead we’d found two of Lucifer’s loyal fallen angels, and no dragon.
Which meant they’d released the dragon, likely with the command to hunt us—or rather, me—down.
It was out there somewhere, but it wasn’t here.
And right now, that was all that mattered.
It also meant I had to change my strategy and focus on where we were most needed.
“Back to Rathiel and Calyx,” I ordered. “Now.”
No one hesitated. Gorr spun around and lunged at the nearest hellspawn, his jaws closing around one throat while his tail lashed another. Calder fell in beside me, cutting down anything that strayed too close for our comfort.
“Guess we’ll save the dragon hunt for later,” Calder said, his blade sliding free of a netheron’s ribs with a wet sound.
“Don’t sound so disappointed,” I said.
“Hey, it isn’t every day a guy gets to fight a dragon. Forgive me for being a little excited.”
Eliza snorted as she slashed through a hellspawn that tried to come up behind him. “It’s not as much fun once it starts breathing fire in your face,” she said.
Calder flashed her a grin. “I’m fast. I’d manage.”
“You’re cocky,” she shot back, driving her boot into another demon’s sternum and finishing it with a clean upward stroke. “That’s not the same thing.”
I chuckled even as we pushed back through the gate. The battlefield outside had devolved into full chaos. I skidded to a stop and stared at the unfolding scene. Ezrion and Miriel were still alive, but they weren’t looking their best. Neither were Calyx or Rathiel, for that matter.
Blood slicked the ground, saturating the dirt in dark puddles.
Rathiel stood in the middle of it, wings lifted high and the lines of his body as sharp as the blade he swung.
Every twitch of his hands pulled more blood into the air, streaming the liquid and shaping it into countless blades that surrounded him as he waited for his moment.
Except, every blood blade he flung at Ezrion sizzled out of existence the second it met his hellfire.
Ezrion flung flame after flame, the heat so fierce the air practically shimmered from it.
Rathiel did his best to avoid the blaze, but the tips of his wings were burnt, his armour blackened, his skin covered in soot.
Above, Calyx shot through the air, his wings cutting through the thick, smoky air.
Shadows took shape around him, but they were different than mine.
His were nightmares brought to life—likely plucked right from Miriel’s mind.
The shadow creatures circled her, their teeth bared and claws shimmering in the hellish light.
They surged toward her, surrounding her and attacking every opening they could find while Calyx dove with his sword in hand.
Miriel screamed as she batted at the specters, then shot out a hand and expelled a fog that I knew would be thick with pestilence.
A creeping, black-green slickness spread over the ground, eating anything it touched.
A few of my hellspawn went down screaming, skin splitting under the corruption’s touch.
“Fall back and hold the line!” Eliza shouted to the others before I could. Her voice cut through the roar of battle as she drew up beside me, her gaze tracking the fallen angel battle. “Shit. He’s getting roasted out there.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll help them. You help the others.”
She jerked a nod. “We’ll keep them off you.
” She didn’t wait for my reply, already turning to rally the others.
Calder fell in at her side, blade flashing.
Varz spun away into the melee, and Gorr’s bellow shook the ground as he tore through the ranks.
They carved a bloody path outward, buying me space, buying me time.
Rathiel lifted his hands, palms up, and summoned the pool of blood surrounding him.
Then he flung his hands outward, and I watched as a wave swept over the land and drowned the pestilence.
Another pull of his fist and more blood drained from the hellspawn that had just fallen.
He flicked a finger, and the crimson liquid coiled into a weapon longer than Rathiel was tall.
His gaze briefly darted to mine.
I didn’t hesitate. I just nodded—I already knew what he needed.
Rathiel shot the blood spear forward, aiming for Ezrion.
The bastard sidestepped, his mouth twisting into a smug grin, then flung another wall of hellfire between them. With a single thought, I snuffed out the flames. They popped and died right on the spot. And the spear…
Cut clean through Ezrion’s throat. His eyes widened, and he clawed at the weapon.
But before Ezrion could do anything, Rathiel yanked the spear out of his throat, reshaped it into a scythe, and cut clear through flesh and bone.
Ezrion’s head hit the dirt with a wet thud, rolling once before it stilled.
Miriel saw him fall.
The scream she unleashed was not of grief but rage. It was raw, throat-shredding, and the kind of scream that told me she would stop at nothing to slaughter us. She snapped her wings wide, and shot both hands toward me, pestilence bleeding off her skin in rolling clouds.
The sickness came for me, curling over the many corpses in its path. Where it touched flesh—dead or otherwise—the meat split open like overripe fruit.
Rathiel and I moved simultaneously. Him, armed with ropes of solidified blood that snaked around her wrists and snapped them together.
Me, with my shadows, which lashed around her wings, pinning them flat against her back.
Rathiel waved a hand around the puddle of blood still glistening at his feet, and shaped it into a crown of sharp spikes, jutting upward out of the ground.
Miriel’s eyes met mine, defiant even now.
Something cold and eager lit within me. Ending her wasn’t a duty—it was a pleasure.
I didn’t hesitate. I gave another sharp pull and my shadow tendrils obeyed, slamming her down right onto Rathiel’s bed of spikes.
The tips punched through her back and out her torso, piercing her heart.
That quickly, she was nothing more than another broken thing on the ground. Miriel gasped her last breath, then fell deathly still, blood trickling from her lips.
I called my shadows back and turned to face the rest of the outpost’s army as my people tore through them.
Lucifer’s soldiers fell apart the moment they noticed their leaders had died, their ranks collapsing.
My army surged forward, finishing what we started.
I didn’t join them, even though I wanted to.
The urge to keep killing burned within me until, finally, the last scream fell silent.
Then I turned back to Rathiel. “Two down.”
“One to go,” he finished.
Gavrel still lived, but not for long. My power ached to end him. He would die before I faced Lucifer. That much I could promise.