Chapter 26
Desperation tasted sharp and tangy on my tongue.
I shouldn’t have been able to scent the villagers like this, and yet they reeked of it.
And they wouldn’t stop coming. No matter how many Maelsar and I cut down, their belief that my mate would save them outweighed all logic.
Frenzied were their cries. Wretched were their grabs.
A male lunged, and Maelsar speared him through the gut. Ruby spilled from his belly, and he clattered against the stairboards, devoid of life. Yet no one seemed to care. They merely trampled him as they ascended, some slipping from the slick his death left behind.
More windows shattered below. Through the horde, I glimpsed a believer pointing to the sky. Toward my mate.
Did Lyriasthe’s Illusion fail?
Sylaira’s terror slammed into me. No barriers remained between us in this frantic moment. Her blood screamed through her veins. I felt her heartbeat like it was my own. Both were wild yet mismatched, thundering out of sync.
A jolt of fear flashed through me. This wasn’t the first time I’d sensed this otherness lurking beneath my skin.
Two females lunged for me, hands outstretched. I swung the tip of my blade toward them, but my reaction was too slow. Together, they yanked me off balance, nails raking across my skin and painting lines of crimson.
The scent of copper consumed my nostrils. I roared, surging to my feet. But their claws were deep in me. With a harsh whip of my arm, I flung them off. They crashed into the door of Maelsar’s room, spines snapping. The movement of their blood ceased. But I didn’t have time to spare them.
Whirling, I faced the battle again. And all I could see was red. Each face was a tangle of scarlet vines. Each arm wrapped in garnet branches.
What the fuck?
Maelsar backstepped, stabbing his sword down the stairs as a group surged up. Someone slipped under his guard, tackling him. His skull cracked against the floorboards, darkening his gray hair with ruby.
Snapping a hand out, he blasted them back with a wall of white. Legs fractured, and I raced forward, gripping his arm and hauling him the remaining distance to the top floor.
“Are you okay?” I yelled over the yowls of those below.
“I’ve had worse,” he gritted out, touching the wound on the back of his head. His fingers came away soaked in blood.
The full reality of my powerlessness slammed into me. I couldn’t protect Maelsar, I couldn’t protect my mate, I couldn’t protect myself. One word with my Command and we would have all been free.
Acidic loathing surged in me, imbuing my muscles with newfound strength. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Fight them off for me while I engage my Mirror,” he said, sheathing his sword.
“Are you sure?” I asked him, gesturing to the wound on his head.
“I’ll be fine. Now help me so I can fuck the love of my life tonight.”
I snorted, flipping the pommel in my hand. Sinking into a fighting stance, I prepared to face off with the townspeople again.
“On three,” Maelsar said, rolling his shoulders.
I nodded.
“One.”
The luminosity holding them at bay flickered.
“Two.”
A hand shot through, frenzied and clawing.
“Three.”
People rushed us, screaming for me, for Sylaira. For the Goddess to save them.
And Maelsar fell before he could distort their thoughts. Air punched from my lungs as I slammed into the hard floor. There were too many of them for us to fight off, and we were trapped.
Always trapped.
Always caged.
Always someone else’s pet.
Darkness clouded my vision as rage rose to a crescendo. With a ferocious cry, I shoved upright, knocking the sycophants off of me. Bolts of red flashed through my vision. I snatched them and ripped.
Strangled gasps filled the air. The townspeople clutched their throats, coughing up blood. The first fell to her knees, life snuffing out in her eyes. Then a second. Third. Fourth.
The bodies piled up, choking off access on the stairs. But it wasn’t like we needed the barrier any longer.
An eerie silence crept over the walls. The unnatural stillness set my teeth on edge.
Maelsar scrambled out from under the dead, aquamarine eyes wider than I’d ever seen them. His chest heaved as he scanned the halls and the stairs, taking in all the unmoving bodies.
And then, his regard settled over me, a wariness in his expression I’d never seen directed my way. “Vaeron, your hair…”
My hands shook as I lifted my blade, using the cleanest part to peer at my reflection. The sword plunked against a female’s body, her apron dusted with flour.
A sharp inhale shattered the silence. “I…”
I didn’t have words. I didn’t know what the fuck happened. Or why my hair was a darker shade of gray than before.
Except I did. Those twining strands of red that looked like veins.
That were veins.
“Goddess above,” I swore, falling to my knees and taking in the sea of dead. The farmers. The bakers. The smiths. The sycophantic believers.
The world around me spun as discordant threads wove together in my mind.
Other than turning my hair an iron gray, I’d thought—my father had thought after some time had passed—that the blood I’d swallowed from that Demon had done nothing to me.
I was wrong. So fucking wrong.
With bronze locking me out of my Angelic power…the drops of darkness had room to grow.
That’s why I heard rushing blood and pounding hearts all these weeks. That’s why it’s been getting worse.
And now everyone would know. There was no hiding the evidence, not when my persona was so well-known, not when I’d spent countless hours speaking with the battalion and building their loyalty to me.
An acute ache stabbed into my gut. If I couldn’t keep them on my side, there would be no chance of installing myself as ruler of the realm and saving everyone from the tyranny of my sister and her husband.
“What the fuck happened to your arm?” Maelsar asked, tearing me from my spiraling thoughts.
I glanced down, finding deep gashes carved into my forearm. “Fuck.” I was out of healing potions too, and this certainly needed to be stitched closed.
Thrumming threads had emerged in my vision after the wound had opened up…
“Vaeron? You look like you’re going to be sick,” Maelsar said, crouching in front of me. “We need to go. Now. We can’t stay here in case more come.”
I nodded, still reeling, and forced myself to my feet. Wiped my blade on a tunic and sheathed it. Picked my way over lifeless forms and to a window.
Maelsar hooked his arms under mine and lifted me into the sky. But I felt nothing.
Even the kiss of air on my flesh couldn’t shake me out of the shock.
Because, after all this time…
Demon magic prowled in my well too.