Chapter 47
Smoke trickled between tall pines, long fingers beckoning us forward.
Faster, they seemed to say. I dug my heels into my horse’s sides, angling him toward it.
This had to be the location Maelsar conveyed.
Behind me, Sylaira and Lyriasthe clicked their tongues, urging their horses faster up the hill.
The Hathi guards flanked both of them, an extra precaution with our proximity to the Demon Realm.
The forest parted, revealing a small clearing, large enough to hold a scouting party.
But only a few of the soldiers I’d sent ahead slumped against boulders.
I leaped down, scanning for Maelsar. For Oshenai.
“Issaraeth,” the chieftain called, ducking out from the mouth of a cave. “Please tell me you brought healing potions with you.”
“Why?”
He shifted his weight, glancing between the three of us. “I’m afraid Maelsar has been gravely injured.”
Lyriasthe cried out and raced forward, her mare forgotten. “Where is he?”
“Come,” Oshenai said, taking off at a jog. Sylaira yelled for our healer while I followed him inside the shelter.
And there, lying on a thin blanket, pack behind his head, was my best friend. Lyriasthe reached him first, a sob choking her throat. She brushed his sweat-soaked hair away from his forehead, lips trembling as she pressed them there. “Goddess, no, please no. Stay with me.”
Thalyon sat at Maelsar’s side, cheeks hollow and expression haunted.
“We believe a poison of some kind coated the arrow that impaled him,” Oshenai explained. “It is nothing we’ve ever seen before on the islands.”
Sylaira and the other healer raced up, panic in their expressions. Maelsar’s eyes roamed beneath his lids, like he was searching for something that was not there. A pained groan escaped him.
“I know this,” the mainland healer stated, crouching beside Lyriasthe. “I need some space.”
She shot him a glare sharper than the bolt that had hit her intended. He said nothing else as he pressed the back of his hand to Maelsar’s cheek, then leaned down and listened to the beat of his heart. “Has he vomited?”
“Several times,” Thalyon conveyed.
Sylaira came to my side, slipping her hand in mine. All I could do was stare, frozen, at my second-in-command. The paleness of his skin. How close death prowled beside my best friend.
“Right, I have what we need.” The healer rummaged through his bag, producing a vial of something thin and green. “Sit him up.”
Lyriasthe and Thalyon worked together to position him. I held my breath, offering a quick prayer to the Goddess to let him live. And a threat that if he perished, I’d come for Her.
The healer worked Maelsar’s mouth open, pouring the contents down his throat. He massaged the muscles there, helping him swallow. “This is an Angel-made poison. They must have figured out how to produce it themselves.”
As if we needed more obstacles against the Demons. “How many more vials of that do you have?” I asked him.
“This was my only bottle, but it’s enough. I almost didn’t bring it, but when I saw the wagon being loaded with the poison I thought it best to take precautions to protect our soldiers.”
And I was so fucking glad he’d had that foresight. Without it, I might have lost the male who was more like a brother to me.
The waxiness to Maelsar’s complexion ebbed. His breathing evened out. Lyriasthe continued to stroke his hair, whispering to him with his head cradled in her lap.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, only vaguely aware of Oshenai leaving to coordinate the group that had arrived with us. Sylaira guided me to sit against the cave’s wall. Eventually Thalyon got up too, leaving Maelsar in the mainland healer’s hands.
“He will be okay,” Sylaira whispered to me.
I tore my gaze away from Maelsar to find her eyes glassy and shining. “He will be,” I said, though whether for me or for her or for both of us, I wasn’t sure.
“Should this be taking so long?” I finally asked the healer.
“It is a bit longer than I would like,” he replied, wiping his palms on his pants. “But he shows no signs of deterioration. It may simply be a matter of time for his internal injuries to heal too.”
I nodded, sighing and letting my head rest against the rough cave wall. Two figures moved in my periphery, and hatred surged from my gut as Althirion and Nymirae drifted into view.
“Herra R?viel, it is time for your hour,” Althirion said, a challenge in his tone.
Sylaira scoffed. “Are you blind, errand bird? I know I can See the future, but if you cannot so much as glimpse the present,” she gestured to Maelsar’s unconscious form, “then I don’t know how long you’ll last on the front.”
Red rose to his cheeks. But it was nothing compared to how the blood magic thrummed inside me. My fingers twitched toward my weapon, itching to cut myself just enough to activate the vines that would dance in my vision, easy to reach out and rip away.
Rage whispered sweet promises in my ear, and I leaned into the temptation—even though I knew I shouldn't.
“I’ll accompany you.” I grabbed Sylaira and hauled her to her feet.
“What are you doing?” she shot into my mind as I stomped past our keepers.
“What I should have done months ago.”
She fell silent, but her sharp question pricked our bond. She shifted her shoulder, and I released her with a muttered apology. I was spiraling and I needed to slake my rage—but not on her. Never on her.
We found a copse of trees amid a cleft in the rocks, private enough that Sylaira would have no distractions.
Night claimed the sky, leaving only torchlight to guide our way.
Nymirae and Althirion planted the fire in the ground.
Because neither possessed the depth of power required to wield their light continuously for an hour.
And I wasn’t supposed to have mine in front of them.
“Play along and close your eyes,” I told Sylaira.
To my relief, she kept her expression neutral as she settled in her meditative posture.
Nymirae opened her bag of offerings, and Sylaira paused to consider what she wanted to channel her Sight.
With them distracted, I snatched the opportunity to pull my dagger free at my thigh, the sheath whisper-quiet.
I ran the pad of my middle finger along the edge of the blade, the sting of the slice minuscule in comparison to the tempest inside me.
That singular cut was all it took for Althirion and Nymirae’s blood to sing in my ears, their heartbeats to trip into my field of vision.
Sylaira’s was there too, heightened past what our bond offered me.
We do not harm her. We do not harm our mate.
Whether this magic had a mind of its own, I didn’t know. But I didn’t want to lose myself to its thrall. Not when I had to be so, so careful. If the keepers suspected anything, they’d convey it to Iaoth with their final breaths.
Sylaira and Lyriasthe had raised protests about killing Nymirae. But in this moment, I didn’t fucking care. This was the only way to ensure that she didn’t whisper about our plans. Goddess knew what I would do to protect my little fugitive.
So she had to die. And this Demon magic was the only way to keep Iaoth’s suspicions buried long enough to execute other pieces of our plans. Because she and Stadiel would attempt to regain a grip over the situation.
So when I crept closer, tracing the lines of ruby floating over their skin, I savored the knowledge that their deaths were mine.
I’d dreamed for so long about the moment these two would take their last breath.
About how exhilarating it would be to remove my sister’s final shackle.
I didn’t care that Nymirae’s mate was little more than a captive.
I didn’t care that she’d covered for me.
I didn’t care that she’d begged Sylaira for mercy.
No one hurt my mate and lived.
I settled beside Sylaira, stretching my legs out and hooking my hands behind my head like I was ready to relax. I even winked at Althirion, my closing taunt.
A vein pulsed in his forehead. Nymirae’s teeth sank into her lower lip, her heart crescendoing in my presence.
Good.
I inhaled, putting all my focus on the striations climbing both their necks. And then I yanked.
Twin sets of eyes rolled back, and their bodies thudded against the ground.
Sick satisfaction curled in me, the monster purring with delight.
I’d been born to break, and this new power was another way to do it.
The rage in my heart hadn’t lessened though—no, I wanted to taste more death on my tongue.
Sylaira blinked, her brow furrowing. “What…” She whirled on me, her hands flying to my cheeks. Incandescence unfurled from her, twirling in the air around us. “Tell me you didn’t–”
“What does it look like now?” I interrupted her. Because I knew the consequences of wielding the Demon power. And I didn’t care, not when Maelsar stood on the brink of his demise. Not when I needed to free us. Protect us.
“There’s a lot less blue,” she whispered. “See through me.”
I traversed our bond, entering her mind fully.
I blinked, adjusting to the new angle. It was unnerving, so different from looking in a mirror.
But she spoke true. Where my hair had been iron and darkening before, it was now the gray of dawn.
The scar that I’d gotten at the same time as this power sat above an iris the color of a thundercloud tinged violet.
The contrast to my other ice-blue one was sharp enough to notice in the light of my mate’s magic. Likely in the light of day now too.
“You could have killed them another way,” Sylaira admonished, frowning.
“They would have seen it coming,” I told her, pulling her onto my lap.
The cut on my finger closed over, and no more red lines wavered in my vision.
“And I will do anything to protect you, mate. The realm has thought me a monster for centuries. They’ll learn my cruelty knows no bounds the moment anyone tries to cage you again.
I’ll kill every last one who dares until I have a pile of corpses at my feet. ”