Chapter 55
DIEM
Aflick of Ophiucae’s wrist sent Luther, Taran, and Doriel slamming to their knees.
A second flick forced me to do the same.
“They only came because they believed I was in danger,” I said. “They see now that I’m perfectly safe. You can let them go. They won’t come back.”
Ophiucae lifted Sorrow’s Edge and pressed its blade to Luther’s cheek. “He will never stop coming back.”
Panic soared at the sight of godstone against Luther’s skin. “Let me talk to them. They’ll see I’m here by choice.”
“You had that chance when they arrived. Instead . . . you chose to leave.” His shimmering skin pulsed brighter. Though his voice rumbled with anger, I heard the hurt buried beneath. “Now you’ll make a different choice. One may stay here. The others will return to your army.”
“Thank you,” I breathed.
“Well, most of them will return.” He unleashed his cold, cruel smile. “Their heads will not.”
My heart stopped. “Ophiucae, please . . . Taran and Luther are family to me.”
“What does family matter to me? Family betrays you—or leaves you behind.” Again I heard that sharpened, polished pain, honed over centuries and brandished like a sword.
Another person lost to their hatred, convinced that the world would always fulfill their worst expectations.
How could I change him, when I’d just proven him right?
When I wasn’t even sure I believed it, either?
“Choose, daughter, or I will choose for you.”
Though Luther was trapped in Ophiucae’s hold, the pain echoing through our bond told me he heard what was happening, and his heart was breaking at the choice he knew I’d make. A life taken so his might be spared—a torture he’d been forced to witness twice before.
“If you do this,” I said, “you will lose me forever.”
Ophiucae’s eyes darkened. His face was inscrutable, his body still. “And if I spare them . . . will you join me?”
“If you spare them, then I . . . I’ll . . .”
How simple it seemed to say yes. Save my friends, end the war—and if Ophiucae didn’t have to die, then neither did I. It was the perfect solution. A solution I couldn’t afford to refuse.
So why was the Kindred’s vision of the graveyard replaying so vividly in my head?
“Spare them all,” I said. “Just like you promised. Every Descended, every mortal, every half-mortal—give them all a blank slate. A fresh start, so this world can move forward. And stop Vance and his men from killing them, too. If you do that, then . . .” I took a deep breath. “Yes. Then I will join you.”
The world shrank in the silence that followed. Something in my spirit was deeply unsettled at the offer I’d made, but it was drowned out by burgeoning hope. If I could convince Ophiucae to walk away from violence and choose love, I could change anyone. I could change the world.
He crouched in front of me. His skin blazed bright, surrounding us both in his glow.
It felt as if the moon herself had cast us in a silvery spotlight as she watched from her distant sea of stars.
Ophiucae stared at me, the lines on his face mapping the rivers of rage that surged within him, carving through canyons of suffering and seemingly endless plains of resentment.
The nature of his magic had made him a creature of conflict, and his life had been war after war. I wondered what kind of man he could be in peacetime, or if he would always seek a new enemy because it was all he’d ever known.
Frantic shouting arose from the city. “He’s helping them escape,” a voice bellowed behind me.
“Diem, run!” Henri yelled.
Their warnings went unheard by us both. Hesitantly, I lifted a hand and set it on Ophiucae’s chest, my palm against his heart. He gazed down at it, brows drawing low.
Choose me, I pleaded internally. Show me I’m more important to you than revenge.
Though the mob grew closer and louder, Ophiucae didn’t pull his eyes from where I touched him, and I didn’t pull my eyes from him.
Everything hung on this moment. This choice.
I held my breath.
He met my gaze.
His lips parted to speak.
And the point of an arrow came slicing through his neck.
We stilled in mirrored shock. Sorrow’s Edge slipped from his hand as night-black blood oozed from his wound. He reached up to touch it—and a second arrow speared into his shoulder.
The force of it knocked him forward, crashing against me. I yanked the arrow from his flesh, staring in horror at its crimson-smeared, glittering black tip.
“Leave it in him,” Teller yelled, running out from the shadows. He slid another arrow from his quiver and set it into the crossbow’s shaft.
I frantically shook my head. “Teller, no!”
Ophiucae let out a thunderous roar. He shoved me away and turned to my brother just as a third arrow sank into his ribs. Waves of wrath trembled through his aura, making the air itself seem to ignite. Whips of sizzling light thrashed around him, and lightning crackled in a web across the sky.
“You will pay for that,” he snarled.
Teller set his jaw and reached for another arrow.
I lunged to grab Ophiucae’s arm, only to slam against his shield. Luther, Taran, and Doriel were still locked in his compulsion. Even the mortals had skidded to a stop, frozen in terror at the explosion of magic.
Teller raised his crossbow, aligning the arrow’s point with Ophiucae’s chest.
“Stop!” I yelled.
“Stay the fuck away from my sister,” Teller said.
He let the arrow fly. It soared for its target, the godstone tip piercing Ophiucae’s shield and sinking deep into his shimmering skin.
Ophiucae smiled.
He strode toward Teller. I screamed, straining against the magical binds that kept me on my knees.
Henri ran past me in a blur. He flew up the steps and collided into Teller, yanking the crossbow from his hands. “Get Diem and run. I’ll cover y—”
Teller’s fist cracked against his jaw.
Henri’s head jolted sideways, and he careened to the ground. Ophiucae let out a rumbling laugh and slowed to a lazy, indulgent gait, as if to savor the moment, even as Teller snatched his bow back and took aim again.
Ophiucae spread his arms wide. “Go ahead, boy. Use them all.”
Teller fired another arrow, then another, then another.
With each one that hit its aim, a crease deepened between his brows.
“Come on,” he murmured, heel bouncing against the ground.
His hand reached for his quiver—and came back empty.
He swore and dropped the crossbow, then pulled a dagger from his hip, shifting one leg back into the fighting stance our father had taught us.
Henri wobbled to his feet. “Gods-damned Bellators,” he mumbled, rubbing his cheek. He stepped into Ophiucae’s path. “If you want to hurt him, you’ll have to go through m—”
Ophiucae twitched a finger, and Henri took flight. His body soared past Teller and slammed into a column on the library’s facade, then crumpled to the ground.
“Any more surprises?” Ophiucae asked.
Teller’s fingers tightened on his knife. “Just one.”
Somehow, I managed to push past Ophiucae’s magic to my feet, though every step felt like wading through tar.
Ophiucae stopped and raised a hand, his glowing skin darkening to a stormy grey. His fingers curled into a fist, and Teller’s body seized. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get your arrows back.” He ripped an arrow from his shoulder, then spun its point toward Teller. “Each and every one.”
I reached the wall of Ophiucae’s shield, hurling all my weight against it. The gleaming barrier wavered, but held. I beat my fists against it as I clawed for any shred of my godhood that might have slipped the flameroot’s cracks. Though the voice was silent, a flicker of something answered back.
A whisper.
A spark.
Suddenly, Luther appeared beside me. He rammed against the shield, and a crack appeared across its surface. Taran launched from the ground and did the same.
Ophiucae’s head snapped toward us. “How?” he snarled.
“Over here,” Henri shouted. He was moving slow and bleeding from several places, but he’d managed to crawl back to Teller’s fallen bow.
Luther laid another powerful blow against the shield. The fissure splintered farther. “One more,” he shouted at Taran. “Together!”
Ophiucae pinned Henri in place with his magic, then raised his other palm toward Luther, shadows swirling at his palm. “When you bury them, daughter, remember how they forced my hand.”
The darkness in his voice was the only answer I needed to know that any influence I might have had to change his mind was gone. All that was left for him now was another battle, another enemy, another war.
Luther and Taran hammered his shield with their bodies, and the glittering barrier gave way. The spark in my chest grew brighter and hotter. Heat warmed my blood despite the swirling vortex of icy shadows pushing me backward.
My foot came down on Sorrow’s Edge, forgotten in the melee. The distraction shook my hold on whatever had been building inside me, and it cost me precious seconds.
By the time Ophiucae’s magic unleashed, it was already too late.
The city submerged in vicious darkness. No campfires, no lanterns, no streetlights. No evening stars, no glowing Kindred. No light at all—except for a faint shimmer of gold, calling to me in the dark unknown.
Sharp prickles stung my skin, but the pain I felt wasn’t mine.
I shouted Luther’s name, and a quiet grunt answered.
I stumbled toward it, fumbling blindly. My fingers brushed skin—ice cold and slick with something that felt unnervingly like blood—and his hand closed around my wrist. He pulled me against him, and I laid against his chest, listening for his heart, hearing only the panicked double-drumbeat of mine.
“This can’t be,” a voice roared nearby. “How?”
The shadows abruptly thinned. The moon shimmered back into sight, along with two blue-grey eyes. Though Ophiucae’s magic had left me unharmed, thousands of tiny wounds covered Luther’s body and painted his skin in a scarlet sheen.
A string of the foulest obscenities I’d ever heard rang out beside us. Taran walked up, drenched in blood and scowling. “What in Sophos’s Blessed Dick was that?”