Chapter 82 #2
I weighed his threat. He was old—countless millennia old—but I had no way to know whether the Kindred’s age weakened their strength or enhanced it.
Ophiucae pulled us both to our feet. He gripped me against him as a shield as he backed away from Diem. “Use that magic one more time, daughter, and your mate dies.”
“Roast him,” I shouted to her.
But Diem’s hands lowered. Her Flames shrank back, then wisped to smoke, though her glare blazed. “If you hurt him . . .”
“I’d be doing him a favor. Tell me, does he know why he’s here? Did you tell him what you figured out before the battle?”
Diem’s eyes shifted to me as a sharp, painful ache filled our bond. “I don’t care,” I growled. “If it means he takes me with him when you destroy him, so be it. I’ll wait for you in the afterlife, my Queen.”
Ophiucae began to laugh, which only seemed to deepen Diem’s anguish. “Such devotion,” he mocked. “You really shouldn’t. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s a traitor, just like her mother.”
“She is like her mother,” I agreed. “A leader. A healer. The kind of woman that thousands line up to fight for. You’re just a small, pathetic man who had their love and wasn’t worthy enough to keep it.”
His grip tightened, choking off my words. “They’re liars. Their love is fickle and easily lost.”
Diem risked a step toward us. “What do you know of unconditional love?”
She lifted Sorrow’s Edge and drew its blade across her palm.
As the dark red liquid spilled across the gem at its center, a wave of energy rippled around us.
Across the Temple, two glimmering silhouettes took form—one kneeling, body shuddering with a ghostly wail, and the second standing just behind.
I felt Ophiucae go stiff. My fingers tightened on my sword, slowly angling it up. With him distracted, I might have the opening I needed . . .
“They loved their children enough to do the unthinkable,” Diem said. “And Luther loves me enough to—” She stopped, throat straining. “The only thing you love enough to sacrifice for is power.”
She took another step closer. Ophiucae yanked me back, teetering on the Temple’s steep edge.
Diem’s chin rose in defiance. “I will finish what they started. And if I’m half the woman Auralie Bellator is, then I’ll die proud.”
“Oh, you’re going to die,” Ophiucae snarled. “And so is he.”
I struck, slamming the Sword of Corbois into his thigh. The arm around my head jerked it to the side, but the other reached for his wound. Though it was just enough to spare my life, the movement sent me careening—right over the Temple’s side.
I hit the ground hard, and pain shot up my spine. Diem screamed my name. I tried to sit up and reassure her I was fine, but my body wouldn’t move.
I heard the sound of boots on stairs, then Diem’s voice again, nearer. Shriller. Saw the terror in her eyes. Felt her hands, trembling, cupping my face.
Ophiucae’s laughter rang out from the platform, loud and triumphant. Diem’s focus stayed on me, but mine shifted over her shoulder.
“Heartstone,” I managed to choke out.
She turned as a tower of light, as wide as the Temple, rose into the clouds. At its edges, the starry evening wobbled with slivers of color that looked vaguely like images—an impossible, flickering mix of sunny skies, thundering storms, and bloody sunsets.
With some effort, I lifted a hand to grasp her arm. “Kill him,” I rasped.
“I can’t—not without you.” There was a wild desperation in the way she looked at me, something deeper than a scared woman tending to her wounded mate. “Can you walk?”
I forced a nod, though I wasn’t yet sure if it was a lie. She took my arm and slung it over her shoulder. The numbness in my limbs gave way to tingling, and I managed to get my legs back under me as we lurched away from the Temple.
The beam of light yawned wider, and the sky quivered and bent around its form.
To the north, the light fell in an arc and spilled across the island.
Where it hit soil, a fracture formed and began to spread apart with a thunderous roar.
It, too, trembled with blurry, confusing flashes—icy tundras that melted into a blistering desert, swirling over a dark, cavernous abyss.
“What is he doing?” I shouted over the clamor.
Ophiucae stood at the center of the Temple, one blood-soaked hand clasped to the heartstone’s glowing, jagged edge. His skin was illuminated, blindingly bright, and his eyes, once the same steel-grey as hers, were black as darkest night—and staring right at Diem.
“We’re too late,” she breathed.
“You can stop him,” I told her.
She shook her head. “Do you see what that heartstone can do? How could I possibly fight something that strong?”
“Diem, how many years did the Descended keep the mortals from fighting back by convincing them they have no power? The Guardians never gave up. The only power they needed was hope.” I took her hand and held it up, forcing her to see her beautiful, powerful, perfect skin and the light within.
“And you, my heart, have a hell of a lot more than hope.”
Fear melted from her eyes.
Not like a shrinking puddle or a snowflake in the sun.
Like a pool of molten ore, red-hot and glowing.
Ready to be forged.
She raised one hand to the Temple . . . and she burned.
By the gods, it was stunning. After all this time, all these months, all the doubt and the worry, she let her glory shine in full. I felt the walls inside her crumble and a righteous certainty settled in its place.
She was striking.
Ethereal.
Breathlessly lovely, and knee-bendingly divine.
She was everything.
Everything.
Her Fire raged across the island, this time not to kill, but to save, to restore what was lost. Where its Flames met the heartstone’s ravaging touch, soil and sky began to heal.
“No!” Ophiucae shouted. He gripped his other hand to the heartstone, shoulders furiously drawing in. Its light swelled, pushing against Diem’s Fire and forcing it back. “You will bend to my command. You are nothing without me!”
Diem did not falter. With perfect calm, she held her ground, an inferno swirling around her. The Fire surged toward the Temple and thrashed at its edge, growing higher and hotter.
“I’ll wipe every trace of you from the continent,” Ophiucae roared, hunching over the heartstone. “When I’m done, the world won’t even remember your name.”
Crack.
“Some things are meant to be forgotten,” Diem said.
Crack.
Crack.
Glowing fissures splintered up the Temple’s columns as a web of silver formed over the godstone’s glittering black. Diem’s Fire overtook the cauldrons burning atop each archway, their colorful flames swirling into hers. The ground gave a violent tremble.
Beneath Ophiucae’s hands, the heartstone glowed brighter. “Kill her,” he growled.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
“But sometimes,” Diem went on, “what is Forgotten will rise again.”
She closed her fist, and the heartstone shattered. A mist of shimmering remnants floated around Ophiucae like stars, then vanished in the breeze.
“No!” he screamed.
Beneath my feet, a snapping sensation rippled through the soil, and the violent light tearing through the island went dark.
Huge chunks of godstone crumbled off the Temple archways and slammed into the dais, chipping away at its edges and sending pieces of the staircase crumbling to the ground.
The cauldrons, now dark, tumbled off their towers, and the earth shook with another deafening boom as the platform collapsed into a cloud of dust.
When the air cleared, all that was left of the Temple was a sad pile of ruins, with a grey-eyed, dull-skinned man cowering at its center.
I followed as Diem wove through the rubble and came to a stop in front of Ophiucae. The two ghostly silhouettes moved closer as well, hovering at her sides.
Ophiucae fell to his knees, quivering. “Mercy,” he begged. “Have mercy, my daughter, my blood. I’m your father. I—I love you.”
I wanted to snatch the sword from Diem’s hands and drive it through his chest myself.
But I waited. Watching her face. Wondering if he’d ever said those words to her before.
“You’re wrong,” she said quietly.
He frantically shook his head. “I do love you.” He bowed low in submission. “With all of my heart.”
“I believe you,” she said. “And I hope you believe me when I say I love you, too. That’s not why you’re wrong.” She knelt in front of him and curled a hand beneath his chin, lifting it so she could look him in the eye. “My father . . .”
Ophiucae gasped as Sorrow’s Edge pierced his heart.
“ . . . is Andrei Bellator.”
He blinked once.
Twice.
Sagged.
Then slumped, lifeless, to the ground.