Chapter 54 #2
Calla roared, exploding out from the pile of rocks, her bear form crashing into the Starved with enough force to send it staggering back. Her giant claws tore at its limbs, but it reared back.
Blake and Edith were still unconscious. Quinn was gone. Flame stood over Edith, Kingsolver with Blake.
Flame’s mental link pressed reassuringly. You can do this, Rubi. You have always had the power to do it. End it.
Determination locked the pain and grief away behind an impenetrable wall. I ran toward the Starved.
“Now! Together!” I called to Jace.
He looked at me, eyes blazing with the same determination.
And then I started to sing, my voice rising, carrying the weight of my power and my emotions. The Starved hesitated, drawn in by the compulsion of my song.
It hungered for me.
I could feel an ancient, insatiable void, a hunger that went deeper than flesh, deeper than soul. It wanted everything I was. But I could feel, too, some ancient power to match its hunger rising in me, in my voice.
It lunged at me, a blur of motion, but Jace threw himself in front of me.
No! I screamed, the note high and piercing, my voice raw with terror.
Before the creature could consume him, a wave of fire and water crashed into its decayed form. Auron’s inferno and Vidor’s raging tide collided in a violent explosion of steam, the cavern shuddering with the force of their combined elements.
The Starved reeled back. Then Flame and Kingsolver were there, knocking it over before it rose again, tossing them off.
No, you were supposed to protect Blake and Edith!
You are the woman of prophecy, Rubi! The one I was waiting for. You come first!
Malissa’s eyes were wide, her knuckles white around the hilts of her knives. Auron was helping Lian up. Calla, still in her bear form, loomed. Everyone froze, only for a moment, before the demon turned.
Its twisted body creaked unnaturally as it shifted, then locked tiny eyes with me. I felt its gaze pierce through me like rot soaking into bone. It didn’t blink.
Then its neck jerked toward Blake’s body like it had detected blood.
He lay still, helpless.
I started to run back toward Blake. I felt the air shudder as the demon lunged, claws flashing, maw yawning wide.
Rubi, don’t! Flame begged. Your life is precious.
I can’t live if I let him die.
No—
Flame tried to call for me, but I couldn’t allow it to take Blake.
Sprinting, I threw myself over him. The demon’s jagged fangs sank into me.
Pain. A white-hot searing agony that shot through my veins like liquid lightning. My body convulsed as something pulled at me, something deeper than flesh. It hurt so sharply I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even breathe.
I felt a sickening pull, as if my very essence were unraveling.
It was taking my soul.
My vision darkened at the edges, my heartbeat slowing under the unbearable drain.
Somewhere—far away, yet inside me—I heard a voice awaken.
“Rubi!” A desperate shout echoed through the cavern, Blake’s voice hoarse with panic. I barely grasped the words, but I knew he had woken up.
Was it because of our Pair bond? Were the final threads untethering?
“Yesss…” The Starved’s voice was a slithering, chittering nightmare, wrapping around my mind. It sounded like it was in ecstasy. “You are the Feast. The End of the Hunger.”
Then Calla was there. She roared and swung her war hammer. The impact struck the back of the demon’s skull, a crack splitting through the air as its grotesque form whipped forward, its maw twisting in a shriek of rage and shock.
It dropped me.
I hit the ground hard, gasping, the poison from its bite curling through my veins like a living thing.
The Starved reeled, its limbs spasming.
I gritted my teeth, fingers tightening around the thundervein ribbon wands, my magic thrumming at my fingertips.
I snapped my wrist, and the ribbons unraveled into a crackling whip of silk and steel as a note began to rise from my throat. It was high and pure, and the Starved seemed to shudder in response to its sound.
It lunged at me again, its jaws widening in an unhinged grin.
I struck, my song climbing higher, a melody swirling to life inside me even as the poison burned through my veins, slowing me.
The flaming thundervein whip lashed across its body, and it screamed.
The moment the crackling metal met its hide, it split the flesh apart, unlike the corroding arrows, unlike every other attack that had melted away into nothing.
My voice strengthened the weapon, and the wound stayed, deep and gaping, though writhing as if something inside it was trying to pull the pieces back together.
Blake staggered in front of me, armed with nothing but a dagger.
My song shifted to a scream: “Blake, no! You don’t have any magic or thundervein left. This is suicide!”
But he was already moving, slipping past the Starved’s claws. He wove through its attacks, slashing, dodging.
I won’t lose you. Please, Blake, stop— I tried to reach through our connection, but it was gone.
Then, with one devastating thrust, Blake drove the dagger deep into the demon’s chest just as I sang a single sharp note, my voice raw with desperation and grief and tears.
Somehow it penetrated.
The creature shrieked again. The moment the dagger pierced its chest, the Starved convulsed, its body twisting in agony as the blade drank deep.
A sickening, hollow wail escaped its mouth as its essence unraveled, siphoned into the hungry metal until nothing remained but a shriveled husk, crumbling to dust at Blake’s feet.
The Starved was dead.
My breath came fast, uneven. Then my gaze fell on the blade in Blake’s hand. Black as the abyss, gleaming with an unnatural sheen.
Shadowsteel.
Relief rushed through me even as my vision darkened.
Blake swayed on his feet, barely upright, his face pale with exhaustion, his body trembling, but he still managed to smirk at me. “I’m never unarmed, remember?”
I laughed, the sound weak, wet and full of tears.
The poison burned in my blood, curling through my veins like wildfire. I collapsed, unable to stand any longer.
Blake was there suddenly, hands on my face. “Rubi, stay with me—”
Voices.
Flame desperately licking at my hand. Get up, get up!
“Blake, I lov—”
“Don’t. You will be okay,” he commanded, violence and grief boiling in his tone.
“But nothing can heal a wound created by the Starved.”
The world went dark.