CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Beck nodded, his eyes slipping to the corner of the room. “She didn’t have to. And I wish she hadn’t.”
My jaw clenched against his chest and my legs itched to carry me home. But only music waited there. Tonight, music wasn’t enough to scrub away the crimson stain.
I smack the ground and that damned carpet gilds my vision in garish gold.
Spurs swipe at my face, their matte surface devouring every kernel of light that strikes them.
I slam my dagger into the center of the da’kai’s hand and barely dodge the other as it drives into the stone beside my head.
A sharp tug frees my dagger, and I ram it beneath the beast’s chin.
I shove the body off and scramble to my feet.
I catch the barest flash of Bellan’s blue robe through the tangle of bodies and limbs before Laney’s cry snags my attention.
My stomach plummets at the red that drips from four tears in the delicate membrane of her ivory wing.
She jabs her blade through an eye in repayment.
Griffon’s power explodes out of him in a web of black whips that slam into the mass of bodies surrounding us.
He hits a knee beside two corpses already piled at his feet and drives his outstretched fists together.
The whips yank the bodies in his grasp into a wall of basalt that blocks the bulk of the mob.
I drive my dagger into a chest and flood it with fire as Laney dispatches another that had escaped Griffon’s wrath.
Griffon’s eyes lock with mine, his face twisted into a mask of concentration. “Go!” he roars. “Burn those ships!” Two more whips lash across the room and carve a narrow channel through the bodies.
I flood the space with fire and mold it into a corridor of flames. Laney hovers at the fringe of Griffon’s wall, jabbing her sword into everything she can reach. Black blood sprays as the da’kai barricaded behind it carve through their brethren to reach us.
“Go!” Griffon bellows again.
“Come with me!”
“Can’t…hold them,” he groans, as the first of the monsters tears through his line.
I open my palms and engulf the temple of the gods in a hellfire only Arawn would delight in.
My magic drains from me in an intoxicating flood and I stoke the inferno, pushing it hotter, hotter, hotter.
The beasts’ stony skin glows red. But they do not fall.
A scream tears up my throat, half terror and half rage at my inability to coax such a wide swath of flame hot enough to burn through their obsidian-hewn hides.
I back toward the corridor behind me, my eyes plastered on Griffon and Laney.
They fight back-to-back as the nightmares fully break through Griffon’s defenses.
Griffon’s smoke garrots a da’kai’s neck and slams it down onto his waiting blades, a spray of ichor hissing on my flames as he drags them both across its throat. His wild eyes find mine. “Save it for the ships!” he calls.
I strain to stoke the flames hotter. Another swipe of his sword sends a head rolling, his smoke twisting and breaking an arm that swipes for Laney’s head.
“Go! Now!”
She spills a da’kai’s guts onto the blood-soaked carpet as it lunges for his unguarded side. Each of their steps squelch on the carpet, black bubbles foaming around the soles of their boots.
My eyes stay locked on them for another second. Two. I tear them away and run.
I pour myself into that inferno as I sprint for the edge of the cliff, every step away from them magnifying the drain on my power. I leap off the edge and release the flow of magic. A strangled cry rips up my throat as gravity tears me away from them.
With every desperate stroke of my wings, the deep bellows from the temple morph into high-pitched shrieks from below. My stomach twists at the couple dozen ships docked around the city, their bulk illuminated in shafts of pure moonlight that stream through wide breaks in the clouds.
Da’kai stream off the ships and tear through the districts on their way to Council, where the legion is still grounded.
“Why aren’t you flying?” I hiss. I tuck my wings and dive for the city, my arms wobbling at my sides as I struggle to control my wild descent. The phoenix charm slapping against my wrist in the wind is an incessant reminder of what I left behind in that temple.
In the pure light of Arawn’s beaming moon, I finally see the net.
It is tethered midway up the buildings that line the square, high enough that the gargoyles can’t reach it, but low enough to keep them from rising above the sea of black that blots out the courtyard and streets leading to it.
Any who surge from the tide are shot down, the sharp twang of bows slicing through the chaos.
I fling out my wings and level out. I am the arrow they don’t see coming.
I bathe the rooftops surrounding the courtyard in fire.
The answering screams mingle with the cries of my people as they fight to fend off a horde of hundreds of da’kai.
Holes pepper the net, the arrow-filled corpses of those who had risen up to make them lying beneath.
My next wave of fire burns the hideous thing to ash.
I shoot past the city and bank in a wide arc once I’m beyond the ships.
The ones in Docks are still sitting low in the water, a constant stream of da’kai pushing and shoving their way across the narrow wharfs and single bridge that leads to Council.
I angle toward them, Crafts dark below me as I spear past it.
An arrow slams into my left shoulder and the impact throws me to the side.
The air beneath my wings vanishes. They fold.
Ironweb snuffs my magic a heartbeat later.
I plummet into an alley behind a row of shops that line the elevated ridge at the harbor’s edge.
The arrow snaps off as I strike the ground and my scream shatters the night.
I snap my jaw shut to keep my next scream caged in my throat, my teeth aching under the pressure, and roll to my knees. The arrowhead jostles somewhere deep in my shoulder and I can’t swallow my cry. I snatch up the broken end of the arrow and dart between two of the buildings.
Booted feet strike the ground in the alley. I edge around the building and stagger along its front, my watering eyes drawn to the river of da’kai that still stream past below. I fold myself into a patch of shadow behind a garbage bin once I’m on the other side of the building.
I rip the fire pin and a clump of my hair out and curse my shaking fingers as I scrabble for the annuleaf at its core. I shove a piece in my mouth and fumble the pin back together and into my hair just as the silhouette of a female gobbles up the light at the other end of the narrow passageway.
“Hiding with the trash, hmm? Fitting.”
I swallow the annuleaf and rise from my pathetic hiding place to face her. “That feeble insult made it closer to my heart than your shitty aim managed to get this arrow.” I waggle the broken shaft at her. “Illusion bitch?” I grind out as I unbuckle my shoulder strap, the motion agony.
A bow is slung over a cascade of brilliant red hair to lay across the female’s back as she saunters toward me.
She inclines a perfect head, plump lips pulling back over gleaming white teeth.
This female was sculpted from the same piece of flawless stone that Griffon had come from.
I grind my teeth harder as she sketches a bow.
“The one and only.” Even her voice is musical.
“Thank the gods for that.” I suck in a tight breath and lock my jaw as I slide the splintered end of the arrow into the hole in my shoulder. It rakes over my flesh, but I dismiss the pain. A tickle, compared to what comes next.
Before I can reconsider, I slam my palm against the red-fletched end. The tip of the arrowhead lurches and just pierces the skin on my back. I try to laugh to deny her the satisfaction of screaming, but it comes out a broken, mangled thing. My smile feels just as ragged on my face.
One of her perfectly arched brows cocks.
I ram my palm into the shaft again, and the head bursts out of my back.
I can’t even begin to contain the scream that tears up my throat.
My chest heaves as I reach back and pluck the rest of it out of my shoulder.
I toss both ends at her feet and rebuckle my armor.
She snorts and glances at the broken arrow. Her eyes flick up to me, a cruel smile spreading over her blood-red lips. She reaches for her bow. “I’ll aim ‘less shitty’ this time.”
“If you can catch me.” I dart back around the corner and sprint along the walkway lining the shops, my magic shoving against the ironweb but still shackled. That musical laugh grates on my ears as I run.
She plummets to the ground in front of me, her eyes dancing with glee. “You cannot hide.”
I dart between two more buildings and haul ass toward the alley.
Indra swoops over my head and blocks the narrow passage. I slide to a halt and glance between her and the exit behind me. I’ll never make it back. My fingers tingle at my sides. Stall her stall her stall her!
“How are you controlling the da’kai?” I blurt.
Her delicate nose scrunches. “I have no interest in controlling those disgusting beasts,” she says as she drags the bow over her head.
How many people were involved with this damned plan? “Then who does?”
She snorts. “Like I’d tell you.”
“Then at least tell me why you’re doing all this? I still don’t understand. If you’re so sick of babysitting humanity, why not dump all those da’kai you rounded up into the middle of the Hasting and fuck off?” I spread my arms wide. “I have nowhere to go. Who am I going to tell?”
Her eyes narrow. “Then why ask?”
“Call it morbid curiosity.”
This female’s arrogance and need to brag wins out. “That is exactly what we intend to do with the da’kai. Eventually. But they have a whole lot of vermin to extinguish first.”
My blood runs cold. “You’re going to kill all the humans, too.”