38. Vera
Vera
“You took everything from me!” I cried, tugging Mortep closer. Fire trailed down my arms to the fingers that clutched him tight. They licked his flesh, just as hungry for blood as I was.
I was so close. Every heartbeat screamed to end him. Every breath could taste his death. Fire burned beneath my ribs, and more shadows coiled around my wrists. My magic remembered. All the experiments, all the needles, all the terrible things he and Scarven made me do.
I dreamed of this moment. Of how his blood would look when it slicked off my blade, how his flesh would char beneath my flames, how he would beg for mercy—mercy I had begged for. Mercy I had always been denied.
I shifted my hands into talons and pierced his skin. Red blotches appeared on his pale face as he struggled to draw breath. “Are you going to kill me, little bird?” he rasped, a manic smile on his face.
“Worse,” I snarled. “I’m going to make you fear me.” I squeezed, sending my flames over his body in a slow, torturous dance. “And then I’ll kill you, like I killed your master.”
I watched as his face turned purple. Blood leaked from beneath my talons the tighter I squeezed, the way his needles used to prick my skin. Flames consumed him from the neck down. His body began to shake in my grip as smoke rose from his flesh.
His cracked lips split open in a twisted, strangled laugh. “Death…” he choked out, “is only the beginning.”
My eyes narrowed, but Everett’s frantic voice cut through the pounding of my heart. “Vera!”
I blinked, dragging my eyes from Mortep’s face. I found Everett in the quicksand, eyes wide in desperation, buried to the waist in sand.
Something flickered in the back of my mind. You love him.
My gaze snapped back to Mortep. I was so close. If I stopped now, he could heal himself.
You love him, and he’s dying.
But I needed this. I needed to kill Mortep.
You need Swift.
Slowly, I turned to face Everett again, watching his hand twitch above the ground as the sand covered his nose. I could still hear his heartbeat, erratic and uncontrolled beneath the earth. His breaths were choked as sand filled his throat. But his eyes…his eyes held mine until the last moment.
Something inside me cracked.
With a strangled cry, I dropped Mortep and lunged for Everett, reaching for the ripples left in his wake. My hands plunged into the sand. “Come on, Swift,” I said through gritted teeth. My wings strained at my back to keep me from being sucked in. “Come on!”
I hit something solid. Heart leaping, I shoved deeper, wrapping my fingers around skin.
I put on a burst of Shifter strength and wrenched him free.
Inch by inch, he came loose from the clutches of the earth, sand rushing off him in droves.
He spluttered as his head broke the surface.
I grabbed him under both arms to get a better grip, flying us high above the beach.
“Tessa,” he gasped out, pointing at the ground beneath us.
I nodded. “I’ll hold you above the sand. You try to find her.”
My muscles strained as I held Everett aloft.
He dug until he found where Tessa had sunk and lurched her from the sand.
We flew to the others, where I set Everett and Tessa down on the outskirts of the beach.
The second they were all safe, I whipped back into the sky and scoured the beach, eyes landing on a mangled, burned hand reaching up from the sand.
Scorchmarks surrounded the ground where his body had disappeared.
His phantom chuckle reverberated in my head as his hand went limp and vanished beneath the sand.
Was he…had I actually killed him?
My chest heaved as I replayed the last minutes. I pictured my fire devouring him, smelled the scent of burnt flesh and smoke, saw his body collapse when I dove for Everett.
He’s gone. He has to be gone.
The words pounded through my skull, unwilling to sink in. I couldn’t process what had just happened. One second we were spit out onto this beach, and the next…
Mortep had been following me. He knew everything I was doing, every step I took, and I brought him exactly where he wanted to go. I practically opened the door and invited him in. I let him use me again.
He got what he deserved. You need to focus. People are counting on you.
With shaking breaths, I lowered myself back to the ground.
My friends were alive. We were together, and that was what mattered now.
But how did we get here, and how was our magic back?
It didn’t exist in the Triad Realm. Yet here I stood, with my phoenix wings at my back and all six magics coursing through my veins once more.
Everett’s frame appeared before me, temporarily blocking the others from view as I tried to get my bearings. He gripped my shoulders, forcing me to meet his gaze.
“What happened?” he asked, voice low. “Where did he go?”
I shook my head. “I—I don’t know. I think he’s gone. I set him on fire, and then…” I looked over my shoulder back at the sand. “And then the quicksand took him.”
Everett followed my stare, forehead pinched. “He couldn’t have escaped. We would’ve seen him. Right?”
I swallowed. “Do you really think he’s…”
“Dead?” His fingers pressed tighter around me. “I don’t know. I don’t know how he could’ve survived that. But we have to keep going, Vera.”
I nodded, nostrils flaring as I took a deep, steadying breath.
After one last look at me, Everett released me, and we turned to the others.
Starke eyed Everett’s chest, still bare from when he wrapped his shirt around Odessa’s arm.
Starke shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to Everett.
“Cover up, Swift,” he muttered, casting a furtive look at me. I refrained from rolling my eyes.
“Is Mortep truly dead?” Kieran asked, still standing protectively in front of Odessa.
All I could do was nod hesitantly. For some reason, the truth wouldn’t settle in. The entire purpose of the last year of my life was gone in the blink of an eye. I didn’t know what to think, what to do, or where to go from here.
I faced Odessa. “Do you know where we are?”
Instead of answering, she leaped back, gazing at my wings. “Your wings—they look just like it,” she stammered. “The symbol on the wall.” She turned to Kieran and reached for his head. “And you had antlers.” He caught her wrist before she could touch him, then slowly nodded.
Odessa whirled to Tessa. “And you—you were a cat. Who are you people?”
“You’re not wrong, but I prefer jaguar,” Tessa said with a shrug.
“Look, Odessa, there’s a lot to explain. But right now we need to figure out what’s going on.” I looked at Starke. “Do you recognize any of this? Any landmarks? Something to help us plot our position in the Imarian Sea?”
Starke grunted. “I think it’s safe to say we’re not in the Imarian Sea. I don’t even know if we’re in the Triad Realm.”
“I can assure you, you are no longer in the human realms,” a voice boomed.
I whipped around, my lightning sword already in my hand, then paused. Three figures walked toward us as if from a shroud of mist. Their edges glowed brighter in the darkness. My Shifter half pushed against my chest, sensing the power radiating from them.
The figure in the center had gold eyes that glinted with curiosity as he took us in. A long white beard flowed over gray robes, with matching white hair reaching to his chest. His lips curved into a smile, deepening the wrinkles around his kind eyes.
The other two approached his side. They all shared the same gray robes, the same sunfire eyes, the same otherworldly beauty.
The female on his right had short-cropped, deep auburn curls framing an umber face and a familiar-looking gold locket around her neck in the shape of a sun.
On her other side stood a tall man with smooth, tan skin and chestnut brown hair that was shorn on one side.
His features were sharp and elegant, as if one swipe across his cheekbones could draw blood.
All three of them locked eyes on my wings. “Is it you?” the elderly man asked, his voice barely a whisper.
I looked around me in confusion. “Am I…what?”
“Are you the one who opened the portal?”
I gripped my lightning sword tighter. Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Yes. It was me.”
Their eyes widened. One by one, they lowered to the ground and bowed.
“Why does everyone keep doing that?” I mumbled. Shadows danced up my arm in defense. “Who are you?”
The elderly man in the center merely chuckled as he rose. “There’s no need for that, daughter of the flame. We are not here to hurt you.” He stepped forward, and I held my ground. “We have been waiting for this day for a very, very long time.”
“What did you just call me?”
He took another step. “Daughter of the flame.”
The female behind him touched her sun locket in reverence. “The Lightbringer.”
The third’s golden gaze sharpened on me. “The fire the Fates could not quench.”
Without warning, the elder man reached out and pressed a single finger to my forehead. “The savior of our lost kingdom.”
More phoenix fire erupted from my wings and encased my body in flames. Burning, aching, transcendent magic flooded me, filling the cracks of my soul, and something woke within me as the power swallowed me whole.