69 #2
My eyes snap wide when I see three enormous blades jutting from its belly, skewering it midair and pinning it there for a heartbeat.
Hovering.
And then I see Blair.
She’s actually running across her wyvern’s back. She leaps onto the brown beast. The grin of the witch who’s riding it falls. She’s too slow to react when Blair goes for her head and cuts her throat with her claws.
Blair’s wyvern retracts her blades, and the monster falls.
Blair elegantly swings herself onto Aris’s back before jumping back to her wyvern a moment later, as easily as if we weren’t mid-flight and fucking hundreds of meters in the air.
Holy fucking shit, who is this woman?
She winks at me. “You’re welcome. Now let’s hand them their asses.”
She says it with a smirk, even though her aura tells me she knows we might not make it.
But we’re going to fight.
Hells yeah, we are.
As if some silent understanding passes between Aris and Blair’s wyvern, her beast veers aside just as Aris unhinges his jaw and curls his tongue.
Blue fire erupts.
Five witches turn into ash before they can even lift their hands.
It buys us a few precious seconds to gain speed, Aris’s wings pumping as we tear away from the rest of the coven.
Above us, the moon rises, shedding its eerie blue light—
Before it vanishes.
My heart sinks and shatters all over again when demonic wings fill the sky.
Nefarians. Gods, we’re doomed.
Thunder growls like two boulders colliding, shaking the heavens. A second later, black lightning cracks and hails from the sky.
Bolt after bolt after bolt. Until it looks as if the sky itself is weeping streaks of undiluted black electricity.
If the apocalypse had a face, it would be Caryan’s the moment he materializes out of a vortex of black magic. Pure vengeance fills his eyes before the sky erupts in absolute darkness. Shadows engulf everything—swallowing sound, swallowing light, swallowing us whole.
I cling to Aris’s scales, holding my breath as he soars through blackness that feels endless. It’s like being deep underwater, where there’s neither light nor sound.
Then lilac magic slices through it.
Pushing it back.
Then witch magic follows, brutal and orange, biting the darkness away, piece by piece.
I block an array of those already fucking familiar lilac arrows, and something depthless and furious rises inside me.
Oh hells. This time, I’ll make them pay.
They won’t rip Aris from me again. Ever.
“Back! Let’s go for their throats!”
Aris grunts his agreement down the bond, and we dive straight at them—even though we still can’t see them.
But I can see their magic.
The moment they lift their hands, glowing spheres bloom from nothing, eerie and wrong.
“Make them burn!” I snarl down the bond. Aris obeys, unhinging his jaw. A second later, blue fire tears through the darkness.
I can’t hear their screams—Caryan’s magic devours every sound—and for once, I’m grateful.
We drift on through the blackness that gets torn away more and more by witches and Nefarians. Caryan’s shroud thins, then splits, and I spot Riven.
Our eyes meet for a heartbeat. Then the dark swallows everything again.
Aris keeps hunting magic, killing witches and demons blindly. His jaw snaps left and right, vicious and mad, going for anything that comes near his teeth.
I just pray we don’t bite Blair or anyone we know by accident.
But Caryan’s veil weakens more and more, until it’s nothing but a faint mist.
And I finally see the scale of the battle.
Lightning still rains down mercilessly. But the witches and Nefarians are fighting back.
I spot Caryan wielding his sword with impossible speed, moving so fast he’s nothing but a blur as he cuts through fae and wyvern alike.
I’ve never seen him fight with my own eyes.
I’ve never witnessed his unmistakable, brutal efficiency firsthand.
Around him, bodies rain down like falling stars.
One kill leads to the next without him losing momentum or focus.
He wields the blade like an extension of his body. All fluidity. Speed. No movement wasted.
When a green phantom wyvern dives for him from behind, his magic unravels it without him needing to turn or pause his slaughter.
He is as deadly as I’d imagined.
But there are still too many.
A bone-shattering roar from Aris finally tears a scream from me.
Something slams into him through the bond—a burst of pain that isn’t mine.
A lance of lilac magic is suddenly there, jutting out of his neck right in front of my face, blood running down the glowing shaft.
For one wild second I just stare. It almost skewered me where I sit on his back.
It came from below.
It went straight through Aris.
No.
That can’t be real. That can’t be happening.
He’s still locking me out of the bond, but I know he’s hurting. I know it.
I lean past the curve of his wings and look down.
The shaft disappears into his belly—
Far beneath us, a Nefarian grins up at me.
Before I can even breathe, Aris snaps his jaws shut around him.
Bones crunch and splinter. Blood sprays.
Then he swallows him whole. Probably still alive.
“Save yourself, little one. I love you,” Aris grunts with his last strength.
Then he falls.
“No! No!”
I fall too.
But suddenly Caryan is there. Catching me.
My eyes stay locked on Aris as his body plummets down and down and down.
“Save him! Please, save him!” I scream at Caryan, digging my nails into his armor while tears stream down my cheeks.
Caryan clenches his teeth, clearly making a decision. Then he throws out a hand.
A cloud of the purest blackness swallows Aris’s massive body before he can shatter on the ground like a meteor crashing down from the sky.
Too late, I realize what I’ve done.
Caryan used the last of his magic to save Aris.
His shield slips the second Aris is safe.
His body jerks and shakes against mine as arrow after arrow slams into his back, his wings, his legs.
He turned us. Taking the arrows meant for me.
My eyes stay on his as the blue leaks back into the swirling blackness of his irises.
“Why?” I breathe, my voice strangled with horror. No! This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. Not like that!
“I would bleed a thousand years in darkness,” he breathes through clenched teeth, “and a thousand more if it means you are safe. Now go back home.”
Aris’s roar shakes the sky as he shoots up from below, not fully healed yet but alive.
He blasts a swell of blue conflagration around us, sending witches and Nefarians scattering and buying us a few precious seconds.
“Take her home,” Caryan commands with what little strength he has left.
“No! What about you?” I scream as Aris flies right beneath me, ready for me to drop onto his back.
Caryan’s eyes never leave mine. They grow bluer and bluer until they’re glistening like the ocean he dropped me into last night.
“I cannot die, little princess.”
“But they’ll capture you! They’ll enslave you!” My voice breaks as the realization crashes through me. What I’ve done. What he’s done. He sacrificed himself.
For me. For Aris.
“But if you live, it was worth it,” he says.
Then he lets go. And I fall.
Caryan’s magic flares one last time, a shielding blast of blackness around us, keeping us safe as I land on Aris’s back and he wheels away.
We sweep upward, still protected within the dome of Caryan’s darkness.
When we’re far enough away, his strength finally gives out.
The shield vanishes.
His wings stop beating.
And he falls.