Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The weight of tons of rock crashing over us doesn't come.
I'm braced for it. Every muscle in my body is coiled against the inevitable crush of rock and earth and darkness, but then—nothing.
Time stands still, and I'm lost in the rush of adrenaline and the ragged pulls of my breathing. My mind spins out. Asher's arms are solidly wrapped around me and mine around Wylder.
Did Asher portal us out?
I open my eyes and the confusion grows.
The darkness is gone. The chamber looks exactly as it did twenty minutes ago. Intact ceiling. Intact walls. The rune circle gleaming in the low emerald green light, the altar table whole and standing.
"What. The. Hell?"
Asher lifts his head from where he'd buried it against my side. "What happened?"
Mica drops to a crouch beside me, her teal hair thick with plaster dust and her grey eyes sharp and wild. "Get up. Garrison can't hold it for long."
"Hold what? When did you get here?”
I scramble to my feet, Wylder rising with me, and follow her pointing finger to the center of the chamber.
Garrison Stonehoof stands just inside the ruined doorway. Except the doorway isn't ruined anymore. None of this makes any sense.
The High Chancellor of the Order fills the space from floor to arched ceiling, his midnight robes moving without wind, his massive bison head lowered and set with a concentration so absolute it radiates heat.
His hands are spread wide. Between them, the air is visibly different—dense and compressed and crackling with a contained energy that makes my teeth ache.
Tharuzel bellows in rage, and I spin.
The major demon seems locked in time.
"What's happening?" I ask again.
Mica grabs my arm to spin me to face her and reaches into the canvas bag slung across her shoulder. "Garrison is using rift magic to hold the chamber in a pocket. Tharuzel can't leave and he can't call demons."
"How long can he hold it?" Wylder asks, catching up quicker than me.
"Not long enough for twenty questions." She pulls a gold-metaled blade from the canvas bag and presses it into my hand.
The grip is warm, and beneath my fingers, the metal hums with the layered weight of Mica's magic, mine, and Asher’s. The blood imbuing sings back to something buried deep inside my chest.
It feels like being handed part of myself back.
"These will work?" Wylder asks, accepting one.
"Eighty percent confident." She passes another of her blades to Asher without looking at him. "Which is higher than zero percent confident, so let's go."
"Mica—"
"Eighty-five percent, then." She reaches into the bag and pulls out a gold-metaled collar before giving the bag to Asher. "Guys, move! Hand these out."
As they scramble off, she opens the hammered metal torc and snaps it around my neck. The metal settles cold against my throat, and then something shifts. The pressure I hadn't known I was carrying eases and the architecture of my mind goes silent.
"With any luck, it'll keep him out of your head and out of your body."
I touch the torc with two fingers. "Amazing."
"Time to finish this, Poppy." She raises a short-handled sickle and checks with me. "Ready?"
"More than ready."
Tharuzel lets off another bellow of rage. He's fighting against Garrison’s powers, and it's obvious the effort is enormous for both of them.
Asher is back from the passageway with Freya, Dae-Jung, and Sebastian. They all look battered and are bleeding, but are on their feet.
"Can you fight?" I ask.
Sebastian winks. "I'm not missing the big ending."
Dae-Jung tests the weight of the gold-metaled sword in his hand. "This is one of the demon blades you mentioned?"
"Absolutely." Hopefully. "Watch the tendrils. I've seen him pull people into his belly and swallow them whole."
I look to Wylder, and he nods.
I look to Asher, and he's got a blade in one hand and his other hand up, a shield of light gathering in his palm.
I turn back to Tharuzel. He's beginning to move, so I have no doubt it'll be on in a matter of seconds. Those empty sockets find me, and the rune script pulses harder, the shifting names of the dead moving faster.
"You think you can take me down, little witch?"
The torc at my throat does something that isn't quite heat but is close enough to it. I feel him reaching for the bond and hitting the barrier, and the satisfaction of that is difficult to describe.
"Or die trying," I say, and raise the blade.
He breaks free of Garrison's hold and launches toward me.
For something that big, he moves like water, like sound, like the half-second between lightning and thunder where you can't do anything but brace.
He comes for me, and Wylder steps in from the left and drives his blade deep into the muscle of Tharuzel's reaching arm before withdrawing and spinning out of his reach.
His shriek is pure fury, and I feel it in my back teeth.
Mica comes from the right with her sickle and catches the back of his hand. The runed skin peels apart and the light inside bleeds out, it's not red now but a pale, sickened gold that dims as it hits the air.
“The weapons work!” she cries out in triumph.
Tharuzel wrenches back, and the air pressure drops so hard my ears ring. I start the words I modified from the spell Sebastian and my mom crafted five years ago, the words I’ve been practicing, to send Tharuzel back to Hell.
I've had them running in the back of my mind for four months. They've been in my sleep and my waking hours, and in the space between training sessions, and meals, and every ordinary moment I've stolen while knowing we would be here one day.
"By the blood of my bloodline...
By the Hallowinds who stood before me...
By the wards that bind this world from Hell...
Tharuzel turns toward the sound of my voice with a rage so concentrated it dims the air around him. He reaches for the blood bond and hits the torc, and through the barrier I can feel him screaming once again.
He charges.
Freya takes a hit that throws her into the wall. She slides down the stone surface and lies limp on the floor. Dae-Jung rushes forward and gets tangled in the writhing tentacles.
He's lifted off his feet and being dragged toward the gaping maw and the rows of teeth within. Sebastian, Wylder, and Mica all race to aid him, hacking at the tentacles with everything they've got.
I don't stop the incantation.
Tharuzel the Soul Thresher...
Your claim on me and mine is ended.
Your contract is broken.”
Asher throws a shield up between me and Tharuzel, as Sebastian hits the demon with a barrage of spirit energy. The moment Dae-Jung is free and dragged out of reach, Wylder comes at him with another blade strike to the shoulder.
Tharuzel's abdomen splits with a sickening scream, and Asher fills the opening of his mouth with a flood of golden light.
He reels, and power explodes from him. The tidal wave of death energy knocks all of us off our feet. All of us except Garrison.
Wholly shit, just how powerful is he?
Shaken, I scramble to my feet, reclaim my blade, and try to remember where I am in my incantation. I can't remember, and it's too important not to get it right. I swipe my arm across my forehead, and it comes away slick with blood.
There’s no time to worry about that. I focus my intention and start again.
"By the blood of my bloodline...
By the Hallowinds who stood before me...
By the witches and wards that divide this world from Hell...
Mica gets caught by one of the remaining tentacles, but hooks the blade of her sickle and slices straight through it.
Tharuzel the Soul Thresher...
Your claim on me and mine is ended.
Your contract is broken.
I lean into my intention and redirect the air current in the chamber to slam him sideways three feet into Wylder's waiting blade.
You are cast out.
Return to the depths of darkness that forged you...
And never walk this realm again."
He roars and lunges at me.
Asher portals in front of me with his arms outstretched. He is as bright as the sun, and the heat and power he gives off is just as radiant. I feel his intention join mine… join Birdie's.
The Goddess Mother doesn't want this beast in her world any more than anyone else. And so, she gave me Asher.
He's incredible. He's always been magical… even before he had magic.
"You are cast out," I repeat, the world seeming to freeze in this moment of ultimate power. "Return to the depths of darkness that forged you, and never walk this realm again."
Wylder, Sebastian, Mica, and Dae-Jung all strike him at once. They drive their gold-metaled blades into him and press on.
Tharuzel thrashes, his voice no longer a chorus of the dead. The horrific sound that scrapes from his throat is like nothing I've ever heard. It explodes in my head and I collapse forward, clamping my hands over my ears.
The torture of his scream echoes on and on, scraping at the inside of my mind, and then…
Silence.
The moment the cold night air smacks me in the face, I release my ears and lift my head. We're no longer in the lockstone chamber. Instead, the thirteen of us have been transported outside onto the grass.
I do a quick visual triage of the group, and while Freya, Bjorn, Amara, and Priya are seriously broken and bleeding, they are conscious.
Wylder, Sebastian, Asher, Mica, Dae-Jung, and Nolan look rough but solid.
And then there's Garrison.
He transported nine spirit witches, plus Asher, Wylder, Mica, and Tharuzel into some kind of time pocket of the lockstone chamber as the real chamber collapsed around us.
He had enough power to prevent a major demon from leaving, and also from being able to summon its minions.
I have no idea what a rift minotaur really is, but he is powerful. Even now, after all the power he just expended, he stands with his feet planted and his back straight. He’s breathing hard through his broad nostrils, but that hardly reflects on what he's just done.
I don't know what that cost him, but by the set of his jaw and the way he's bracing his weight, he's a man holding himself upright on pure stubbornness.
I cross the grass and square off in front of him. Up close, the effort is written in every line of his face. He looks at me with those round, dark eyes beneath the heavy brow and says nothing.
I wrap my arms around him. It's a bit like hugging a wardrobe cabinet. "Thank you." My voice comes out rough. "Go rest. I've got this."
He pulls back and looks down at me. "I can't just leave. You all need to be tended to and transported to the healers."
"And Asher can get everyone to the infirmary." I hold his gaze and keep my voice low enough that it doesn't carry. "You've done what we needed you to do and more. You were incredible. Now it's time for you to lie down before you fall down."
He arches a bushy brow. "I'm not so frail that I can't—"
"I'm not implying you can't. Just that I see it's costing you. Go rest. You earned it. I'm sure you need to report what happened to someone, right? You can check on everyone later."
There's a beat of hesitation, and then something in his expression softens. He sets one enormous hand briefly on my shoulder. "Well done, Poppy. I take it you can handle things from here?"
I dip my chin. "Yes, sir. And thank you again."
Garrison steps back, opens a portal, and disappears with a gust of cedar and ozone.
I turn back to the hillside. Wylder is flat on his back in the grass, arms out, palms pressed to the earth. I walk over and drop down to my knees beside him. He looks up at the dark Irish sky with his eyes half closed and an expression of pure, exhausted relief.
"You look like you got hit by a bus."
He chuckles. "Perfect. That's how it feels."
"Where's Asher?"
"He took Freya and a few others to the Ireland infirmary. He'll be right back."
I lean over and press my lips to his forehead, one hand resting flat on his chest. Beneath my palm, his heartbeat is steady. Real. Still here.
He tilts his head and kisses my cheek. "I say we get fixed up, lock ourselves in your house, and don't answer our phones or emails for a week."
I let out a long sigh. "It's a date."
I straighten to scan the hillside, and find Sebastian sitting against the cave entrance with his knees up and his head tipped back against the stone. I pick my way over and lower myself beside him. He doesn't look at me straight away, just keeps staring out at the dark tree line below the hill.
"Do you really think he's gone?" I ask.
"Yeah, I do."
"Do you think he'll be able to break free again?"
"I doubt it."
The two of us sit in silence as I let that wash over me. "If I feel this bewildered and numb, I can't imagine how you feel."
He rolls his jaw and glances sideways at me. "I've been fighting that asshole for almost six years. Sealing rifts. Trying to stay ahead of him. Your mother and I almost had him… I think about that a lot. If Laurel had just left us the fuck alone, Tharuzel would've been taken care of then."
"And my parents and Wylder's mom would be alive."
"Along with all the other people who didn't need to die."
I know Birdie told me everything happens as it's meant to, but I'm with Sebastian on this one. "Things would've been so different. I would've grown up with my sisters and my parents."
"But you never would've met Asher."
I can't even imagine that. It's a good thing that life or fate or destiny isn't a decision made by mortal men, because we're not meant to choose.
My heart hurts even thinking about it. "So, how do you feel?"
He's quiet for a moment. "Like I'm waking up from the longest nightmare imaginable."
I get that. "What will you do now?"
He smiles, and it's the most unguarded expression I've ever seen on Sebastian's face. "I think I'll find a beach house somewhere. White sands, warm days, good vibes… and maybe a special lady to share it with."
I lean to the side and rest my head on his shoulder. "I love that for you. I want an invitation to the wedding."
"You got it, kid."
Something passes between us that doesn't need words. He found me and gave me my life back. He saved me when no one else could. He spoke the truth when no one else cared enough to tell me what was going on.
We stood the same ground for entirely different reasons, and somehow ended up in the same place.
Asher materializes beside me and takes a knee. "All right, Pops. Your turn."
He takes my hand in his and helps me up. When I sway on my feet, he pulls me to his side and steadies me. I accept his strength and take one last look at the cave entrance.
"We did it."
"Yeah, we did," Wylder says, stepping over to join us.
I rest my head against Asher's shoulder and reach out to take Wylder's hand. "And it's over, right?"
Asher hugs me tighter and kisses the top of my head. "Nah, baby girl. This is just our beginning."