CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
EMMERY
Two humongous sabers emerged from the brush, their silver coats glowing as if woven from moonlight.
Larger than any bear, elephant, and wolf, they were death incarnate.
Their long, bone-splintering fangs hung past their chins and dripped saliva, as if they’d been trapped and starved for some time, and now she and Destonne looked like a fine meal.
Their growls shook the room as others emerged from the bushes, until five beasts surrounded them, two parents and three offspring, all ready to devour them in one bite.
Dez stood in its line of sight, their exit lay behind them, and this was so very bad. His fingers slid to his sword, and the saber tracked the movement.
“Fuck,” Emmery whispered. “Don’t. Move.”
“How am I not supposed to move?” Dez hissed, his eyes wide. His fingers twitched for his weapon.
“Trust me,” she said, barely moving her lips. “Not until I say.”
Like a cat about to pounce, the saber bowed its lower body to the ground and reared its hips in the air. Her mind raced as she gathered her magic, because with five beasts, this didn’t look optimistic. If only she could summon that raging power she’d burnt Ellynne to ash with.
The saber bared its fangs. Its muscles rippled, its powerful body prepared to strike.
Emmery threw her hand up and cast a wall, funnelling as much fire as she could into it. Making it solid. Hearty. “Now!” she bellowed.
Dez sprinted toward her. His arms pumped as the sabers advanced on him and his crystal thumped against his chest like a heartbeat. The saber’s eyes found Emmery’s through the fiery wall, and it leapt. The tips of its coat singed, but it landed on the other side and bounded toward her.
Her heart lodged in her throat as she blasted it with fire to melt the flesh from its bones before it could reach Destonne. Her magic ripped from her, like water burst through a dam. The saber thrashed against the flame, but slowed, and its body crumpled to the ground.
Dez ran past her and tried the door. It didn’t budge.
He threw his body weight into it, but to no avail.
Emmery flared her magic, circled herself on all sides, raised the flames as high as they would go, to the fucking ceiling if she had to. Her magic flooded from her in a great barrage of flames until the room blazed and sweat trickled down her forehead, arms, and dampened her shirt.
“Em,” Destonne said, hesitantly. “I hate to distract you from the brilliant work you’re doing, but I need you to blast the door. I can’t break the lock.”
She tucked the loose vial back into her sleeve and stepped toward the door, trying to center all her focus on the flames. “Keep them occupied,” she said.
“While I’m flattered by your overwhelming confidence,” he drawled as he pulled his sword from the scabbard, “there’s absolutely no way.”
The exertion weighed on her, but she redirected her flow and shot it toward the door which now held the same barrier as the entranceway. Her flame ricocheted off it, and, damn, she grew weaker by the second.
She still hadn’t fully recovered from the ordeal with Senka not even a day ago. When she swiped a hand across her nose and glanced at her already bloody skin, fresh crimson smeared across it. Her stomach twisted into knots. That last blast had slipped and she knew it.
One of the smaller offspring reared back on its hind legs and leapt. Emmery cast her flame, threw it like a boulder, but it didn’t hold the same impact as before. It merely singed the saber’s fur.
Dez threw himself to the side and righted himself with his sword ready to strike. The saber scrambled, nails scraping in the dirt, and leapt again. But this time his sword aimed true, poised at its belly.
The saber howled as the blade split it open from chin to tail. It skidded along the ground like a tossed pebble, and a spray of crimson and entrails coated the ground as it twitched and writhed but fell still.
Movement out of the corner of her eye drew Emmery’s attention to the charcoaled husk of the fallen saber, and her gut twisted. Because its fur had faded from black, and once again shone silver.
And its chest rose and fell with stuttering breaths.
Impossible.
To her right, Dez yelled as he battled another saber, his sword wielded with flawless precision. Emmery joined at his side and called her flame. It became a dance: her magic, and his blade, cutting, and burning, slicing and destroying.
Without even meeting each other’s gazes, they fought together, their minds impossibly linked, bodies moving in tandem, two unstoppable forces of death. At her side Dez skewered another saber. He hauled his sword free, flicked off the blood, and spun.
But they both didn’t see the largest saber skulking in the brush.
Not until it lunged.
And it was too late.
Dez tried to reach her, tried to shove her out of the way, but the saber struck. Knocked her back.
The air burst from her lungs as she hit the ground. Her elbow screamed in pain as something sharp and jagged bit into her flesh, and hot blood ran down her arm.
The saber’s paw clamped down on her chest. Its feline face loomed over hers, and the feral growl that rumbled in its throat became a thing of nightmares. Saliva stretched and dropped from its maw onto her cheek. She fought its heavy hold, but its paw carried the force of a damn mountain.
From behind the creature, Dez’s black blade glinted as he swung.
With a sickening squelch, the sword notched into the saber’s shoulder.
Blood sprayed and it roared, then raised its massive paw at him.
Its arm blurred as it moved at lightning speed.
Claws sank into his chest, and he staggered back, but bared his teeth and swung again.
The saber reared back and batted him with such force, his feet lifted off the ground, and he struck the wall. He slid down. Didn’t move.
Emmery yelled, felt her mouth shape his name, but the ringing in her ears drowned out all else as she stared up into those yellow eyes.
The end loomed near. She tasted it on the back of her tongue like a bitter demise. Because she’d been so close to all her dreams.
Answers lingered at her fingertips, but always out of reach.
She pleaded for her magic, sought the wave, the rush of it in her bloodstream, but the well had run dry.
Desperate, she reached inside herself, down into that hollow part of her chest, and further into the swirling, living mark.
The one she was afraid to even touch or think of for fear of its power.
She scraped mental fingers against the magic, pulled it free, and unleashed it. A sensation echoed through her body, flapping against her ribcage, and she recognized it from the day she relit the khaos flame.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dez wobble to his feet, sword clutched in his hand. He surged forward, but not fast enough. The saber opened its jaws—
Emmery didn’t hesitate. Her back arched, spine bent like it would snap, tested her limits, and she roared. Screamed.
Maybe this was the end.
Maybe this would truly break her.
Then it exploded from her chest and knocked the saber off her.
Black and gold like a tainted sun, the beast ripped free of her ribcage with the force of a galloping horse. Shadows trailed the bird’s molten wings, both the black of death and gold of the stars threaded into its feathers.
The phoenix sang a song of new beginnings and a call for fate.
Its golden eyes stared down at Emmery as if to say, it’s about time.
Hungry for vengeance, the phoenix descended on the saber.
Razor-sharp talons struck its massive head, ripped its flesh to shreds, and tore into its eyes.
The saber fell limp and landed on its side, half of its body scorched, and the other half raw.
Satisfied with the carnage, it soared back into the air and sought its next prey while fire rained down.
Golden chaos burned their world.
Emmery stared up at the phoenix, the beast that had lived within her all this time, and now flapped its wings as it inflicted the khaos flame upon them.
Above, the roof burst and metal and glass tumbled down, melting and consumed by the heat and flame before it reached them.
The door shattered off its hinges and the walls crumbled to bits.
Like an unstoppable force, the bird sang the tune that lived inside her, the same one Dez had played, sad and somber, as if it didn’t want the world to burn, but had no choice, as the room disintegrated around them.
Dez stumbled and fell to his knees, his face bloody, and chest a raw, scarlet mess from the saber’s claw. Emmery blinked at him from where she lay, unable to move. Unable to get to him. She needed to heal him. Needed to—
But her body grew distant. Weak. Unattached.
On his hands and knees, he crawled toward her, wrists slicing on the unmelted glass, blood pouring off him, the thorns twisting and writhing inside him, until he kneeled at her side.
“Call it back,” he rasped. “Call it back! Call it back!”
She lay on the ground, unable to feel the stone beneath her. Blood clouded her vision and stung tangy and copper in her nostrils.
“No—” His voice broke, nearly a sob. “You need to call it back. Now. Please, angel, call it back. It’s hurting you.”
She tried to tell him she would be fine, but her numb lips wouldn’t move.
He took her hand, or at least she saw him do it.
She couldn’t feel her skin.
Couldn’t feel anything.
The red clouding her vision thickened, and she choked as blood bubbled and flooded her mouth. It didn’t hurt but—
Was it coming from her lungs?
She coughed again, and her chest spasmed, but no air came. Her head lolled, and then she was in his lap, and he was stroking her hair back from her face so tenderly. “Don’t do this. Don’t. Em, you can’t.”
He sounded so far away, but that was his hand on her cheek, so he couldn't be. He was so warm and she was so cold.
“Look at me, Emmery. Open your eyes. Come on, open your eyes!”
When she managed to peel her eyelids open, Dez stared up at the sky, like he screamed at the gods as he searched amongst the flames and ruin for the bird.
He pointed at the phoenix and yelled, his voice ragged, “Stop! You’re killing her!”
The phoenix cocked its head and recognition flashed in those wicked gold eyes. And it dove, its shadowy wings tucked. The tendrils of black and gold flowed behind it like the trailing glow of a rare comet. It folded in on itself, faded back to shadow, and speared into her chest.
Her back arched and a hoarse cry ripped from her, but she fell back to the earth and sank into it. She couldn’t see past the blood. When she blinked it away, more came. Then she might have whimpered Dez’s name.
“I’m right here. I have you,” he said. The words trembled in the air. She felt them through his chest, her face pressed there. He lifted her into his arms, and under her cheek, she swore, she felt a drum. A flutter.
Something impossible.
Dez said something else, but it disappeared into the chaos around them. Fire rained down as the ceiling collapsed entirely and flame ate through brick.
She leaned into that stunted beat, trying to hold onto something, so she latched onto her new favourite sound.
The air kissed her heated skin, and she faded, but as darkness crept in, the world fell away, as it had when Dez kissed her. But this time, with permanence.