33. Raven #3
The Killian’s…or rather, Damon’s scythe swung downward without falter.
The sharp blade, meant for me, cut through Chiara’s chest, igniting a crippling scream and an explosion of crimson.
Blood splattered everywhere. It hit the walls, pooled onto the floor, and showered across the front of the Killian.
Gore tagged me along my arm and across the side of my face.
Chiara looked down at her ruined body, then met my horrified stare. “None of this may have happened if it weren’t for Prince August.”
Blood bubbled from her lips as she collapsed where she stood.
Her head lolled to the side, and with her last breath, she said, “Break it with our blood.”
Her arm flopped forward, and the band around her wrist cracked against the stone floor. Energy rolled through the space, as if escaping her lifeless form…or her bracelet.
The Killian roared—the sound reverberating through the circular chamber.
And me… My mind shattered into a million or more pieces.
I thought I heard myself scream, but the sound could very well have been trapped in my head. I was a warrior, born to fight. Well, not really. Born to reap, but I could fight. I would fight. If I could pull myself back together.
Only my muscles felt weak, and my throat burned.
And Chiara… Her blood… Her broken body.
She’d thrown herself in the line of a slicing scythe in order to save me. Why? Nothing about what she had done made sense.
I couldn’t drag my gaze from the sight. I owed her my life, and the least I could do was pay witness to her sacrifice. The fact that I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, could hardly manage to breathe, didn’t factor into my lack of action.
The Killian cussed and yanked his scythe free of Chiara’s chest. The thwunk and wet, fleshy sound yanked me into heightened awareness and returned my ability to move.
I would be next. I knew that truth. Nothing stood between him and me, and I was in a ballgown with no weapons and no shoes.
I couldn’t even use the pointy spikes of my heels.
If this were to be my ending moment, I would do something exceptional, make it rather defining.
I slammed my bleeding palms to the center of the magical symbol drawn upon the ground and swiped outward.
Whether Chiara meant for me to break the sigil with reaper blood or more specifically a combination of hers and mine, I had that requirement covered…
given her blood had splattered across my person.
I dragged lines of blood, blurred the drawn markings, and sent stones and bones scattering outward.
Out of nowhere, as if bleeding out of the walls, specters emerged, all of them rushing for me. Or rather, the symbol. They converged at the center and vanished into a void.
That was…wow… That was almost too easy.
I fell back on my butt, panting. “I did it!”
As anticlimactic as it felt, I’d put a stop to the specters. The queen could now release the barrier magic, returning reapability to normal.
Only, I wouldn’t likely see the later parts come to fruition. The Killian was going to kill me, and I had no way to stop him.
“You probably shouldn’t have,” Damon the Killian said.
I twisted to face him. “What?”
He leered over me. “Chiara and I may not have seen eye to eye on a topic or two, but she successfully held Chaos within limits. Now…” He shrugged. Then sighed. “She shouldn’t have stepped in my path. Guess we’ll call that a warmup strike.”
A messy knot lodged in my chest. Along with a new understanding―all the many answers I sought would be found on the other side of the veil, because the time to discover them on this end was officially up.
Closing my eyes, I accepted my fate, released all my hopes and dreams for any future.
This is it. I’m going to die.
I whispered regrets to Chace and Winter and held my few memories of the former close to my heart so that they might warm me in the seconds before my death.
Hopefully my body wouldn’t remain in the underground chamber, undiscovered, because Valen could use my blood to help the afflicted.
I didn’t witness the Killian’s prepared assault, but rather felt the shimmer of magic in the air.
Only… Someone hollered and screeched, followed by several voices echoing in the chamber. I snapped my eyes open, and I scrambled backward toward the stairs.
Chiara lay dead on the chamber floor, and the Killian… Where was Damon?
Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a thousand…two thousand…cawing crows filled the air, the fluttering of their wings reaching my ears.
And seemingly out of nowhere, two faces, devoid of color, appeared before me. They looked wickedly hungry, with snarling grins and inhuman screams. One, a female, wore a solid iron mask across her eyes. How did she see?
I attempted to jump out of their reach, but my skirt tangled around my legs, and my feet ached with cuts from broken bits of bone used in the specter spell.
The two creatures of white grabbed my arms, and I shrieked.
Their hold tight, they dragged me, bucking and kicking and hollering, into the pitch-black tunnel.