CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #4
When it was over, he just knelt there for a moment, that terrible dark gash across his neck staring at us like an eerie second smile.
It didn’t heal, just as we’d known it wouldn’t—it only bled.
The demons holding Thuridan tipped him forward so his wound spilled into the cauldron.
Lucifer turned away to hand the knife to one of his followers, every movement infuriatingly casual, as though he were just walking around his study.
Then Thuridan toppled forward, released by his captors at last. His face smashed into the dirt, and the indignity of it made my stomach roll. We all waited, hopeful even now that he might recover, but Thuridan didn’t move again. Moments later, a dark pool began to form beneath him.
A faint, strangled sound came from Lyari. I tore my gaze away from the sight of Thuridan’s body and looked at her. She kept her face forward, but her throat worked. I could see the gleam of tears streaming down her gaunt cheeks.
Even though I still wasn’t someone who touched another person easily, and even though Lyari wasn’t someone who accepted comfort when it was offered, I urged Sarod forward.
Once I was close enough, I reached out and put my hand on Lyari’s arm.
The faerie’s face turned to mine. Wisps of hair blew in my eyes as I held her gaze and nodded, my nostrils flaring. Pain sang between us—pain and resolve.
We were warriors, and we would make him pay for what he’d done to us.
The snowflakes coming down were bigger now. I knew it wasn’t my imagination that there were more, too. This was magic. I looked up, intending just to glance toward the clouds. What I saw made my entire body turn to ice.
The Gate was opening. It was visible now, just a tiny line of light far above where Lucifer stood, like a paper cut in the sky. It was getting wider by the second. Wind attacked us with a ferocity that burned my skin.
“‘Something wicked this way comes,’” Laurie murmured.
“Macbeth? Really? At a time like this?” Collith said under his breath.
I lowered my gaze and scanned the ridge above Lucifer’s side of the field.
Still no sign of Savannah. What if something had gone wrong?
What if we could no longer depend on her?
Without the numbers she’d promised me, our chances of survival were significantly lower, and everything would depend on whether we reached the Gate.
Another burst of anxiety seared through my veins.
Laurie’s voice was as grim as I felt. He held his sword at the ready, staring at the legion across from us. “It’s been a privilege torturing you both. Pity it must come to an end.”
“Nothing ends, Laurelis Dondarte.” I gave him a sad smile. “There are only continuations and beginnings.”
Before he could answer, a blinding flash streaked over our heads—lightning.
Then there were several more, all at once, erupting from the Gate that suddenly wasn’t so small anymore.
My braids blew back. In a matter of seconds, the opening became a vast hole, so huge that I could see something on the other side now.
It felt like there was something burrowing into my stomach, tearing through all the layers of flesh as if my insides were soil.
“That thing has to be a half mile in diameter, at least,” one of the soldiers behind us muttered.
Everyone stared up the crackling, gaping maw in the sky. There was only darkness within it, but somehow that blackness seemed deeper than the darkness of my world. More … absolute. As if it was a place where light simply didn’t exist.
It was Hell, I realized with a burst of horror. We were looking at Hell. Lucifer had really done it.
My heart was pounding so hard that it affected my ability to breathe.
I waited for a nightmare to come screaming out of that tear between worlds, but …
nothing happened. When several seconds passed and the Gate still remained empty, mad, wild hope streaked through me.
Magic was unpredictable, even for someone like Lucifer.
He couldn’t have determined where the Gate would open on the other side, right?
Maybe it had appeared deep in a cavern, just like the Unseelie Court.
Maybe the creatures of Hell would never find it.
Indecision gnawed at me; I didn’t know what to do. The Gate was open, which meant the spell barrier was down. Should we just keep waiting, or strike now while Lucifer didn’t have the additional forces of Hell behind him?
I’d just started to glance at Collith when someone cried out, “What was that?”
Fear lodged in my throat, and I looked toward the Gate again. I still didn’t see anything. But the creatures around me all stared upward as though they did. So I kept watching, too. Seconds passed, and I counted them, trying to control my heartbeat. One. Two. Three. Four.
At last, something emerged from the darkness.
It was too far away for us to hear the sounds of its wings, but in that moment, the battlefield was so still that I swore I could. When I finally got a good look at what the underworld had spit out, I held back a shudder. It was the strangest, eeriest thing I’d ever seen.
“A seraph,” I heard someone behind me breathe.
I’d thought the seraphim were nothing more than ancient legend. A frightening story Fallen parents told their young, as humans did with their children about the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus.
Apparently they were very real, and all this time, they’d just been in another world.
This one seemed to be alone. As the seraph flew over Lucifer’s army, coming in our direction, I counted its wings—there were six.
Two covered its face. Two covered what I assumed to be its feet.
And the last two it used to fly, carrying a majority of its body weight while the others seemed to be more for navigation and support.
My thoughts had gone clinical, I noted dimly. That helped, sometimes, in moments of terror. But I could feel it edging closer, threatening to break through the careful wall of numbness I’d built.
Cool fingers slid beneath my chin. I was so detached from reality that I didn’t jerk away when Collith tilted my head back.
I focused on him, blinking. He’d moved his horse so close that its side nearly brushed Sarod.
The wind rustled Collith’s dark hair, and a tousled lock fell over one of his eyes, just as it always did.
For once, I didn’t resist the urge to push it back.
As I ran my fingers through the hair near Collith’s temple, securing that wayward lock in place, my numbness and fear evaporated.
A quiet, steady calm filled me, and the roiling sensation in my stomach went still.
I let out a breath, shoulders slumping. I gave Collith a small, faint smile. “Thanks,” I murmured.
When I began to pull away, Collith caught hold of my wrist. I raised my eyebrows in a wordless question. He stared at me intensely.
Then, for all the armies and kingdoms to see, he leaned over and kissed me.
I closed my eyes and kissed Collith back, softly startled when everything around us faded.
Not because the world had gone silent, but because I’d stopped hearing it.
I raised my hand and cupped Collith’s cheek, breathing in his scent one last time.
Savoring his taste and his quiet skin against mine. My entire body sang with love.
A fearsome roar echoed across the hill.
I jerked away from Collith, my heart lurching at that sound.
I spotted the dark figure instantly, a golden-haired silhouette standing out starkly against the gloom.
Lucifer had risen into the air, his immense wings spread.
I hadn’t known he had wings; he must’ve kept them glamoured.
They were white and immense, and any other day, I would’ve been fascinated …
but right now it was the devil’s face that held my attention.
He stared at us with bright, fury-filled eyes.
I gazed up at him and knew what would happen if Lucifer got his hands on me.
Collith knew it, too. Lightning erupted around his entire body and crackled from his hands. His eyes shone with a bright, unnatural light and strands of his hair lifted.
As if this was the unspoken signal everyone had been waiting for, all the other fighters prepared for battle, as well.
Up and down the front, swords slid from scabbards and glinted as they were held aloft.
Expressions hardened into resolution. We collectively tensed, every face turned toward the sky.
But Lucifer didn’t fly at us or gesture to his army.
The devil just stayed where he was, his wings flapping steadily, despite the ever-increasing wind.
What was he waiting for? My hand tightened on my sword, and I started counting again, forcing myself to take a breath with every second. One. Two. Three.
This time, I didn’t have a chance to reach four. Hundreds of demons came screaming out of the Gate behind Lucifer.
And then the world shattered.