Chapter 18 Dastian
Dastian
“Well, that was pretty much what I expected,” I remark as the two ex-slayers-slash-Order fuckers sweep through the room.
“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Nyssa shouts above the din as the room falls into pure chaos.
I breathe it in, relishing it. “Where’s the fun in spoilers?” I shout back, sending a pulse of raw disorder into the ceiling. It meets a falling chunk of masonry and turns it into a flock of very confused pigeons.
Cormac stands at the shattered entrance, glowing with a stolen silver light that makes my skin itch. It’s unnatural. Order forced into a shape it shouldn’t hold. Beside him, Finnian looks less like a kindly mentor and more like a vampire who’s just realised the blood bank is closed.
“Step away from the engine, Nyssa,” Finnian barks, raising a hand. The air around him solidifies into a transparent wall, rushing toward us to crush the resistance.
“Boring,” I mutter. I snap my fingers. The wall fractures, spiderwebbing with golden cracks before shattering into harmless glitter. “You lot really need a new playbook. Wall of force? In this economy?”
Dreven is pure shadow, cutting off Cormac’s flank, while Voren calls forth an army of the undead.
Tabitha has vanished, of course.
I glance over at Nyssa, but she is still reaching into the pit. It doesn’t look like anything is happening. “Nyssa? You okay over there?”
She doesn’t reply.
I’m distracted momentarily by a bolt of magic from Cormac that lands at my feet, sending my temper flaring, hot and delightful.
The room is a swirling mess of stolen power and ancient grudges, and the static charges the air until all our hair stands on end.
Dreven is going to kill me for making him look like a fucking scarecrow.
I gather a ball of pure instability in my palm—red-gold and screaming to be let loose.
“Right then,” I grin at the horrified ex-slayers.
“Let’s see how well your stolen magic holds up against a god who’s bored of following the rules.
” I lob the sphere. It doesn’t arc like a well-behaved projectile; it zig-zags, defying physics just to be difficult, before slamming into Cormac’s hastily erected barrier.
The shield doesn’t shatter. That would be too pedestrian.
Instead, the instability infects it. The stolen silver light curdles, turning neon green before imploding with a sound like a wet cough.
Cormac stumbles back, his robes smoking, looking thoroughly offended that his stolen geometry didn’t hold up against raw entropy.
“You insolent—” he starts, but a ripple of chaos explodes next to his head, cutting him off.
“Less talking, more suffering from the youngsters in the room,” I advise.
Finnian ignores me. He clocks Nyssa on her knees, hand buried in the engine, and raises a glowing palm. A lance of pure, concentrated slayer energy forms there, aimed right between her shoulder blades.
Not on my watch.
I materialise directly in his line of fire. The energy hits my chest and scatters harmlessly, feeding the furnace inside me rather than hurting it.
“Bad form, Finny,” I tut, grabbing his wrist. His pulse hammers against my thumb. “Shooting a lady in the back? I thought the Order was all about chivalry and repression.”
I squeeze. Heat flares, turning the air around his arm into a mirage. He screams, a jagged sound that warms my heart, and drops to his knees.
“Nyssa!” I shout over my shoulder, holding the writhing ex-slayer in place. “Are you done? I’m running out of things to break!”
Voren’s wraiths swarm around us in a flurry of activity, making me frown.
What’s got them so agitated?
“Shit,” Finnian croaks.
The terror in his voice distracts me enough to let him go as I turn to stare where he is gawking.
“Well, hello,” I say, eyes narrowed as Dreven coalesces into his human form at my side and Voren waves a hand at the wraiths.
“Talk about unexpected,” Dreven murmurs.
We all launch back as… Nyssa, I think, launches forward, hissing like a fiend.
“Nyssa,” I say calmly as Cormac and Finnian regroup on the other side of the syphon net pit, while Tabitha comes running in as if this is the first she’s seen or heard of this shitshow.
“I had a vision!” she calls out, even though no one gives a crap right now if she had monkeys flying out of her arsehole. “Nyssa!”
“Too fucking late, as usual,” Finnian growls, his gaze never leaving Nyssa, who is slithering in a rather large snake form towards us.
I’ve seen some shit in my time—kingdoms rise, stars collapse, Voren try to tell a joke—but my woman turning into a twenty-foot metallic cobra is definitely making the highlight reel.
“Well,” I drawl, stepping neatly to the side as her tail tries to swipe me out of existence. “She certainly has a flair for the dramatic.”
“Dastian, shut up,” Dreven orders, his gaze fixed on the monstrosity that used to be our slayer.
She rears up, scales shivering with a sound like a thousand knives being sharpened at once.
She isn’t flesh and blood anymore; she is the Crown made manifest, a sleek, terrifying engine of judgement.
Her eyes are twin pools of molten gold, and they lock onto Finnian with a hunger that makes my chaotic soul purr.
“Stay back!” Cormac shrieks, throwing a pathetic bolt of stolen light at her.
It bounces off her scales with a musical ping. Nyssa doesn’t even flinch. She opens her mouth, filled with far too many teeth, and lets out a hiss that vibrates in my molars.
“She’s going to eat them,” Voren notes, sounding mildly impressed.
“Nyssa!” Tabitha barks, trying to get her attention.
Nyssa ignores the witch entirely. She lunges.
It’s faster than thought, a blur of steel and rage.
Finnian screams, scrambling backwards on his arse, but he’s not fast enough.
She strikes, not to bite, but to slam her massive head into his chest, launching him across the room like a ragdoll.
He hits the far wall with a crunch that I feel in my bones.
“Ouch.”
“We need to stop her,” Dreven says, going all commander-in-chief. “If she kills them in this form, even knowing what they did, she will feel guilt over it.”
“Nah,” I say. “She won’t.”
“She will,” Voren says, siding with Dreven. “That thing is clearly not her. It doesn’t have her rationale or her control.”
I flinch when Cormac sails over my head with a cry.
“Okay, I see your point,” I concede. “But how do we stop her?”
“We don’t,” Dreven says, shaking his head. “We can’t stop the god of the Divine Ruins.”
“So, what then?” I snap.
“We need to get her to stop herself,” Voren says.
“Easier said than done,” I point out, dodging a chunk of masonry dislodged by her tail.
Cormac is trying to crawl away, looking like a stepped-on beetle. Nyssa coils, raising that massive, metallic head to strike.
“Right,” I mutter, cracking my knuckles. “Here goes nothing.”
I don’t throw fire. I don’t warp gravity. I just step directly between the trembling ex-slayer and the death sentence looming over him.
The snake freezes.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice steady, so I don’t panic her. “You squash him, you have to squash me.”
She hisses, the sound vibrating through my ribcage. Her golden eyes narrow, the vertical slits dilating as she focuses on me instead of the prey. It’s a toss-up whether she recognises me or is deciding if I’m as tasty as the ex-slayer she’s trying to kill.
“I know,” I continue, taking a daring step closer. “He deserves it. He deserves worse. But you’re Nyssa Vale, not just a shiny weapon.”
She hisses again and rears up, clearly intending to go over me.