Chapter Two
CHAPTER
TWO
Rhovar was in chaos.
Scouts had already spotted the demon’s approach, shouting warnings to knights who burst into action.
The ballista was prepared and fired, though the demon avoided it easily.
As the bolt tore through the thick clouds, however, Aurelie saw with horror that there were more figures hidden behind their shroud. Dozens of them.
“There are more on foot!” someone shouted. “Arm yourselves!”
She grabbed Ilaria and hauled the princess to her feet.
“We’re getting out of here. Stay behind me,” she commanded, unsheathing her sword and forcing them both down the garden’s path.
She tried to hurry, tearing Ilaria’s skirts free from the thorns that snatched at her, but they were far too exposed here.
One glance up and Aurelie knew they’d already been marked, made prey beneath a demon’s gaze.
She barely managed to shove Ilaria behind her before one of the beasts crashed down, claws tearing through her shoulder. The force sent her stumbling, breath punched from her lungs as a hot, fresh bloom of blood soaked her tunic.
The demon reared back, wings flexing. “A Chantelune and a Noriclat,” it said, voice low and savoring. “Aren’t I lucky.”
Pain burned bright in Aurelie’s side, but the demon had caught her right shoulder, leaving her dominant left hand steady on her sword.
She caught its next strike with the flat of her blade, the impact ringing up her arm and sending her boots skidding across the marble.
Pain lanced through her with every movement, but she held her ground until she could counter, striking through the demon’s wing.
It shrieked, staggering back as black ichor poured down the blade.
“Move!” Aurelie barked at Ilaria, not daring to take her eyes off the demon. “Toward the castle. Now!”
The princess fled, her skirts catching on the wind.
Aurelie remained where she was, no longer alone in this fight. Her company was quick to take to the battlefield. Marcel had appeared behind the demon, silent in his approach. He brought his sword down in its distraction, cleaving through its side in a clean, deadly arc.
The demon’s crimson eyes dimmed as it stumbled forward, but Marcel wasn’t taking any risks. He rammed his blade deep into the demon’s chest, twisting at the heart. With a guttural roar, the demon crumpled to the ground.
“Get the princess to safety!” he yelled, and Aurelie wasted no time as she grabbed Ilaria by the arm, hauling her across the garden and through the castle doors. Each of their steps was a slap against the checkered marble as they sprinted across the foyer and up the stairs.
By the time they reached the top, the walls were trembling from the thunderous strike of Rhovar’s bell.
From somewhere deep in the castle came a panicked cry. Aurelie didn’t slow, swallowing down bile as she threw open the door to the princess’s chambers.
Ilaria rushed to the window, her hands clawing at the weathered wood of the sill as she stared upon the turmoil besieging her kingdom.
Torchlight flickered below, igniting scenes of chaos.
Rhovar was a labyrinth of demons prowling through narrow alleyways, their ominous forms laying waste to the city.
“By the Light.” Ilaria’s voice was barely audible above the chaos. “They’re everywhere.”
Below, a woman pounded against the barred windows of the tavern, begging for refuge none would provide. Once the bell struck, no one could afford to take pity. Not when the most powerful demons were able to disguise themselves as human.
Aurelie prayed the woman’s death would be swift as she wrenched Ilaria from the window.
“Don’t let them see you.” She slammed the shutters and sealed them tight.
“Where do you think they came from?” Ilaria swayed, trying to steal another glance. “I counted at least three dozen.”
“Worry about that later.” Aurelie crossed to the embroidered tapestry that hung beside Ilaria’s bed.
The Noriclat family stood immortalized in golden thread, their figures flanked by seraphim with wings outstretched.
She pressed her hand against the faint impression in the stone, and the wall groaned open to reveal a narrow stairwell that descended into darkness.
“Hurry,” she urged, only for Ilaria to seize hold of her hand.
“Come with me.” The plea in her eyes could strike clean through steel, and Aurelie knew without question all that her friend was remembering as she faced the darkness.
The past pressed between them as clearly as if it were etched into the air—the two of them as frightened children, finding each other in the safe room while demons ravaged their city. Aurelie had returned to find half her family slaughtered, their blood forever staining Rhovar.
This time, she would not be so useless. She would not stand idly by as demons lined her city with corpses. Gently, she pried her fingers from Ilaria’s. “You know I can’t.”
Whatever expression the princess wore was stolen by the darkness. She dipped her chin, a phantom among the shadows as she took one step down into the corridor and allowed it to consume her.
“Then promise me you won’t be reckless. Don’t try to be a hero.”
Aurelie said nothing, unable to deliver such a promise as the darkness swallowed Ilaria whole. Only then did she smooth the tapestry back into place, hiding any trace of the secret door.
Outside, her city screamed.
Aurelie turned toward the window, her fingers brushing the shutters apart to glimpse the courtyard below.
Knights swarmed like ants, their longswords catching the torchlight in quicksilver arcs.
She stopped just long enough to tie a crude binding around her shoulder wound and shrug into her hauberk before she hurried out the room, down the staircase, and onto the battlefield.
Aurelie tipped her head to the parapets, where crossbows took aim from between the stone battlements, a hail of steel falling upon any demon that dared approach. Even as she watched, a prideborn surged through the sky, struck in the chest as it fought to reach the castle.
“Bar the doors,” she commanded the knights stationed at the castle entrance. “No one enters or leaves until every demon is dead!”
She didn’t wait for their reply. Her boots struck cobblestones slick with blood and ash as she plunged into the chaos.
The streets were already a disaster. Beyond the courtyard lay a squire of barely fifteen writhing on the ground.
His arm was severed at the shoulder and blood pooled beneath him, glistening black in the torchlight.
His partner crouched beside him, her hands shaking as she pressed useless bandages to the wound.
The carcass of a greedborn sprawled before them, its bloodied fangs jutting from a slack jaw. The kill was a remarkable feat for two squires, though the cost was written plainly in the boy’s pallor.
Aurelie pressed onward despite the turmoil raging within her, drawn by the cries of the dying and the clash of steel echoing through the labyrinthine streets of Rhovar. Heat seared her skin as she passed stalls set aflame, thatched roofs collapsing in a shower of sparks.
Above, leathery black wings cut through the smoke, their shadows bathing the city in darkness. Her breath caught as a prideborn descended, almost elegant in the way it moved. The black markings along the demon’s body glowed as it hovered before one of the fires, its wings fanning the flames.
Hatred simmered within her, quelled only by the sight of her father’s blade tearing the demon open.
Captain Varen Chantelune moved like a storm through smoke and flame, his blade driving clean through the demon’s throat. Silver light burst from the blade as he severed the carotid, and the captain held fast as the prideborn collapsed with a guttural roar.
Azriel stood beside Varen, cutting a striking figure amid the carnage. The angel’s four wings unfurled to their full expanse, each of the sixteen eyes embedded within his feathers scanning the battlefield in all directions.
Azriel’s battle-worn face flickered in the blaze as more roofs ignited, though the angel could afford them none of his focus as several more demons emerged from the shadows.
All knights fought in pairs, yet the soulbound moved as one unit.
Their strikes wove together in perfect harmony, a dance of steel that left no opening for their enemies to exploit.
When Varen lunged, Azriel shifted effortlessly out of his path.
And when the captain’s blade was knocked aside by the sharp horns of an envyborn, Azriel was ready.
With practiced ease, he tossed a spare dagger to his partner.
Varen caught it mid-motion and drove the blade into the demon’s stomach.
Silver light flared as the dagger struck true, the power of Glory burning through the demon’s flesh.
Still, Aurelie’s eyes never left her father, one hand braced on her sword as he stumbled from the recoil and took too long to straighten.
The envyborn staggered, blood bubbling at its lips as it clutched its ruptured stomach. But there was no recovering from Glory. A single strike was all it took for the demon to collapse, dead.
Sweat glistened on her father’s brow as he turned to face her, black blood streaking his scarred cheeks. His eyes swept over her, ensuring her safety. She was doing the same, concerned that the grimace he wore wasn’t from battle frenzy but from the pain in his bones catching up with him.
Varen caught her worry, and his expression hardened. “See to the fire” was all he said before turning to rejoin the fray.
Aurelie scowled at his back. His command was easier said than done.
She turned toward the blaze and raised her sword high, hacking away the thatched roof where the flames climbed.
Sparks showered her as she kicked dirt over the embers, working quickly to smother the flames so that she might join her father for the next fight.
She’d nearly extinguished the blaze when the hairs on the back of her neck rose.