Chapter Sixty
CHAPTER
SIXTY
Aurelie would die tonight.
She knew it as she watched Yuri fall from the sky, a star snuffed of its flame.
The world seemed to hush around his descent, and in that silence, she counted her own heartbeats, jagged and hot in her throat.
Pain bloomed beneath her ribs and down to her thigh, where an arrow had left her bleeding.
Each twitch of her muscles was a fresh wave of agony.
The battle was raging. Her father fought nearby, barely managing to keep the Soldiers from reaching her.
Each clash of blades sounded farther off, as if the world had narrowed to the ache in her body and the warmth of blood seeping down her leg.
Severin, too, lay bleeding out across the room.
Yuri was curled over him, Azriel standing guard with his sword drawn as he faced the commander.
Aurelie forced herself to sit up, biting back a cry. The effort sent another jolt down her side and into her wounded leg, and Severin hissed through the mirrored pain.
He deserves this, whispered the bitter voice within as she watched him struggle, straining for each breath.
He’d brought this upon them, and yet she couldn’t unbraid her anger from the ache she felt at seeing him so broken.
Severin’s wrath tore through her, but fuel lay beneath every flame, and his was a pain so ancient and consuming that it filled every crack and hollow within him until Aurelie could feel nothing else.
She trembled as she gripped the arrow, bracing herself. Before she could change her mind, she jerked it from her body with every ounce of strength she had left, doubling over with a scream as pain threatened to turn her vision white.
She refused to let it. If they fell here, so would Rhovar. Azriel and her father would be slaughtered for standing against the angels. And what would become of Ilaria, spirited away by a prince whose very presence made her skin crawl?
Nicolas lay writhing against a table, every muscle straining as he fought the transformation.
Marcel and Edevane were at his side, gripping his shoulders as if force alone could will the demon out of him.
Watching them, Aurelie couldn’t breathe.
She clutched the pendant at her throat, mind drowning beneath the truth that Orion and her mother had both died to buy her this chance.
She couldn’t let their sacrifice be wasted; these were her people, and Xadriel would not have them.
Her gaze caught on Severin’s flute, shattered amid the rubble.
The demon gritted his teeth as he reached for it, desperate, but the instrument was split clean in two, its song forever silenced.
Still, Severin tried to coax sound from it, snarling and hurling it across the grand hall when it refused to play.
Aurelie felt him slipping, his strength pooling out onto the stone. He clung to the last dregs of magic, searching for a way out, but his body had little left to give.
Aurelie’s hands curled into fists, nails biting into her palms as if that alone could anchor her to the world.
Surely this couldn’t be it.
Her eyes wandered past him, drawn by a gleam of polished wood amid the chaos.
A lyre lay half-hidden beneath the toppled music stand of a fallen court musician.
For an instant, the clamor of battle faded, and in that hush, Aurelie heard her mother’s voice as clear as Rhovar’s bells: “Remember that there is more to this world than swords and bloodshed. A good song can outshine any blade, so keep singing, my love, and promise that you’ll never stop. ”
There had to be a way out. There was always a way.
Time slowed, the world narrowing on that single thought.
The pendant burned against her skin, and suddenly Aurelie was leaving a trail of blood across the floor as she dragged herself to the lyre, the wood cool beneath her fingers.
It felt steady in her grasp, as if it’d been waiting for her all along.
No matter where you are, you cannot hide from sound. Severin’s words circled in her mind as she drew the lyre close. Suddenly she was a child in the archives, Orion scribbling in his journals while her mother’s hands steadied hers on the strings.
Grief rose, threatening to swallow her whole. She would give anything to return to that moment—to feel like the world was full of possibility, and to not yet know the cold reach of fear. This was her most painful memory, and yet in the moment it steadied her.
There wasn’t a soul in Rhovar who hadn’t lost someone, not one who wouldn’t give up everything if it meant putting an end to this war.
Which was why she understood with perfect clarity what she must do.
“I’m sorry.” She pressed her lips to the pendant and prayed for her mother’s spirit to guide her. Then she began to play.
Music spilled into the chaos—a quiet, trembling line of hope threading through the scorched air.
She called Severin’s magic to her and caught the faint, startled hitch of his breath.
He turned, blood streaking his face. Every inch of him was battered, yet his eyes shone clear and certain as they found hers.
Do it, his gaze urged, and in the next instant, power surged through her veins.
Severin’s magic flooded her, blazing through every limb until it felt as if she might burn from the inside out.
Her body shook with it, pushed to the edge of what flesh could bear.
Every wound ached, each breath a battle to stay conscious, and for a moment she was certain the magic would consume her entirely.
That it would hollow her out and leave nothing but ash in its wake.
Hope was the only thing keeping her anchored—hope for Rhovar, for the ones she loved, for a future that was more than worrying about who would be ripped from her next. She held on to that hope with everything she had.
This would not be their end.
Aurelie’s hands trembled as she coaxed sound from the battered lyre.
She reached for her people with every note, letting each soul flicker to life in her mind’s eye, bright as a flame in the dark.
She strummed again, forcing herself to ignore the blood pouring from her shoulder and thigh and to remember a song.
Any song. In the end, it was one of Severin’s ridiculous melodies that came to her.
She played, awkward at first, but as the notes wove together, she wound the music around each soul.
Her magic ensnared them, warm and suffocating. She felt their bodies as if they were her own, marionettes on invisible strings. And as she held them there in her grasp, she fed them her will.
“Drink,” Aurelie commanded every soul who had managed to avoid the wine thus far, her voice barely a whisper over the music. “Drink, and fight for your kingdom. If you want your bodies back, claim them.”
Even as she spoke, revulsion curled through her. To take control of them like this, to feed them her will, felt like poison in her heart.
Still, she would not stop.
One by one, her people drank.
Edevane fought the command with every inch of her will, hands trembling as she brought the chalice to her lips.
As soon as she’d had her taste, Marcel tore the wine from her grasp to finish it himself.
Azriel abandoned the commander to wrap himself around Varen, holding him back from clawing at the nearest cup.
The queen, too, leaned over her husband’s corpse to drink from the same chalice that had turned him.
Aurelie watched, tears streaking her face, as Sybil drained every last drop.
Severin never looked away, pouring all that remained of his strength into her.
Every ragged pulse, every battered thread of will, he gave freely.
Beside him, Yuri pressed both hands to Severin’s wound, sweat shining on his brow as he tried to summon what little healing magic he had.
Light flickered weakly under his palms, but it wasn’t enough for a wound so deep.
Protect them, Aurelie commanded her people.
Show the angels why, after all we’ve faced, Rhovar still endures.
She could feel herself slipping, the world blurring as her back pressed against the cold stone wall.
Still, she played, knuckles white on the lyre, refusing to let the music die even when she could no longer feel her leg.
Chaos tore through the crowd as, under her command, the freshly turned demons hurled themselves at the angels.
They were clumsy and uncontrolled, some barely able to keep their balance as they fought.
Spilled wine glistened on the floor, quickly joined by a mess of black and gilded blood and feathers.
One demon sent a shock of blue electricity skittering across the stones, the magic wild and unchecked.
Another sent a table flying through the air, crashing into a Soldier’s chest and knocking the angel hard against a wall.
It was pure bedlam, and for the first time, the angels looked truly afraid.
Their formation broke, several flying into the air.
The demons struggled to follow, not yet familiar with flight.
A few crashed into the rafters, while others lost control of their magic, sending themselves or the angels sprawling.
Xadriel moved through the carnage with murder in his eyes.
He stepped over the bodies of his own fallen, wielding a blade that shone silver.
Aurelie’s heart stuttered at the sight—these demons wouldn’t be immune to Glory.
From the corners of her eyes, she could already see several bodies felled.
Still, her people were rallying, those who’d found their magic protecting the others.
They went for the angels’ wings, and screams tore through the air as three demons managed to tear a pair off an angel’s back.
Lori, still recovering, sank into the shadows of the grand hall, terrified.
Xadriel didn’t notice his retreat, his sights set on Yuri as Azriel struggled with several Soldiers who took aim at him.