Mora gasped.
“I’m sorry!” I rushed out.
“Knock it off, Mystique!” Lancaster roared as Rina scolded him for moving.
But Mora gritted out one word: “No.”
The gold trickled around her wound, wrapping it like a sheer bandage. But through that sheen, tendrils were visible. Little offshoots winding through her veins, targeting whatever taint festered there.
I didn’t understand how it was working—it was only my will controlling it—but I asked, “It’s helping?”
Mora’s brow relaxed. “A bit.”
I didn’t know how long we stood there. Cypherion paced the room, checking on us every so often and demanding we recount our tale. Jezebel, Erista, and Lyria pressed for details. Rina worked on Lancaster, claiming there were hundreds of impossibly small shards of cypher in his wound, and I worked on Mora.
Until the door to the dining room flew open, and we all braced ourselves. In my mind, the shrieks of the dead echoed.
But it was Dax’s broad shouldered-form that filled the frame. And in his arms?—
“Cypherion?” the Engrossian General shouted, Vale curled against his chest and Celissia walked at his side.
Cyph, striding swiftly around the tables hosting the fae, was in front of Dax in a moment. “Vale?” His eyes snapped up to Dax and Celissia. “What happened to her?”
Behind them, Mila and Barrett pushed through the door before the Engrossians could answer.
“By the fucking Spirits,” Tolek cursed, and we both raced forward—Mora assuring us she was okay to rest now—to where Malakai’s arms draped around their shoulders. The reek of blood stung the air, and Malakai could barely stand.
Tol reached to help support him but Barrett snapped, “Don’t touch his back.”
“His back?” I asked, scampering around Mila. And I gasped. Tolek swore viciously.
“It’s not that bad, Tol,” Malakai slurred, attempting to lift his head, but it only bobbed back down. His entire body winced. “Not like before.”
Before.
Rage roared through me as I took in the torn, ragged flesh. That’s what Malakai’s back had become. The scars from his imprisonment were shredded, and three large lashes ripped the surface, turning his back into a cross work of bloody, gleaming skin.
I never saw Malakai’s wounds this fresh—when I’d found him in the cave nearly a year ago, everything had been healed. I’d witnessed plenty of ghastly injuries in my life, but nothing like this.
Nothing that gave a new life to the wrath beneath my skin.
But with it, nausea swept through me. How had tonight gone so wrong? How had so much blood been spilled? And all for these emblems we didn’t even understand—one we didn’t even find. For the Angels who seemed to think us their puppets.
“What the fuck happened?” I growled.
“Titus happened,” Mila ground out.
Santorina was already preparing a table for Malakai, laying down towels. “Put him here.”
But Mila swept the scene. “I can take him,” she offered. At Rina’s nervous look she added, “I dealt with worse during the first war.”
Santorina wrung her hands. “Okay. Take whatever you need.” She nodded to the bar, strewn with her supplies.
“Thank you,” Mila said, a sigh of relief floating through her words. “Barrett? Tolek?”
Together, they helped a barely conscious Malakai through the dining room and up the stairs. I wasn’t sure how they managed to get him all this way, but I was grateful they had.
“Cypherion?” Vale stirred, voice timid. We whirled to face her—now in Cyph’s arms—as her eyes blinked open slowly. “It hurts.”
