“No,” I growled. “I’ve fought long enough—lost enough, Tolek! I won’t have another thing taken.”
And instead of whirling toward Xenique and placing the orb in her waiting hands, I drew Angelborn.
Ritalia’s eyes widened as I pulled back my arm and she realized what I was about to do—where the force of my fury was going to land. With some ability I didn’t understand, the bloodyqueen of the fae waved a hand, and my spear was ripped from my person. In shock, I pulled Starfire, but she went sailing, too.
Then, before my eyes, Ritalia snapped her fingers. And with a smile carved from an ungodly place, she melted Starfire and Angelborn down to a river of silver and gold.
And that cracking of my heart—it became a severance as she took one more thing from me.
A scream wrenched from my throat. I lunged, but strong arms caught my waist.
Starfire.
The last piece I had of my father. The gift he’d given me on my tenth birthday. Theonlysword I’d ever owned. Wiped from the world in the snap of bloodstained fingers, as his life had been taken with a blast.
I cried out for my father, my voice ragged. His loss echoed through me endlessly as my sword liquified before my eyes.
And Angelborn.
Starfire was a weapon that grewwith me, but Angelborn was the one createdfor me. Malakai had used it, too. That spear—it had been a piece of him and a driving symbol of hope when I’d found it. A sign that he was still alive, an indication that I was right not to give up on him. To fight.
And now, as Starfire’s singular gem fell to the swirling stream of molten silver and gold, it was like both weapons pierced my chest. Through bone and beating heart, all the way to their gleaming hilts.
Both parts of me I’d relied on, wiped from existence, their loss as deep as a piece of my own soul. I was a rag doll being pulled between enemies of gods and Angels, and my seams were splitting. Ripped apart as Lancaster’s bargain was trying to rip Tolek from me.
The call of the debt had been the striking of a match, and now the fae queen added kindling to the fire in my roaring heart. Furyburned through me, and I heaved in breaths I hadn’t even been aware of taking. My knees struck the floor and a warm chest braced my back.
Tears lashed down my cheeks. Tears for the piece of my father I’d lost, tears for Tolek, and wrathful tears for every wretched god and Angel and queen who tried to control me. Tears for the girl I’d been who’d never really had command over her life at all. Who had only been collecting these pieces?—
These pieces that meant so much to her, only for higher powers to continue to tear them away. Love after love, heartbreak after heartbreak.
“I’m so sorry,” Tolek muttered in my ear. His words were a gasp, a sign of Lancaster’s bargain slowly taking effect.
And that spurred the tears on faster. Turned every breath guttural as fire raged within me.
Tol didn’t say it was okay like he usually did when I was upset. He knew that to take a warrior’s weapons was to extinguish the light in their spirit, and he knew better than anyone how this particular dousing would drown me. How they’d all been crashing down on me for months.
Luckily for us, I’d burn from those depths before I allowed them to take him. I’d burn as bright as the fucking Angels.
“Keep fighting, Ophelia,” Tolek repeated. “Show her her mistake.” And it was his fading voice over that last word that made me find my own.
Through my sobs, I roared, “Stay true!”
And every warrior around me called out in answer.
Chapter Seventy-One
Cypherion
Ophelia’s crywas made of pure fury, and I answered the call. Scythe in hand, I was guarding her before I could think.
I lunged in front of Ophelia as she gathered herself on the ground, the fae guards already advancing. The Revered’s teeth were bared, her eyes sharp as daggers on Ritalia. Tolek towered over her, muttering something even as he pulled his sword to defend her. He seemed steady, despite Lancaster’s bargain. Winded and enraged, but alive.
As I swung my scythe behind a fae soldier’s knees and drove the blade into his gut, I couldn’t imagine the pain ripping through Ophelia. Not as she watched the molten silver and gold swirling before her.
I gripped my own sacred weapon tighter and continued to swing with the might of the man who had earned it.
As I took on fae after fae, defending the warriors around me, I channeled the father I didn’t know—the one who earned a blade worthy of the Angels—and I picked off the enemies, my eyes on their queen.
