His light ebbed with visible magic, his wings dripping with shimmering gold. My pair was small in comparison, suited for my frame where as his seemed to swallow all the air around him.
Him and the six other Angels, each with their own magnificent wings. Ether poured from their forms.
Thorn roved the highest, power swirling around him like fog as his eyes crawled the cavern. On his head, a halo shone, thorned like his emblem and dripping with what resembled…blood.
I swallowed a bud of fear as one drop slipped from a spike, falling dozens of feet to the floor below. The other Angels watched him warily. And I could pick them all out, like the light I’d harnessed from their emblems tethered me to them.
“Hello, Ophelia,” Damien said, drifting lower with a smirk that tugged at his scar. The jagged slice to his face unsettled something sinister in my gut. “Well done.”
“What did you do?” I gritted out. “To Annellius.”
A swarm of emotion passed across Damien’s expression. Everything from sorrow to remorse to guilt. “He died, Ophelia.”
“You killed him.” Tears tore down my cheeks, both for the pain running through my muscles and for the ancestor I never knew. Damien had seen that Annellius, their Chosen, wanted to scorn the Angels, and he had killed him atop that mountain.
“We have all made mistakes,” Damien said.
I shook my head and my entire body throbbed. I cried out, breathing labored.
“What’s happening to her?” Tolek demanded.
“Something unprecedented” was all the Mystique Prime Warrior replied, eyes narrowed.
“I told you, Chosen Child,” the sphinx said from her perch in the top corner of the theater, “on the day of your birth, two legends merged into one, thanks to the Godsblood and the Angelcurse. Together, those myths woke a breath and blood not seen in so long, they were believed lost forever.Youawoke more myths than you know.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but a clear, awed voice rang through the cavern, “Ithinix?”
From the ring of Angels watching Thorn, one emerged, feathers unspooling with a deep purple light, so dark it was almost onyx.
Xenique.
The demigoddess ancestor of my mother’s line. My gaze flashed to Jezebel who was studying her from a distance. When she met my eyes, awe shone.
Xenique flapped her wings and drifted toward the sphinx. TowardIthinix, the name she had not revealed until her Angel returned.
“Hello, Mistress,” Ithinix cooed, her tale twitching.
Xenique laid a hand on the sphinx’s cheek, something so tender in the movement. So mortal in a way legend claimed the Angels couldn’t be. “I have missed you, dear friend.”
“And I, you,” the sphinx replied.
They were quiet for a moment, then Xenique peered around the sphinx’s body. “What has happened?”
Mila.
Ithinix observed the general, prone on the stone seats behind her. “Succumbed to the heart of the Gates of Angeldust.”
Xenique’s brow creased, but she nodded, dismissing our unconscious friend.
Malakai stepped toward the Angel, anger clear on his face, but before he could interject, Erista said, “Prime Warrior.” She crossed the cavern and kneeled at the bottom of the seats. The Soulguider opened her palms toward Xenique, gold crescent moon tattoos absorbing the Angel’s light. “As a loyal warrior, I ask for your blessing in our mission to guide spirits and secrets of the dead, that you may honor my practice with the power of your Goddess, the Mother of Death and Barer of Lives Lost.”
I looked to Damien, remembering the lack of reverence I showed in comparison. Though, he did have a habit of showing up at the most inconvenient times. And he apparently hadkilledthe last Chosen. I leaned closer to Tolek.
With a pleasant smile on her lips, Xenique looked from Erista to Jezebel—and then to me. “Rise, child.” Erista stood, tilting her chin up as the Angel floated down to her. “I have seen the good you have done in your practice. The matters you have guarded close to your heart, and the sisters you have guided back to me.”
Her words sent a squirming instinct through me. Jezebel’s silver-blue myth magic budded in her palms.
“With all due respect—” I gasped over the pain at my back. Before Jez could react to the Angel or her anger with Erista, I said, “My sister and I are Mystique Warriors. We may bare Soulguider blood—the blood of the gods—but we have both completed the Undertaking.”
