Because as soon as the passage solidified, white light pouring forth and bathing every inch of the cavern, the shadow of a god filled the archway.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Ophelia
Somehow,the Warrior God’s name came to my lips. “Echnid,” I breathed, an answer long sought, the word rippling out across the cavern.
“Like in Valyrie’s scrolls?” Tolek whispered in awe. Like the term Fatecatcher, this name had been there. The Starsearcher Angel had left the clues right before us, and we never realized what they meant.
I flicked a glance to her, her glowing starlight wings held high above the ground, pale blue gown drifting around her ankles, but Valyrie watched the archway. Every Angel’s stare was trained on it, waiting as the Warrior God stepped from his prison realm into ours, and howls of a thousand hounds echoed in his wake.
And that ripple his name had sent through the cavern shivered across my skin, down through the rock. I had a sickening feeling it was felt all the way across Gallantia, the god of this land returning to his people after millennia locked within a realm gate through our mountains.
I thought Rebel whined, that Sapphire and the khrysaor flapped their wings, that echoes of beasts everywherefelthis presence beneath their skin.
Silken white hair flowed to Echnid’s waist, lifting on his long-suppressed power. Skin nearly as pale glowed, white mist shooting and swirling around his being. It gathered in his palms as he lifted them, searching the ether as if he hadn’t seen it this active in a very long time. Perhaps as long as he’d been caged.
When he turned his attention on us, I gasped, my wings fluttering painfully in surprise and a trembling cry catching in my throat. The Warrior God’s eyes were a pure-white milky sheen, but somehow, his stare still pierced my very spirit.
A part of me wanted to bow. My bones dragged toward the earth under his scrutiny, like a moon caught in the orbit of something much stronger than itself.
Echnid scanned the theater, but those milky eyes came back to me. Evaluated every facet of my being so I felt bare and painfully vulnerable before him. The North Star Bind on my arm burned under his study, but eventually, his attention landed on those wings—my wings.
And when the Warrior God spoke, his voice had the deep timbre but effortless cadence of one who commanded obedience without needing to say anything. “The seraphs were never meant to return.”
Swallowing and gripping Tolek’s arm around my waist for support, I forced out, “Who are the seraphs?”
Echnid didn’t answer, only smiled, and it chilled my skin.
“What does it mean, sir?” Ptholenix asked, tattoos flexing on his forearms.
“It means,” Echnid drawled, “the curse of Ophelia woke your Guardian league. It will be so curious to see what else the mingling of myths can command.”
The Warrior God spoke to his Angels as if none of us were present. Granted, we should probably have kneeled, but warriors had gone millennia without the knowledge of any god to guide us. We didn’t know what to expect.
But we did have questions. And I forced myself to dig through the pain branching through my body, to forget the trail of blood slicking my back, and be the leader the warriors needed.
“What will happen now?” After a moment, I tacked on, “Sir? Magic has been unspooling through our land—the very magic used to lock you up. Will Gallantia replenish? The fae power regulate, the animals and storms calm?”
Would the known gods work with him to restore Ambrisk to its glory? Would he, them?
But Echnid shattered all those restorative hopes when he grinned and said, “Now, we get vengeance.”
My limbs trembled.No. Dread encased my heart. “What?”
The Warrior God did not answer. Instead, he commanded, “We cannot stay here.” My skin tingled under his attention. “Bring her to me.”
“What—”
I barely got the word out before Thorn’s gleeful cackle bounced off the rock. He swooped down before me, the earth shuddering at the mighty impact, and gripped my arm so bruisingly I screamed.
“What are you doing?” I stumbled forward as Thorn turned to the Warrior God, the Mindshaper’s dark halo still dripping black.
“Get your fucking hands off her!” Tolek roared, holding tight to my waist.
But Thorn wrenched me from his grasp and shoved me toward Echnid. With a tearing stretch, my wings reopened the wounds on my back. Fresh blood poured, spraying Tolek as he lunged for me and painting his skin in a murderous vision.
Thorn gripped the back of Tol’s hair, jerking him away from me, and that severance seemed so final—so permanent, it shoved me to teeter on the edge of my breaking point.
