As I watched Echnid prepare to commit his heinous crimes from my palace atop the mountains, they all flooded me. Growing every day since I left that deficient Stone Realm, where depravity lurked beyond the scope of the walls.
I shoved them down, fear coiling at the knowledge of what would happen if Echnid sensed it. With how entwined our power was with the realm, he was capable of it.
His attention was honed elsewhere now, though, as it had been since Valyrie had given him the knowledge he needed to break the long-standing protection of the Goddess. His distraction was our saving grace at the hands of the mist’s legacy.
But that unrepentant mistress was a ruthless bride of the realms, bending everything to her will, and her will was the mother of the gods. The one who birthed them to such almighty powers. And now, Echnid had his final pieces. His henchmenreaped in shadow and fire, the prophetic sacrifice to allow him access to a city long sealed, and finally, the understanding of the key that could carve open a bridge to deliver him those he sought to slay.
If he could only get it.
Echnid stood at the edge of the Rapture Chamber where my brothers and sisters and I gathered, and he prepared to tilt the world into travesty and chaos.
“You all know your orders?” Echnid repeated.
My cold heart withered at his tone, as we all echoed, “Yes.”
“Xenique?” Echnid asked.
“I am certain that is the blade.” My gaze flashed to my sister, concern lashing through me, tangling with the fury. I had not thought she would truly allow this tragedy of sacrifices.
Xenique exchanged a quick glance with Valyrie, and my concern morphed to curiosity. I was not accustomed to so many emotions changing so rapidly. It had my wings ruffling behind me.
Gaveny cast me a look, but there was no hint of his lingering mortal self in his expression tonight. The Tideshifter had sealed it all away on the cusp of what we were about to do—the crimes we were about to commit that would alter our existences permanently, but hopefully help us win steps toward what we had so long worked for.
Bant had played his part beautifully in the tarpits, driven the warriors to seize control and stumble into our path, but we had no certainty of what had occurred since. If now would be the right time. It appeared we had no choice.
“Fly now,” Echnid said, taking his throne before the pillars overlooking the mountains. His shadow fell across the view, a starry sky outlining his godly frame. One of his remaining gorgons slithered across his lap, her legs falling open as his handdropped between them absently. “I will follow when the time is most opportune.”
One by one, we stepped to the ledge of the Rapture Chamber. And with a reluctant beating of wings, we plunged to the drop below. Thorn’s laughter pealed into the dark sky, cracking off the stars.
I looked over my city—a reminder of why I must stick to this plan. Dread clouded my chest as I took flight, my golden ether spilling among a medley of colors and infiltrating the night.
And as Damenal was left in the distance, I clung to that desperate, ruthless but confident look my sisters had exchanged. And I wondered how deeply they’d woven their web around the god’s greed.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Ophelia
Tolek had ledme back to our room, a roguish smile across his lips the entire time. He’d run a hot bath full of jasmine-scented soap, and helped me into it, slowly massaging my shoulders, my neck.
His mouth had followed his hands until I was the purest form of relaxed. Then, he’d spun me around and I’d straddled his lap, riding him in a combination of gentle kisses and burning desire, seraph magic shimmering across the tiled bathing chamber the entire time.
When we were clean, he’d toweled off my hair, slipped a robe over my frame, and disappeared back into the bedchamber. I’d followed, leaning against the doorframe as he threw the curtains wide.
“Dance with me?” he’d asked, crossing the moonlit room to where I stood.
I laughed. “There’s no music.”
Tol shrugged as he took slow steps backward, pulling me with him. “We’ll make our own.”
And as I’d settled into his arms, the syncing beats of our hearts and the rhythmic sway of our steps did just that. Thestories we’d written through our past and the legends we’d spin in the future became the tune we moved to. That was our song, the lives we’d build, tales yet to be written.
After a few dances, I pulled him back to the bed where he continued to lavish my body and whisper words of sweet adoration in my ear. When he was done, I used my seraph magic to form unbreakable binds around his wrists, pinning him to the headboard as I kissed down his body. I showed him exactly how grateful I was for the care he’d shown me every day since I’d escaped Echnid.
Those hours, as Tol held me in the silence and made me laugh until my cheeks hurt, I thought of the Firebird and the Fox. And I knew with every fiber of my cursed being and every drop of Angel and Godsblood within me that even come fire and ashes, I would go to the ends of the realm for this love.
We were not purely built on hope but fate as well. And together, the two burned brighter than any flames, unbound and utterly unquenchable.
And if this looming battle really did take us, I would have wanted to go just like that, with Tolek imprinted on my skin and my light burning the realm to ash.
