“Bant’s gleaming cock,” Barrett swore.
“Don’t make eye contact,” I instructed. “There should be three more somewhere around the city.” It was a guess, but I didn’t imagine Echnid would send his Angels and onlyonegorgon here tonight. No, this felt like an all-out force. A final stand. And Spirits save us to find out what else he had planned.
The cerberus's lumbering gait and snapping jaws came to mind. The Mindshaper forces hadn’t arrived yet. We were alone on that front.
“They all wear those white dresses,” Mila added. “They might have the leather wings out or serpentine hair if they’re not in their human form.”
Barrett shivered. Dax nodded gravely. And I slammed the cage within my chest shut as I looked over the two of them and Mila. I couldn’t afford to consider losing any of them or the rest of my friends that were no doubt out in that city right now.
“We need to find weapons and leathers or armor,” I said to Mila, ripping Lucidius’s dagger from my waist—the only one we had between us—and holding it out to her.
“You keep that,” she insisted, pulling her hand back as I tried to place it in her palm.
“You need?—”
She raced back into the hall and grabbed a hooked sword from where it was displayed on the wall beneath a mystlight lantern, slashing the sharpened blade through the air.
“I’ve always wanted to try one of these,” she said with a grin. “Now is as good a time as any.”
I smiled at the gleam in her eye, the way her stare shifted to icy resolve, and she prowled to the edge of the steps, looking over the city descending into ruin. Wind whipped her braid around her face, loose pieces framing her cheeks, but her stare was honed intensity when I joined her.
“Leathers or armor if we can find it. Head to a nearby weaponry or Meridat’s, whichever we can get to first,” I repeated the earlier thought. “And we need to find Cypherion.”
“Cypherion?” Mila echoed.
“I’ll explain as we run,” I said tightening my grip on my dagger. “And General?”
“Yes?” Mila’s fortress dropped momentarily as I stepped up to her. I searched those ice-blue eyes as the rumble of another wall being hit by Angellight shrouded the city. Smoke spiraled high, the shouts of warriors mounted, but I only looked at her.
At this woman who had found me when I was broken but didn’t turn away. Who saw the collapsed ruin within me and the potential to rebuild from the rubble. To piece me back together one stubborn, crumbled brick at a time.
I’d been wrecked just as this city was being razed now, but I was not a lost cause. Neither was Xenovia. We wouldn’t relent.
When I met Mila, I may have been looking over the edge of a cliff, but she pulled me back from the jump. Showed me how fucking bright the stars could be if I dared to look up.
Sliding my hand around her waist, I pulled her flush against me and kissed her until she was panting.
Then, I dropped my forehead to hers. “You promised me every tomorrow. Don’t break that promise tonight.”
“Not a fucking chance, Warrior Prince.”
And we dove into battle.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Vale
Go on,Stargirl,Cypherion had said to me before he joined the others in battle.Go show the gods how you command the Fates.
I’d kissed him once, told him I loved him fiercer than any Fate tie, and Dynaxtar took to the sky. She was normally such a gentle creature, content to weave among the clouds and feel the mist along her leathery wings, but as she rose over a rubble-strewn Xenovia, dust clouding the mystlights and giving the entire bronze-domed city a hazy hue, she flew with the ferocity of a beast ready for battle. With precision and sharp turns.
Zanox was beside us, Jezebel leaning low against his back as she called orders to him. They were creatures who had carved out their names in legends, born to bear fierce warriors, and they showed no hint of mercy now.
I tightened my knees around Dynaxtar’s sturdy body, hands tangling in her luminescent silver mane. “Let’s see what we find in the stars.”
Taking the directive, Dynaxtar peeled away from Zanox as he and Jezebel continued their loop around the outer perimeter. Ophelia and Sapphire had disappeared as soon as we’d left the ground, soaring off on their own pursuit. My khrysaor spearedhigher, wings out and razor-sharp scales gleaming as we sliced through cloud coverage.
I cast a glance over my shoulder, but no Angels followed us.
