Then, she was airborne, the wall dissolving before me. I tumbled forward scrambling to Harlen.
“There has to be—He isn’t?—”
But he was. His lungs didn’t search for final breaths, and his eyes were peacefully closed. The wound was no longer bloody, like that last flare of Angellight had killed him, healed it, and cleansed the slice all in one.
“Harlen,” I sobbed again, my entire body quaking.
An arm wrapped around my waist, and I didn’t even try to fight the person off. My broken soul knew who it was.
“Stargirl,” Cypherion soothed. His hands held firm to my body as mine searched Harlen for any sign that this could beundone. That he hadn’t been taken from me just as we both found a freedom we’d deserved all our lives.
I collapsed back against Cypherion, the battle raging in the square behind this small alley. At least we had that—this one moment of peace that should have been a lifetime.
“Why did she do this?” I cried into Cypherion’s chest.
“I don’t know,” he said.
And as he held me when I said goodbye to my only childhood friend, something extinguished within me—and something entirely new woke.
A star blinking to life.
I looked around Cypherion to Dynaxtar and saw the same burning in her slitted eyes. A white-hot rage birthed by the tearing sensation through my chest, the well of Fatecatcher magic bubbling up, ripping a way for something to come through.
Undiluted fury and the promise of revenge, sealed by the Fates.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Ophelia
Sapphireand I flew above Xenovia, ducking around columns of dust puffing up from the debris of the fallen walls and barricades. Below, a mystlight lamp crashed to the ground in the market, and a fire flared up in its place, latching onto the drapery that covered the stalls bordering the street. Screams echoed—the cries of warriors whoweren’tactivesoldiers, who were supposed to be as safe as possible in this city, guarded by Artale’s magic.
Spirits, what was happening? Where in the damn Angels was the Goddess of Death now to protect the warrior clan her daughter ruled? Where was Xenique?
Jezebel and Zanox were on our tail, my sister and I shooting whips of gold and silver light down to clear pathways when we could. As we circled, the fire spread through the market.
“We’re flying lower! Check the rest of the city, and track the Angels if you can!” I shouted to Jezebel. She nodded, Zanox taking off across the sky as Sapphire dove into the melee.
Warriors were trapped in the market stalls. We flew for the center, and as we passed over the fountain marking the heart of the square, I pulled at Gaveny’s light. A wave of blue ether duginto the water in the basin and sent it cascading over the nearest stretch of flames surrounding a candle stall.
It was a cheating way to command the water—not pure control—but it worked. A small section of flickering orange was doused before it could reach the wicks of their wares. Feet pounded as those who had been stuck behind it ran free.
As Sapphire looped back around, I honed my seraph magic into a shimmering wall, tossing it up to hold the smoke back so a group of warriors who’d been crouching beneath a stone shelter could flee, coughing and heads bent against the searing heat.
It was a barrage of power as we tried to evacuate the market, one stall and one threat at a time, and still the flames crept higher. The smoke filled the sky and tents. As if in answer, the Angellight of the Firebird woke within me, purring at how near the fire was, wanting to play.
“Fly higher,” I breathed to Sapphire, my eyes stinging as I tried to find anyone else who needed help. Her hooves skimmed the tops of the still-intact tents, and catching my breath, I reached down into the depths of my power, picking apart the strands. Then, I sent a coil of orange-tinted seraph light licking across the ground, tapping into the Bodymelder affiliation with living beings to sense any beating hearts below.
“There!” I pointed, leaning closer to Sapphire’s body, and my warrior horse charged, her wings tucking in as she got closer to the stall. Once a fruit stand, now ashes and crumbling wooden beams trapping four warriors within.
A creaking filled the air, and Sapphire flared her wings out, screeching to a halt that nearly unseated me as one of those beams crashed across our path.
Craning my neck around the debris, I called, “Are you injured?”
They all shook their heads, three eagerly crowding the front while the fourth lingered in the shadows. Wrenching up a waveof power, just as I’d seen the Angels do, I sent a crackle of seraph magic against a nearby stone wall, some building I didn’t know nor care the purpose of right now. The surface crumbled, but as stone lined the path, it didn’t burn.
No, it formed a barrier through the lower flames, providing a bridge of sorts. Three of the warriors raced to their safety, but the fourth lingered, fear morphing her features as she studied the fire and shook her head.
“You have to run!” I yelled, but she’d waited too long.
