My boots skidded over sand as I turned a sharp corner, nearly sliding out from under me. I pressed my hands to the ground to catch myself, shooting up before I even noticed the stinging scrapes on my palms. I willed Angellight into them to staunch any bleeding, not stopping my breakneck stride.
Warriors raced around me. Some—weaponless—heading toward the perimeter of the city. A few—with swords and scythes and axes at the ready, steel determination in their eyes—in the direction I headed. Starsearchers shouted readings to their comrades, and Soulguiders and Bodymelders raced to assist the fallen.
Leaping over a toppled, cracked bronze bust of one of Xenique’s three daughters, I emerged into the square that had been packed with reveling warriors at the bonding ceremony just hours ago, and I halted.
It was a massacre now.
A battlefield that was never meant to be, shining sculptures painted red and stone crumbling from buildings, dug up fromwalkways. The Spirit River that wound through the desert city churned maroon with blood beyond the capitol building.
And Echnid stood in the center of it all, on top of the dais leading to the enormous statue of Xenique that marked the city center, behind rows of warriors.
Hundreds, from every clan, dressed in all manners of garments and baring an array of weapons, stood with their backs to the god and their eyes trained on me. Eyes that swirled with a distant, unnatural vision.
Deep purple lightning crackled through the sky, the power sending my heart rioting and magic tugging at my skin.
“What have you done?” I yelled over the heads of the warriors. Their stillness breathed a haunting chill down my spine.
“You seem to think you can end my rule, Ophelia Alabath, but you will be a grand part of it. And these subjects”—the god raised a hand, his mist so dense around it—“have joined us.”
The ranks parted, and from within, the woman who stabbed my wing emerged, bangles of fire wreathing her wrists. The demigoddess, daughter of a god and a gorgon. On either side of her stood a male, all three dressed in the same stark onyx, all pristinely polished.
But I couldn’t even begin to question them because from behind the demigods stepped two familiar forms that stopped my heart.
Tolek and Barrett, unrecognizable masks of cruelty on both of their faces. The rest of the city went silent as I met Tol’s eyes.
“Vincienzo?” I gasped. The sky swirled a deep amethyst, purple lightning crackling again and sending my blood pounding faster. The Vincienzo dagger nearly slipped from my fingers, but I caught it, the silver warming against my palm.
Tolek tracked the motion without a hint of recognition. That gaze that had poured over me like molten lava so many timesroved from my head to my toes, but there was no familiarity. No warmth in his chocolate irises.
As if he didn’t know me at all.
Beside him, Barrett had the same detached expression across his princely face. No—not detached exactly. But removed, the usual emotive, boyish charm replaced with distaste.
“Tol,” I said softer, a voice I only ever let him hear. “Tol, what’s going on?”
Behind me, warriors shuffled, but I couldn’t break his stare to look at them.
Tolek picked me apart, and I swore his eyes flashed with something warm. Only for a beat, but long enough for me to piece together thatthiswas not Tolek, not even pretending. It wasn’t some scheme he and Barrett had concocted or some conniving alliance they’d discreetly secured with the demigods.
Something had gone very wrong.
Wings beat overhead, and seven Angels crashed to the ground behind the warrior ranks. Lightning skittered through the air, and rumbling rattled my bones. My attention landed on Thorn, and ire burned through me as I understood.
“What have you done to them?” I hollered, all sense of decorum in this face off lost.
“Ophelia…” Damien warned.
“No!” I sliced through his protest. “Why, Thorn? Why have you done this?”
Thorn had worked his way into Tol’s and Barrett’s minds. He’d corrupted them and taken advantage of their worst nightmares in order to wrest control of their physical forms, as he likely had the rest of the warriors now standing before Echnid. They were all tortured spirits, and the Angel with the power to influence emotions and minds pulled their strings.
It was despicable. Broken rage splintered through my gut, and in response, I gathered a storm cloud of my own, light snapping and whirling around me.
And I let it fly at Thorn.
It crackled more fiercely than the Angel’s magic, fueled by the injustice of everything we’d suffered. Of stealing the autonomy of people I loved and was sworn to protect, of the years I’d spent being lied to and betrayed.
I shoved every bit of fury the Angels had wrought within me into the sparking clouds and burning light—calling down that purple lightning painting the skies to streak through it—and slammed the power into Thorn’s chest, right across the mark he bore from Tolek’s attack in the mountains.
