Chapter Seventy-Nine
Ophelia
Echnid’s chest bled,the mist around him withering until it laid lifeless on the ground. I watched in horror as his features shifted and form shrank. His brows and eyes darkened to a rich black, skin pulling in a lively flush instead of his ghastly white.
But he was not dead.
The light shattered around me like a wall of pure glass as I slammed into it. I ducked as shards rained over me, but strong hands gripped beneath my arms, wrenching me into the air.
Terror-stricken, I couldn’t even kick or fight, eyes on Echnid as I watched the godwho didn’t die.
Something changed within him. The mist hounding the city shrank in on itself until it vanished altogether, the god’s form withering with it, but his cruel smile was intent on me. I was carried higher in the air, away from his reach, until my feet finally met the roof of a nearby building, looking down on the battle raging below.
No one had stopped when I stabbed the god. They hadn’t let the shattering tunnel of Angellight deter their mission, warriors refusing to lay down their swords until the bloody end.
“Ophelia,” someone behind me said, and I whirled. Damien. It was Damien who had lifted me out of the god’s grasp at that moment, taken me to this rooftop away from the fight.
“What are we doing up here?” I panted, and my sword sprang back to life in my palm. The luminescent blade distorted the air, casting dancing light across Damien’s stoic features.
“I needed to get you away from him. To speak with you.”
I looked around the rooftop, searching for anything to latch on to as I reeled with what went on below. There was nothing up here but smokeless chimneys and stray bottles likely from teenagers drinking without their parents’ notice. It was so mundane compared to the conflict below. A monotony I was trying to get us back to, when people weren’t losing their lives. Their loved ones.
“I don’t understand!” I yelled at Damien, my Angellight blade beating brighter. The Vincienzo dagger was cool in my other hand. “I killed him! I sank the blade into his heart, and he bled—struck true as Xenique said. I saw the life leave his eyes.”
“There is more to it,” Damien claimed, hands fisting at his sides. The gold plates around his shoulders and matching vambraces twitched as if his muscles violently tensed beneath. “A god cannot be killed with a single blade, no matter how it is forged.”
Fury boiled in my gut. “There is always more to it!Alwaysone more thing I must do, one more emblem I must find or enemy I must face. When does itend, Damien?”
The words clawed up my throat, broken and raw, and I turned away from the Angel, gazing out over the battle below. Tolek. Where was he? Was he okay? Was Thorn’s magic ravaging his mind?
Memories of his nightmare-inflicted screams tore through me. I had to find him. Had to help him.
“It is not only a blade that is needed to sever Echnid’s life from this world,” Damien added as if I hadn’t said anything.
I whirled on the Prime Mystique, my voice as sharp as the dagger in my hand. “But he burned the trove! You pointed me in the direction of these infallible weapons, capable of severing the strongest life sources. Malakai read about them in other realms. Everything you pointed us toward implied thatthiswas Echnid’s weakness. This was what it took to get rid of him for good.”
“Yes, I did. And Echnid did have Ptholenix burn the trove,” Damien clarified, raising his voice over the shouts in the streets. “He did because hedoesfear blades—one specific weapon in particular, and he believed it was within the vaults of the Revered’s Palace. It was a weapon beyond warrior-made steel, one that could do more than kill his godly self. It had been traced back to the Mystique Revered’s trove until we lost track of the history. To be safe, he had the entire thing burned to avoid it falling into anyone’s hands. That’s why I pointed you toward forging new weapons.”
We’d been right. Through the murals, Damienhadbeen trying to tell us to imbue a new blade because the Angels couldn’t risk exposing that they were working against the god. That assurance calmed me enough to ask, “What do you meanmore than kill his godly self?”
“While a single strike would not seal his death, with that dagger, he could be made mortal, and from there…”
From there, he could be killed. By stabbing Echnid with a blade fashioned after the one he feared, I had turned him mortal.
My heart pounded. I extinguished my Angellight sword, crossing my arms and fixing Damien with a hard stare. “Explain.”
“In order to truly kill a god, the god must be made mortal first.”
“But Moirenna?—”
“That is what Echnid had been doing in Damenal. He was trying to figure out how to turn his siblings mortal so he could finally kill them. He read about thefel strella mythosafter you escaped and learned more about the warrior sisters’ powers in the books we’d left for Malakai to find.” His throat bobbed, his scar twitching with guilt. “He learned it required the combined magic toslayandraisea myth. He used your power that day he killed Moirenna.”
Hehadabsorbed our power in the desert that day. I’d suspected it with mine, but I hadn’t realized Jezebel’s had been pulled within his orbit, too.
My head raced. It was the Angels’ fault he’d found that answer. Their fault because they hadn’t been willing to outright offer their help and reveal their own plans.
“If Jezebel could kill his godly side, why couldn’t we use her magic to end him completely?” I asked.
