The prickles dug in deeper around my scalp, a crown of thorns doing its damn best to steal my mind, but it was too late. Every feeling I’d shoved deep into myself when Thorn attacked forced its way free.
And they screamed through me to the tune of one name:Ophelia.
The Mindshaper Angel dropped to the ground behind Cypherion, and his eyes locked on mine. Lightning skittered over my skin, that power digging deeper into my skull, but I held tight to everything that was good in my life. To every memory of her that chased away the nightmares because as long as I had Ophelia then I couldn’t be trapped in that damn darkness again.
And in my mind, I grabbed on to the Angel’s sharp bolts of lightning. Their power that tunneled through my body becameone with me like my blood flowed through my veins. I absorbed and warped it, consumed every last drop of storm-drenched magic as my sword had, the Blackfyre, blade and wielder conduits.
Then, I turned them right back on him.
Until the splintering bolts were forcing their way beneathhisskin.
Until he was screaming with the agony that haunted my nightmares.
And with a clawing, tearing sensation, I ripped my mind from the Angel’s grasp.
“Get thefuckout of my head!” I roared as lightning crackled between us.
Thorn’s eyes widened, and I swore the everlasting bastard stumbled back a step.
Cypherion released me, cheering as he realized I’d wrenched control back from the Angel. Pivoting around me, he tossed me my sword.
I took up the position at my friend’s side, and together, immune to the Angel’s fucking twisted manipulation, we charged.
Thorn sent the ground rumbling like thunder beneath our feet, a gust of deadly wind blasting at us. I gritted my teeth and kept my head down against the torrent, the power of the Blackfyre in my sword tunneling through my body. Cypherion and I attacked from opposite sides, in perfect balance.
Thorn cooed, “Your dreams are so very sweet.”
“Stay the fuck away!” I roared as loud as his wind.
“You are a weakling, plagued by human emotion.”
Cypherion swung his scythe for the Angel’s leg, and Thorn’s attention pivoted to him. The flat of my blade caught the Mindshaper in the ribs, the strike to his statuesque figure reverberating up my arms.
“I’m not fucking weak!” I said as my bones rattled. As power thrummed through me.
I twisted my grip, and the steel imbued with the dark promises of the tar pools sliced across his side, another scar from me added to the eternal bastard. Gold blood poured over my sword once again, splashing across my face and leathers.
A ghastly grin split Thorn’s features. Lightning bounced between his fingers.
“Not enough,” he said, as the wound stitched up. “You are foolish.”
I quirked a brow, my laugh crackling like Thorn’s gleeful one. “Maybe, but I am so much smarter than you.”
CK had been waiting for my diversion. And right as Thorn’s lighting bolted for me, Cypherion struck with that scythe. The blade carved through the air, gleaming with the glow of the amethyst lights flooding in the sky, and it cleaved his wings from the Mindshaper Angel’s forsaken back.
The Prime Warrior’s cry echoed with the force of torrential storms and brutal torment. The power I’d wrenched from him roared inside of me. A piece of the MindshaperInow controlled, after being tortured by his twisted magic.
And in the haze of pain, just as Cypherion’s scythe completed the blow, a veil ripped open behind Thorn, a bridge stretching to nowhere.
The Angel stumbled back, him and his severed wings swallowed up in a mess of gold-blooded feathers.
The roaring storm went silent, the clashes of battle returning around us.
Cypherion and I only looked at each other and his scythe, utterly lost, as Valyrie dropped before me. Wide eyed, she looked at where Thorn had disappeared, her expression paling.
But she shook it off.
“Tolek Vincienzo,” she said in her most commanding tone. “We have need of you.” Her attention cut to Cyph. “And where is the Fatecatcher?”
