“SAVE HIM!” I screeched, one hand curling around Malakai’s, the other locked to Tolek’s arm around my waist as he held me up.
“There might not be time,” Damien said. “It may not be what he wanted.”
“He wants it!” Mila blurted. Malakai’s eyes closed as his head rested in her lap. “He wanted another chance at our lives after this.” She didn’t look away from Malakai, but her words were cutting enough that even Damien would feel them. “He only did this because he wanted it all toendand because his heart is so bruised, he thought everyone deserved to see tomorrow more than he did. If there is a way, give him thefuckingchance after what he did for you all.”
Damien swallowed at the command, rarely having interacted with my friends beyond me. The other Angels were quiet behind him, deferring to the Mystique Prime Warrior.
And around Xenovia, no one said a word in defiance. Warriors kneeled in the city center, the injured cried out as healers transported them, and spirits continued to undo Thorn’s mind manipulation. But the mythical creatures perched on rooftops. Soldiers placed their hands over their hearts. And everyone waited in tense silence for the Angels to act.
Damien exchanged a glance with Xenique, and she nodded. What that meant, I didn’t know. Didn’t care.
He turned back to us and said, “I will try.”
Without more of an explanation, Damien lifted Malakai’s limp body gently into his arms. I squeezed his hand, and Mila kissed the man she loved one more time, whispering to him though his chest didn’t rise or fall.
Then, the Angel beat his wings and launched into the air.
I slumped back against Tolek, pulling Mila with me, her frame quivering more the further Malakai got.
And as Damien flew off toward the mountains, the night was pitch black.
Every star had stopped shining.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Damien
I had not imaginedvictory would taste so bitter.
In all my existence, I had suffered hundreds of wars. And never once had surviving been so heavy. The loss of life was always sorrowful, but it was necessary.
This star-tied boy in my arms, though, was not. He was never the one meant to suffer. It had always been the Chosen. And for the first time, I considered perhaps she had not been treated fairly either.
My brothers, sisters, and I had one goal. To reclaim the power that had been unfairly taken from us so we could restore the Balance and find those lost to time. We had been willing to see anyone suffer for it because it was so much bigger than us. Than any warriors on Ambrisk. The power we once contained spread across realms, to those suppressed and held down, to the hands of the great mist herself.
I landed atop the rocky ridge. Heat I had not felt since prior to the Ascension burned across my wings and flesh. Ravenous lava sparked into the air, bubbling and wanting. It churned, more insistent than I ever recalled.
It hungered for a warrior. For a subject to take just as my brothers and sisters and I had taken. The body in my arms did not move, his life nearly faded away now. There was only one chance.
“We did not work so hard only for you to die today, Malakai Blastwood,” I said.
The molten fire yearned to claim him, and one way or another it would. So, I lowered him into the heat and let him slip away. It was up to his spirit what happened next.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Malakai
Death was lighterthan I expected.
It wasn’t often that I considered what the Spirit Realm would be like. When I was imprisoned, the idea had hounded me, but I never came up with a clear picture of it.
Dark, though. Heavy. Weighed down by the things you carried on your spirit. That’s what I had always expected in that cave within the Mystique Mountains. But now, I was weightless.
Air swished past me, and warmth cocooned me.
Warmth?
Why was it warm here?
