Six dayssince I unleashed Echnid on the world. Since I fell for the Angels’ tricks and manipulation, freeing the Warrior God from his prison, and he uttered that devastating goal: vengeance.
“Are you okay?” Spirits, my throat was achingly dry.
Malakai nodded, helping me prop against the pillows, then he crouched beside the bed and handed me a glass of water. Every inch I moved hurt, but not in the tearing, burning way thatmade me cry out. This was the satisfied ache of a brutal training session. A soreness that plagued every blink but was a reward of effort. Of clawing back from the brink I’d been on.
Malakai waited until I drained the glass—in slow sips—then answered, “I’m fine. How are you feeling?”
At his question, a flash of seraph power burned through my veins, more potent than the strongest Angellight I’d experienced.
Because it is, a voice in my head said. At the reminder, I pushed myself upright fully. The weight of my wings at my back drew a groan from me as they tugged at the muscles around my shoulder blades. But I forced it down.
I will not be weak again.
I’d always thought myself strong—a Mystique warrior and a proud Alabath daughter. But that day in the theater, after the sphinx revealed the true purpose of the Angelcurse, after fighting Queen Ritalia of the fae and her taking so much from us, I wasn’t sure if I had ever been as strong as I thought.
With the power in me now, though, I would claim back that might and then some. I would not permit the Angels or gods to make me anything less than what I was: a legend reborn.
With that determination, I inhaled. As I blew out a breath, I sent a wave of Angellight around the room, burning with ten times the intensity I’d intended.
Malakai swore, ducking below the golden tide as it shimmered across marble surfaces and mystlight chandeliers. Its warmth painted my bedchamber with a conviction that strengthened my spine and soothed the tearing muscles along my back.
The Angellight danced, rising and fading to a steady hum gathered along the ceiling. It cast a glimmer around the room, coloring Malakai’s awestruck features. After a few moments, he turned that expression on me.
“I feel okay physically,” I said, clinging to the strength of the seraph within me. Emotionally, I was wrecked. Guilty and worried, terrified and so fuckingangry. The riot of emotions tangled within me, a storm brewing.
Malakai brought his hand to his chest, rubbing his North Star tattoo. My eyes locked on that ink through his thin white tunic, still so stark and angles sharply poised against his scarred skin.
“Are you mad?” he asked, clearing his throat as if the pang of emotion was so potent he actually felt it.
I nodded, gaze dropping to my own tattoo. I brushed my thumb across the four-pointed star, and Malakai’s words from another life filtered through my memory.My North Star. So that we may always come back to each other.
“We’ve come so far, Malakai,” I muttered.
“A long way from Palerman,” he agreed.
“A long way from illegal tattoos beneath the stars,” I said, almost to myself. “From looking at the future with wide-eyed hope and eager dreams.” Now, we were a product of merciless manipulation and deceit. They had forced us to grow with those things—to become them.
Malakai, still crouched beside the bed, moved so he was in my line of sight. “What do you need, Phel?”
“I need…” I needed my palace to be rid of the god now commandeering it. I needed this power in my veins to feed on his life and all those who had lied to me. I needed to be back with our family, to know they were okay.
But none of those were what I chose. No, instead I chose the one thing that would encompass them all. “I need to be who they turned me into. And then I need to scorch them all.”
Let’s make them fucking scorch, Tolek’s words burned through me.
Malakai didn’t shrink from the ire in my voice as he once would have. He didn’t cower or run from the fight. His foreststare hardened like evergreens iced over in winter, and with a straight-lipped nod, Malakai Blastwood, the former heir to the Revered of the Mystique Warriors, the boy who had been ruined by those he trusted, the man who had so much taken from him, gripped my arm just over my North Star Bind.
And he swore, “We’re going to do just that.”
Something beat beneath the crease of my elbow, an undetermined emotion, but if it was anything like the promise in Malakai’s stare, it was a vow. We’d get back to the people we loved even if it killed us.
Angels, despite the unknown danger we were both in with Echnid in this palace, I was grateful Malakai was here with me.
Tenderly, I turned, shifting my legs over the end of the bed and slowly rising to my feet.
“Have you heard from anyone?” I asked. My entire body ached as I tested a step forward, the Angellight slow to heal the extensive damage of the seraph emerging.
“Echnid took all the Mystique ink,” Malakai said, helping me take slow steps across the room. “I haven’t wanted to leave you more than necessary, but I searched a few offices and didn’t find a thing.”
