by Jessica Gunn
My stomach dropped, my heart frozen, and I too turned to look. Bile slicked my throat, preparing me for the worst.
Lady Azar stood on the dais. She had Riley in one bloody hand. Ben cradled Rachel on the ground, a crimson swath across her lower abdomen blooming with more red. In her other hand, Lady Azar held up another small tornado, this time with only Ashbel inside.
I slammed my hand to my mouth to keep from crying out. All air escaped my lungs as my mouth ran completely dry.
“This ends now,” Lady Azar bellowed across the chamber. “You come into my home and create this bloodbath to prevent a war that will come to pass no matter what happens here today?” She spat to the side of her feet. “Barbarians, all of you. You never learned and you never will. And you have not halted my plans. You never could.” Her fiery red gaze settled on Giyano, an evil mirth finding a place inside her eyes. “Let this be a lesson in what disloyalty buys you in this war. May you never live long enough to betray another ever again.” Her glare cut to me. “Either of you traitors.”
Then she squeezed her hand—and her magik.
Ben was gone from Rachel’s side in the next second, disappearing into an utter lightning storm that tore across the expanse between him and Lady Azar. Giyano shouted out as Lady Azar’s tornado strangled Ashbel. Nate, Shawn, and I all scrambled for the dais, but with so many people in the way, any attack could easily hurt friend as well as foe.
I drew my sword, aiming for Lady Azar, but found air instead. And when Ben’s lightning storm connected, we were all thrown away from the dais. My shoulder collided with the stone floor, folding under the weight of my impact. Pain spliced across my bones and head. I bit it back, swallowing everything else down as I looked up at the scene.
Ben emerged from the lightning storm with Riley in his arms. I teleported to Rachel’s side, swaying on my feet, and put pressure on her wound. Nate appeared in the next instant, placing his hands over mine.
“Ri…ley…” Rachel whispered.
“Ben has him. Don’t worry.”
Another person ran over, a Hydron agent. “Rachel. Here.” He pulled out a bandage from his soldier vest and removed my hand. To me, he said, “I’m Max. Go—help them. I’ve got her.”
I swallowed hard and turned, relying on this Max person to handle the situation. But when I turned back to the fight, I found an impossible situation.
Giyano had Shawn by the neck, his form hanging limply a foot above the ground. My own power felt dampened in that moment, as if he’d hit Shawn with a requirem to keep his magik at bay.
Lady Azar had Ashbel once more in her grasp with a knife pointed at his throat. He must have been hit with requirem, too, if he wasn’t trying to steal her magik to use.
Ben sat there between the both of them, Riley pressed against his chest in a bear hug to keep him from squirming away while he wailed. “Mommy!”
“Drop him,” Giyano warned, drawing a blade of his own. He skimmed it lightly across Shawn’s throat, enough to draw blood and scare the fuck out of me, but not enough to actually hurt him. “Release Ashbel, or this is over.”
Lady Azar lifted her chin. “You’ve spent decades preparing the Daughter for this fight. You wouldn’t dare throw that away for someone who gave up on living centuries ago.”
“You know nothing about me or him,” Giyano spat, his knife against Shawn’s throat once more.
“What are you doing?” I hissed at him.
He didn’t respond. I stood there, shaking, my gaze flitting between all three parties. All Ben had to do was teleport out and he’d be safe. But doing that might draw Lady Azar’s attention and not in a good way. Not that he had anywhere to go that she couldn’t get to. Ben must have thought the same thing because he sat there unmoving on the stone ground.
Lady Azar stepped forward, pushing Ashbel. Both she and Giyano held their knives still. “I don’t need this fool to get to Alzan, nor the Son.”
I wet my lips, waiting for a moment to act that wouldn’t cause death to someone I cared about. In that moment, I realized Giyano had become one of those people, as twisted as it sounded. “Tell me what to do,” I said, so low that only Giyano heard. But he already said it. Go. Run.
“You’ll need the both of them to keep that cianza from exploding,” Giyano hissed. “If Cianza Alzan is gone, you will be obliterated by that which you do not understand.”
Lady Azar laughed. “From what? The Neuians? They haven’t set foot on this plane in ten thousand years. They wouldn’t dare do it now.”
“Are you really willing to risk that?” Giyano asked, breathless.
He’s terrified of them. He must be. And he’d known about Jaffrin—that must have been what he meant when he told Ben as much, which meant Giyano might actually know a hell of a lot more about the Neuians, too.
Oh, god. Giyano had told me he and his father had uncovered a certain truth about our world, one he didn’t think I was ready to understand.
The Neuians were that truth.
Lady Azar pushed the tip of her knife into Ashbel’s throat. He cried out but didn’t move as blood flowed down the metal. “Are you? Hand over the Son and this is over.”
“Don’t do this!” Giyano screamed, so raw and so desperate that my heart started to cave in. He was just a normal man after all, caught by the same vices as the rest of us.
Lady Azar shrugged. “You give me no choice.”
She plunged the knife into Ashbel’s throat. Crimson spurted out from the wound as Giyano threw Shawn to the ground. Giyano launched into a sprint and shouted, “Teleportante!” before disappearing. He blinked in front of Lady Azar, knife still drawn.
“Nate!” Ben called at the same time, backpedaling away from Giyano’s attack.
“Asanak!” Nate screamed as he ran past me right up to Ben. At the last second, Ben threw Riley forward and Nate’s ether-shaper attack hit the child.
Riley’s cry obliterated what was left of my heart as his soul was cleaved in two, stopping his access to his magik—along with Lady Azar’s. At least for a few months.
As soon the attack was over, Ben went to grab for Riley, but Lady Azar appeared and snatched him right from Ben’s arms. Giyano wasn’t with her anymore!
I turned looking for him and Ashbel and found Giyano cradling Ashbel as he gasped for air. But a slit throat bled out too fast and there was nothing, nothing, Giyano could do.
Lady Azar’s eyes widened when she realized what’d happened to Riley. “You will pay for this!” She roared and turned on Nate, firing a piercing torpedo of wind right at him. I fired off a shot of ala-ether that knocked it out of the way at the last second. She shot out a sloppy second and third torpedo, both of which we deflected.
But having Riley wasn’t enough. Lady Azar was out for blood. She glared down at me, then turned her focus back on Shawn, who still lay unconscious on the ground.
“If I can’t have my champion, then neither will Alzan,” she growled, readying another wind torpedo. “This fight shall be an even one.”
Oh, fuck. “Teleportante,” I said at the same time she let it loose. I appeared just in time to throw my hands up. But before my telekinesis caught the wind torpedo, Giyano was there, throwing his body in front of both Shawn and me.
The wind torpedo cut straight through Giyano, leaving a gaping hole three inches wide clear through his body. The hole filled with blood that oozed down the front of his shirt. I caught him as he fell to the ground, coughing up blood that trickled down the sides of his mouth.
“No!” Ben screamed.
I looked up and Lady Azar—and Riley—were both gone.
“No! She’s got him still!” Ben ripped across the dais, searching wildly for his son.
Nate appeared at his side, trying to hold him, to calm him down. “It’s okay. We bought time. It’s okay.”
“Okay?” Ben shoved Nate away, his eyes wild, his voice echoing across the chamber. “She’s fucking got him still!”
“Krys…tin…” Giyano’
s voice was barely there, not loud or strong enough to be heard over Ben’s meltdown.
I dropped my head closer to his face. “You fucking idiot. Why did you do that?”
Giyano shook. I thought he tried to laugh, but blood pooled in his mouth and poured out of his wound at unnatural speeds. He didn’t have much time left.
My heartbeat quickened and I squeezed his hand. Giyano knew about the Neuians. He knew about ancient magik and all the things Jaffrin should have told us but never did. He’d somehow become more a mentor to me than my mother or the Leader of the Fire Circle. Than Ben, even. And now he was dying.
He died for Shawn. For the both of us. For the prophecy.
“Get the hell away from that bastard!” Ben yelled.
I looked up at his red, blotchy face. “Ben—”
“No! It’s his fault! All of this is!”
Max called over another agent to watch over Rachel before joining Nate. They grabbed on to Ben and tackled him to the ground. “Chill out, Ben.”
Ben tried to shrug out of their grip but couldn’t. “Get the fuck off of me. I need to go after Riley. We can follow their trail. It’s there. I can feel it!”
Giyano squeezed my hand. I looked down at him again, but his eyes were already closed, his face paling as his body started to seize. His breaths had stopped completely.
My head snapped up, the blinding light of a vision searing my cornea.
In a flash I was inside of this chamber in a time other than this one. Zanka shoved me to the ground, my knees colliding with the stone.
Giyano’s hands were mine and his voice too as he greeted Lady Azar. “If you wanted to see me, all you had to do was ask.”
She reeled back a hand and punched me in the face, the gold of her rings tearing open my cheek. “You betrayed me, pet. You will never do that again.”
“Or we could both rot in Hell, whichever would be preferable for you.”
Lady Azar tsked me. “Is that any way to speak to your future queen? Or shall I give you some encouragement to remain loyal this time?”
She nodded over my shoulder at Zanka, who touched a hand to my back. A sense of warmth flooded me, the same directive magik I’d felt under Kinder’s control after she’d taken Zanka’s magik.
“I will never help you overthrow Aloysius,” I said, so far able to ignore Zanka’s magik, as if I’d become immune to it over time. “You should have thought about loyalty before you turned me against my will.”
Lady Azar pouted. “And risk not learning all you know about the Neuians? Who would be stupid enough to let that resource die? Bring him in.” She gestured to someone behind me whom I couldn’t see. Shuffling sounds followed along with the clanging and scraping of chains against ground. Another Shadow Crest demon brought someone before me, someone who made Lady Azar smile.
My heart sank, both in the vision and in real life. “Ashbel. How?”
Lady Azar grinned evilly. “Shape-changers and Zanka’s magik combined made it possible. I’ve kept your love to use for collateral at just the right time. And I believe that time is now.”
“Let him go!” I yelled. “Ashbel! Ashbel, are you okay?”
But he didn’t speak back to me; he only widened his eyes.
“You’ll find it’s difficult to speak with no tongue,” Lady Azar said. “Perhaps I’ll suffer you to the same fate you’ve bestowed on countless others if you fail me this time.”
I swallowed hard, resolve settling in. The knowledge that with Ashbel alive, Lady Azar didn’t need Riley flooded my system. And with two siphons for magik, overthrowing even Aloysius himself would be possible.
But if I acted out against her, she’d kill Ashbel for real this time. My love, my life. My world.
I lowered my head. “My life is yours, Lady Azar.”
“Queen of Darkness,” Lady Azar added.
Not yet. Not until Ammon is dead. I nodded. “Lady Azar, Queen of Darkness.”
Reality snapped back to me as Giyano’s hand fell limp from mine. I pressed two fingers against his neck, looking for a pulse I knew wouldn’t be there. Not with all the blood pooling around us from his wound.
Shawn stirred behind me, reaching a hand to my back. “Krystin?”
“He’s gone,” I said, tears flooding my eyes.
Why? Why cry for this bastard? He’d killed my father. Kidnapped Riley. Murdered both of Nate’s parents, for god’s sake! He was the fucking reason every single one of us was here today.
But he might just have been the only one with balls enough to be the hero.
“We need to move,” Avery said, appearing by my side. He walked with a limp, a hand pressed against his arm. “Two Hunters from Cassie’s team are dead. The rest of us need an emergency room or healers.”
“We can’t go to Headquarters,” Nate called from the dais, where Ben had finally stopped shouting and thrashing about. He sat there, head in his hands, rocking back and forth until he caught sight of Rachel. He crawled his way over to her and the Hydron agent keeping her alive.
Avery swallowed hard, his jaw setting as we all took in the number of wounded. “And I don’t trust Hydron.”
Cassie walked over, supporting one of her teammates. “Teleport everyone back to Ben’s house, then I’ll go to Dacher and report in. He already knows we’re here, right?”
Avery nodded. “Yeah. We’ll round up the healers from Headquarters that way.”
“Can we afford that time?” I asked, looking past them to Rachel.
“We’re going to have to. We have no idea what Jaffrin will do. It’s not like we can hide this or that we know what he is.”
My teary-eyed gaze fell back to Giyano’s body, lifeless and peaceful-looking. With his eyes closed, he looked just like the rest of us. Broken and beaten, a mission completed.
He looked human.
I wiped my eyes and nose and forced myself to stand. “Gather everyone and teleport them before any reinforcements show up.”
“Retreat, you mean,” another Hunter said.
“Not retreat,” Nate chimed in. “I landed an asanak on Riley. That’ll buy us time. Kinder was without magik for three months.”
“You’re assuming that she doesn’t have any more people with the Power tucked away,” Cassie said.
“Or another trick up her sleeve to get to Alzan,” Avery added.
Shawn and I exchanged a glance. “She doesn’t. There is no other way. But even if she broke through right now, there’s nothing we can do. We need to regroup and heal who we can. Besides, it sounds like overthrowing Ammon to become the heir of Darkness was first on her list. We got to her a few days early.”
Avery nodded, then clapped once loudly. “Let’s go, people. Gather up the wounded. We’re leaving.”
Everyone else did so, Shawn leaving me to help with Max with Rachel. But I stood there, watching over Giyano’s body. And Ashbel’s. They both were good people who’d gotten caught up in this unwillingly. Just like me. And Shawn. Like every member of my team. And maybe that was part of the reason Giyano had tied himself to us. Maybe he’d seen too much of himself in every single one of us that he hadn’t wanted to let us go.
Maybe he’d seen himself in me.
Carefully, I moved him next to Ashbel’s body, ignoring the trail of blood that doing so left behind. And when they finally laid together once more in eternal rest, I tugged a book of cedo matches from my pocket, lit one, and tossed it on them both.
“Rest in peace, friend. Thank you for all you’ve done for us.” The good… and the bad. For Giyano had made us strong enough to take on Lady Azar in any way he had to. “Thank you.”
I stayed until the purple smoke had dissipated up into the chamber’s ceiling. Only then did I teleport to the house, the last one to arrive.
Chapter 26
Ben
Krystin teleported in last. The second her form became solid, she swayed, her knees buckling out beneath her. I rushed to her side, catching her as she fell to the floor.
&nbs
p; “What’s wrong?” I asked, touching a hand to her cheeks. She was burning up, her body shaking.
She shook her head and pushed me away. “Giyano’s gone. And so is Riley.” She looked up at me. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It will be. Nate’s right. We bought time.”
“She’s lost a lot of blood!” Max called. “Rachel gets a healer first.”
“This man, Tyler, is next,” another Hydron agent called.
Soon a string of these exchanges followed and although I didn’t trust that organization, I was glad for all the triage help they were giving us. I left Krystin to go to Rachel’s side again and held her hand. She’d fallen unconscious sometime during the fight and I was almost happy she hadn’t had to witness the end of it. Or my freak out.
“Avery,” Krystin called from halfway up the stairs. “Help me grab what supplies we have.”
He nodded and followed her up to the second floor. Some of his team, the ones who weren’t totally incapacitated, went too.
In a flash, Cassie teleported in with Dacher and the whole three healers the Fire Circle had on tap. Dacher’s eyes widened as he took in the carnage around him.
“Here,” I told them. “The healers are needed for Rachel and Tyler first. Then some of the others. But they’ve lost the most blood.”
The healers jumped in without another word as Dacher pulled me aside. “Speak, Ben. What’s happened?”
“We went like we told you,” I said. “Lady Azar got away with Riley, but Nate hit him with an asanak. We’ve bought days, maybe weeks. I don’t know how long it’ll hold for.”
Terror shone in his eyes. “Asanak on a child?”
“There wasn’t another option,” I hissed. “You think I wanted my son to experience that?”
Dacher laid a hand on my shoulder. “We will take care of this. And the Ether Head Circle will move on Jaffrin shortly. They were gathering sources to keep him contained. It turns out they’re not sure if their prison can hold him.”