Chapter 38

38

Arwen

Fragments of brick and stone fell like missiles. Ice-cold wind cut through the room with the decimation of the temple's towering spire. Voices screeching, bodies surging, ground shaking, the blood—where was the blood coming from?—splattered against the old wood of the pews…

Leigh, I had to find Leigh —

And there had been no horns, no warning…

Dozens of men in the keep must've been precisely, carefully executed long before the wedding for this to have happened. How had I not realized…

Mercenaries.

My feet stumbled down the stone steps, hands frantically searching through fallen wood beams and toppled statues of the Stones. Through so many moaning in agony, the urge to heal them writhing at my fingertips.

Leigh, Leigh, Leigh —

A second blow smashed through the ceiling.

Scales of gray filled my vision as I craned my neck up while I ran.

It was a tail, slicing through the temple walls. The spiked, sickly gray of a vicious, roaring wyvern.

Lazarus—Lazarus had come for Shadowhold.

Kane was nowhere to be found amid the turmoil, and for a moment the most gut-wrenching thought imaginable sliced through me.

He's already dead.

But the earsplitting, resonant roar from the now-gaping hole in the temple ceiling offered a twisted rush of relief. Smooth, sleek black wings clashed with veined ashy ones in a violent blur above me.

Kane's shifting had saved us time—a few minutes at most, as he dragged his father away through the skies—but we needed to get as many people to safety as possible before…

Mercenaries converged on the temple like a cyclone. I'd forgotten their speed. How mighty, how much power Lazarus's most valuable Fae assassins contained. And all their perverse, shifted forms. Multiheaded, snarling hydras; flying lizards with the razor-sharp beaks of eagles; brutal-looking women with bodies like mythical birds—harpies, those. Squawking and shrieking as they tore their claws into our soldiers like wet parchment.

My lighte shot from my fingertips and into the heart of a wolfbeast not unlike the one that had attacked me so long ago. The rabid creature flew back into an altar of unlit candles before he could rip his fangs through an Onyx guard shielding the sweet harpist, now covered in blood.

"Go," I urged them, gritting my teeth as flares of sunfire split from my wrists and twined around the creature. "Get everyone to safety. To the lower floors, now."

Griffin soared overhead, his wingspan knocking over the long-since-abandoned harp as he used his claws to scoop a feathered mercenary up by her haunches and toss her out one of the shattered stained-glass windows. Flecks of rosy glass littered the floor at his feet.

I called to him, scrambling for a discarded sword dusted in debris and nabbing it just in time to lodge it between the wide-open jaws of a hydra. The sword chipped into the enamel of its upper fangs. I fought to extricate the weapon, panting until we sprang apart. It lunged, and I swung the sword through the air once more.

This time my blade sliced clean through one writhing, hissing reptilian head, just as another carved the air toward my neck.

My lighte bloomed—

Sunfire engulfed the creature, sending agonized shrieks into the already deafening cacophony of violence around us.

Griffin landed beside me, and together—rippling steel and beastly claws—we shredded through the remaining four heads of the mercenary. Warm Fae blood splattered across my face and the fabric of my dress.

"Where's Leigh? Where's Mari?"

My power flowed from my limbs, halting creatures in traps and cages of shimmering white light long enough for swarms of Onyx soldiers to cut them down. Griffin shifted back into his human form, breathing labored, and unleashed a flash of glossy emerald energy that cut through something snarling behind me.

"Barney got the witch out," he grunted, a sprawling translucent shield blocking a claw from my face. "I haven't seen Leigh."

I meant to tell him to go find her, but any words were lost in my throat as I beheld a snarling, cackling figure—

Octavia slithered in like an adder in tall grass. Blood soaked her leather corset and the dark blouse beneath it. Wiry gray hair twisted around her head.

She prowled toward a cowering girl, hidden beneath a pew.

Beth. It was Beth—

Octavia's mouth split in a reptilian smile. "So you're the little seer…" she cooed. "If I rid you of those eyes, will you thank me?"

Hurtling over pews, I ran for her—

Only to see Leigh sprint from the opposite side of the temple. My lungs ceased to breathe as she barreled right toward a slithering scaled mercenary, oily green sheen, pink-hued teeth from all the viscera. The creature reared up on its hind legs and Leigh—

Plowed into him, deftly maneuvering her sword and slicing the thing clean through its heart. She leapt over its gurgling body and scrambled in front of Beth, bloodied sword outstretched at Octavia.

I moved faster, unable to think around the fear swelling in my heart. And the pride.

Octavia stalked forward, despite Leigh's mighty slashes with her small blade. Her strides forced the two girls back against a wall already painted in gore.

And I was jumping over wood, dodging blows—

But not fast enough.

I wouldn't get there in time. The witch unleashed a wretched cackle, lunging toward them, her white teeth sharper than razors as she grinned, magic spinning around her hands—

"NO!"

I threw myself toward them, my sister, her sword quivering—

In an instant, Griffin and I were both slammed backward by some tail, some wing, into the ancient temple organ, keys and wood and pipes bowing beneath us in a discordant, pained exhale. Agony exploded in my leg and side.

No, no, no , Leigh —

Scrambling to right myself, I could only see Griffin out of the corner of my eye as he took the feathered creature down in a mess of jade lighte and bloody claws, but I was already up, ignoring some agony in my calf—

Be alive be alive be alive—

When my eyes found the wall Leigh and Beth had just been glued to—I didn't see them.

Instead, I found Ryder .

Curled atop both girls.

Body arched over them. A human shield in wedding attire—no weapon, no powers, no armor—

Unmoving.

And my heart seized in my throat—

But he was…breathing. He was breathing. And I exhaled a bigger sigh than I thought possible to hold within my lungs and raced to them anew.

Ryder righted himself and brushed soot and debris from both girls' hair, his body still blocking them as he scanned the space, looking around…

Where had Octavia gone? How had they made it out unscathed—

Rounding the last row of pews, my eyes found her. Octavia stumbled backward, choking as she staggered, a mighty engraved sword—a pommel with vines like Shadowhold's gnarled forest—lodged perfectly in her heart. A direct hit.

Not Leigh's, nor Ryder's.

The older witch screamed, eyes down on her bloodied hands. And it was horror—genuine, bone-chilling horror —that fueled that noise. That beautiful song of fear.

Her expression became one of agony for just a brief moment as she fought to dislodge the mighty blade from her chest—until she spasmed once and fell to the floor, eyes dull and unfocused.

I drew nearer, my limbs carried by both awe and confusion.

Until I tripped over something—

A body. At my feet.

No.

Stones above, no—

Face slack, body twitching, blood pooling around the gaping, magic-tinged wound in his gut—

Dagan.

"No," I cried, dropping to my knees. "No, no—"

A high-pitched ringing sounded in my ears. My hands shook as violence quieted all around me, the mercenaries fleeing with the death of Lazarus's witch.

And blood. So much blood—

Ryder spoke behind me. "He…he saved us. He—"

Lighte flowed through my hands and pressed to Dagan's stomach. "Don't let them see," I sobbed. "Get them out of here!"

"Arwen!" Leigh cried behind me.

But then I heard three sets of footfalls take off.

"Dagan," I said, swallowing blood and sweat. "Stay with me. You're going to be fine."

The flesh resealed under my palms. The blood dried.

"Dagan," I said to him again, the temple becoming a quieting coffin of moans and wails. "I've healed you, see? You're all right. You're fine."

I allowed myself to peer at his face.

Still. Eyes open but unfocused. Mouth slack.

My stomach heaved.

My mentor. My friend. The first person to show me how to truly be brave. The closest thing I'd ever had to a…

I couldn't—

No , this couldn't—

"Dagan, you have to listen to me, all right?" My hands continued to move over his chest. Sealing the wound, lacing the skin together, fusing his organs into place once more. "Nothing is going to happen to you. You are my family . Do you hear me? I am not going to leave you—"

"Arwen." Griffin's gutted voice behind me cracked my heart in two. "It's too late."

"Don't say that, don't—"

"He's gone."

" Please ," I cried. And cried and cried.

"Arwen," he said again, with as much warmth as I'd ever heard in his voice. "He is. We need to run while we still can."

My eyes, blurred with tears, found Griffin's grim expression. I scanned the room. Empty save for bodies and debris and that crushed altar and an entire corner of the temple charred in black soot, where a fire had been narrowly extinguished. Below me— Horror clung to my fingers as I realized the corpse I'd been rebuilding, as futile as plugging a hole in a sunken ship. His wrinkled, slack face. Vacant, unmoving eyes.

And his hand in mine…just flesh. "I'm so sorry, Dagan…" I'd not been fast enough. I'd not—

I collapsed on top of him as I wept. Pepper and mothballs and the iron-rich tang of fresh blood filled my nose.

Griffin's broad hands encircled my upper arms and lifted me off him. "Come on," Griffin said.

"We can't leave him!"

"All right," the commander conceded. "All right."

He released me and I fought the indescribable urge to fall back down to the soiled stone floor of the chapel. To stay there and never get up.

The clear winter day shone through where the tower had been destroyed. No Kane. No Lazarus.

"Where did they go?"

"I don't know. That's why we need to move."

Dagan had given his life for Ryder and Beth and Leigh…

"Arwen," Griffin said once more. When I looked over, he was carrying Dagan's lifeless body with little effort. "We have to keep going."

We hurtled down the dizzying stairs in a daze until we'd reached Shadowhold's eastern courtyard.

I knew it made me weak but I couldn't stomach the bodies that littered the snow-tufted grass. Not just our soldiers, but innocents . Nobles and friends who'd been in that temple to celebrate our wedding. Tossed from those gothic stained-glass windows like stale bathwater. Or maybe they'd jumped to avoid a more gruesome death at a harpy's claws.

We'd failed them either way.

I had.

We made it inside with a handful of other soldiers and residents of the keep, and while Griffin kept moving—giving Dagan's body to a cluster of soldiers, commanding his generals, his lieutenants—I stood by the castle's heavy stone doors.

Ushering terrified faces inside, calling to those still in the barracks or the cottages.

Where had all the mercenaries gone? The snow-topped tents and iron gates of the keep were silent. Empty, as everyone had been ushered inside.

I stood on shifting feet, waiting for Kane.

"He'll come," a sleek voice said.

I turned to Briar and blinked slowly. I had understood her but…my mind was fogged. Too much horror—

Like she was an oracle, or her very words conjured him, a lethal dragon's roar cut through the panic already clutching the castle. A roar and the pound of many beating wings.

I stumbled out the front doors. Two Onyx guards and Briar followed behind me. I craned my neck up. There, in the skies—amid a beautiful, clear morning like fresh running water—was Kane.

And all of the mercenaries.

All of them.

A celestial battle. No…a slaughter.

More mercenaries than I thought Lazarus had. Amelia…She'd been right. They'd used my power—

My shoulders itched and rippled and I shut my eyes tightly and begged the Stones.

Shift, shift—

I thought of Dagan. Of how much he'd want to see me take flight.

But I couldn't focus against the gruesome sounds of Kane's anguish as they tore at him. My concentration, fracturing as he breathed fire and clawed to no avail. His animalistic whines. Like rusted nails through my insides.

There were too many of them.

"Go get Griffin," I ordered the guards behind me. He was the only one who could shift. "Go!"

Two Onyx men took off running.

"We have to get you inside," another urged.

But I wasn't moving. Not when Kane was up there alone , wings beating against talons and beaks and tongues twined in fire. Each blow that crested across his chest, his tail, sent volleys of pain through my own body.

"Call to him," Briar said beside me.

"He'll never retreat," I bit through gritted teeth. "Not when he knows he'd lead them back to Shadowhold."

He'd allow himself to be ripped to shreds up there before he'd bring the mercenaries into his own keep. The agony at the thought—I nearly collapsed.

"That's the point ."

Despite the caws and roaring, I cut my eyes to Briar's violet ones. "What are you saying?"

"He knows you. Knows you would never put his keep in danger. If you call to him he'll know you've planned something. I'll take care of the rest."

When I squinted back up into the skies a hydra had just ripped one of its several sets of teeth through Kane's hind leg. He howled in pain, kicking forcefully and sending the creature careening down—it landed with a thud somewhere in the Shadow Woods.

Only more mercenaries swarmed in its place.

"KANE!"

I screamed for him until I tasted blood.

Until I saw his predatory gaze cut down to me.

"KANE!" I called again, motioning for him to come back to the keep. Waving my hands in the air. Then I ran back into the castle, praying I'd placed my faith in the right witch.

The sound was like a swarm of locusts. All those mercenaries, barreling toward the keep, charging after Kane, a symphony of winged assassins.

Faster, faster, faster—

Kane's mighty dragon wings flapped as he soared, and just inside the castle doors was Briar, hands strained against the skies, wind and static and snow swirling around her and pulling her carefully coiled dark hair free. Chanting, muttering—

Magic scenting the air and thick on my tongue.

Until Kane slammed to the ground, on two human feet—

And all other mercenaries that had been nipping at his tail, snarling, savage for his death—severed.

Split in half. Blood spraying, hooves and claws and snouts falling from midair.

Cleaved.

By some ward, some guard Briar had spawned around the castle.

Those slower, and spared the same gruesome fate, slammed into the barrier and fell to the earth.

Briar slumped against the castle's innermost wall and caught her ragged breaths.

Lethal silence fell. The entire keep's eyes on Kane.

Tendrils of that obsidian power still clung to his shoulders, those dark dragon's wings still retreating tightly into his spine, when he stalked through the heavy stone doors of Shadowhold and prowled right for me.

Covered in ash and blood. Limping. Face colder, crueler than I'd ever seen it. Heartbreakingly menacing. World breaker. Eater of hearts.

They'd come for his home. Not Willowridge—not his capital—his home.

Our home.

They'd killed Dagan. Right before my eyes, they'd killed him.

I started to break before he'd even touched me.

Kane gathered me into his arms in one powerful movement and I crumpled against him and cried.