Chapter 39

Chapter Thirty-Nine

PIPER

A torrent of agony had engulfed her hand. Piper couldn’t feel her fingers, only torturous pain that radiated up her arm and into her shoulder, as though her blood and tissues had turned to acid. She wanted to writhe and scream, but she was afraid to move in case that somehow, impossibly, made the pain worse.

Something nudged Piper’s shoulder. Moist air blew across her face, followed by a strange, low-pitched rumble.

Panting and nauseated, she cracked her eyes open. For a terrifying second, she thought she was trapped underground again, but then a faint light caught on a pair of large golden eyes. Zwi, in her full-sized dragon form, stood over Piper, blocking everything else in her field of vision.

“Zwi,” she rasped.

The realization that she was lying on hard pavement slowly sank through her awareness. She was on the ground. She’d fallen from… she didn’t even know how high. She should be dead.

“Did you catch me?”

Zwi made a deep, bass chirp that sounded like an affirmative. Piper had no recollection of being caught or reaching the ground.

With gasps and moans, she slowly pushed herself up with her good arm until she was sitting. Her injured hand was a mess of blood, but all her fingers were still attached and she couldn’t see any bones sticking out. That was a good sign, probably? Clenching her teeth, she pulled her hand against her stomach, wound the tattered strips of her shirt around it, and knotted it into a sort of sling.

Zwi trilled. Backing up, the dragon spread her enormous wings. Black flames whooshed over her, the fire shrank, and Zwi reappeared in her usual cat-sized form.

With the dragon no longer blocking her view, Piper’s gaze fell on the choronzon.

Its remains were splattered across the pavement forty feet away, its bulbous body ruptured and its tentacles twisted and dismembered. Yellow blood and foul gore were splashed all over the road.

In the shadow of the dead beast, something moved—a dark figure with wings and a long, curved sword coated in the choronzon’s blood.

Terror plunged through Piper, numbing the pain. Her heart thumped wildly and a voice in the back of her head screamed at her to run before it was too late.

Ash came toward her, gliding like a weightless shadow, each step melting seamlessly into the next. His movements were so graceful, so sinister, that he had closed half the distance between them before she noticed he was limping with each step.

She stared at him. At his real body. At his real face.

Black interlocking scales ran up his arms, spread over his shoulders, and traced his collarbones. The scales transitioned to inky lines, almost like tattoos, in a sinuous pattern before fading into smooth skin across his abdomen, bare except for a loop of charcoal-colored fabric hanging around his neck and a thick leather strap that cut across his chest from right shoulder to left side.

More scales edged his jaw and ran along the tops of his cheekbones. Menacing black markings dipped down his temples and coiled in the hollows of his cheeks. Curved horns, sets of three on each side of his head, protruded from his dark hair, sweeping backward away from his face.

The eyes that watched her were soulless pits of darkness.

As she trembled on the ground in front of him, she realized for the first time what daemon shading really was. It wasn’t a shift from their normal behavior; it was a shift back to their true natures. All the times she’d seen Ash’s eyes go dark, this was what had been looking out at her from behind the mask of his glamour.

“Piper.”

“The Sahar is gone,” she blurted, her voice shaking. “One of the harpies got it. She flew off. I don’t know where.”

Something passed across his expression, too fast for her to read. He raised his sword.

She flinched back, her eyes squeezed shut. He’d been waiting for the right moment to dispose of her and take the Sahar. This was it. He was going to kill her. The fear was unbearable—as terrible as when they’d been trapped underground. Even worse than that. It was consuming her.

The blade hissed as it slid into a sheath, then quiet steps came closer. Much closer.

“Piper.”

She forced her eyes open. Ash was crouched in front of her, and his irises were steely gray now instead of black. The hilt of his sword stuck up above his right shoulder, the weapon strapped to his back.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said softly. “I need your help before I can switch to glamour.”

“My help?” she croaked.

“My wing is dislocated.”

Her gaze flicked from his face to his wings. One was folded tightly, but the other was only half furled and dragged on the ground.

Terror bubbled in her, visceral and uncontrollable, but shame prickled through it. She shouldn’t be this scared. She’d hugged him in his daemon form, hadn’t she?

She drew in a steadying breath. Lots of things were scary. She just had to suck it up and deal with it, like she did with everything that frightened her.

“What do you need?” she asked.

His gaze searched hers for a second. He rose to his full height and offered his hand. She looked at his palm, pale and calloused and so close to human, then at the black claws that tipped his fingers.

She reached up with only a slight tremble and let him draw her to her feet, careful not to jostle her injured hand in its makeshift sling. Ash turned his drooping wing toward her and placed her good hand below the elbow-like joint. She wrapped her fingers around it, feeling hard muscle beneath his scaled skin.

“I have to pull it straight,” he said. “Hold tight.”

Piper bent her knees, leaned back, and squeezed his wing as hard as she could.

He checked her stance, inhaled, then jerked hard away from her, forcing the limb to extend. The joint popped sickeningly before her hand slipped. She jolted as she recovered her balance, and a fresh wave of pain flooded through her injured hand and up her arm.

She pressed her fist to her mouth, stifling a cry, and waited for the agony to wane.

“Piper?”

Ash stood in front of her again. His wings, tail, horns, and black scales were gone, as was his sword. Gone too were the splatters of choronzon blood. The clothing he’d been wearing before had reappeared, streaked with dirt from the Gaians dragging him around while he was semi-comatose.

It made zero sense how glamour could do that, but she was too exhausted and overwhelmed with pain to care.

“Ash,” she said dazedly—and her legs buckled.

He caught her and lowered her to the ground, his touch gentle. She leaned into him, her head resting on his shoulder. Why had she been so afraid? Why had she thought he would hurt her?

Why did she feel so safe now that she was in his arms?

He propped her back against his chest and reached around her to untie the shreds of fabric forming her makeshift sling. As pain jolted along her nerves, she watched his face and the deepening crease between his eyebrows that marred his normally indecipherable expression. Before everything they’d gone through together, she would never have noticed the subtle concern in his face, but now it was obvious—and remorse flickered through her.

Whatever his real story was, he wasn’t a heartless monster. She couldn’t tell him she forgave him for stealing the Sahar Stone from her, because she didn’t. She couldn’t tell him that seeing what he really was hadn’t terrified her, because it had. She couldn’t even tell him she appreciated his help, because she didn’t know how she felt about it—or about him. But she wanted to say something .

“Ash, I …”

Her whisper trailed off uncertainly, and he leaned down, listening.

She pressed her uninjured palm against the side of his head. “Ash… I like your horns. They’re cool.”

She smiled weakly at his baffled expression—then the thud of running footsteps reached her ears. Alarmed, she looked around for the source. Moonlight illuminated the half-slimy, half-charred remains of the choronzon. As her gaze swept back across the scene, it caught on movement—a man jogging toward them.

It was Lyre, his pale blond hair shimmering and Zwi riding on his shoulder.

Ash shifted his arms under Piper and stood, lifting her with him.

“You’re both alive,” Lyre said breathlessly as he slid to a stop. “I mean, obviously you are. You don’t need me to tell you. But you”—he directed the word at Ash—“won’t be alive much longer if you hang around. A pack of griffins will be here any moment.”

Piper frowned. Griffins? Why were there griffins here?

As Ash’s upper lip curled in distaste, Zwi took to the air, ascending quickly into the dark sky.

“Then we should leave,” he said.

Lyre glanced over his shoulder, then at Piper’s bloody hand. “There’s a healer with the griffins.”

“Why would they help her?” Ash asked.

“Because I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”

Ash was silent for a moment. “Did you see it?”

“Yes. Was it you?”

“No.”

With no explanation for that bewildering exchange, both daemons looked grimly down at Piper.

“Let me take her.” Lyre extended his hands. “Her uncle is with the griffins as well. She can’t just abandon him. But you need to go.”

Giving in, Ash settled Piper into Lyre’s arms. Her head lolled against the incubus’s shoulder. She couldn’t seem to lift it anymore. Her vision was blurring around the edges.

“Be careful with the griffins,” Ash said.

Lyre nodded. The draconian turned on his heel and strode away. Darkness shimmered around him, and he melted into shadow.

“Whoa,” Piper whispered.

“It’s just a cloaking spell,” Lyre muttered, turning around. “Here come the griffins.”

Piper squinted. Dark figures circled the choronzon’s corpse as they headed toward her and Lyre.

“Why… griffins?” she asked, the words feeling like mush on her tongue. Her head was spinning and her vision was getting fuzzy again.

“They were rescuing their prince.”

“Their prince ? What prince?”

The approaching daemons all had similar dark clothing and similar blond hair in similar short cuts—except for the one in the lead: the blond, green-eyed daemon delegate she’d freed from the basement to help rescue Uncle Calder.

“ That prince,” Lyre said.

Dumbfounded, Piper gawked as the delegate gestured to the other daemons. They sped right past her and Lyre while the delegate halted, his sharp, probing yellow-green eyes sweeping over her.

“Miysis,” Lyre said. “This is Piper, the Head Consul’s daughter. Piper, this is Miysis Ra, prince of the griffins.”

“Hi,” she mumbled weakly.

“We’ve met,” the prince said to Lyre. “Who killed the beast?”

Lyre shrugged one shoulder. “They’re already gone, it seems. Piper needs your healer.”

Miysis raised his hand into the air, and it took about four seconds for a griffin to rush to his side. The prince relayed the instruction to bring their healer, and the daemon took off at a sprint.

“Not going to demand answers before helping her?” Lyre asked, sounding surprised.

“If it weren’t for Piper, I would’ve been inside that building when it exploded. The least I can do is get her medical care—but there is one question that must be answered.”

Apprehension fluttered through Piper, pushing away a little of the pain-fueled haze in her head.

Miysis’s yellow-green eyes fixed on her face. “Where is the Sahar Stone?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

His irises dimmed to a dangerous shade of emerald. “Do not lie to me, Piper.”

Her heart drummed in her throat, and she swallowed against the sensation. “I had it,” she admitted. “I was trying to protect it, but I was attacked by harpies. One of them flew off with it. I don’t know where, but they said things that make me think they work for Samael Hades.”

Miysis’s eyes darkened even more. “Samael Hades.”

She pressed into Lyre’s arms, trying to lean away from the prince. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him that last part—but someone should know that the most powerful warlord in the Underworld once again possessed the Sahar.

Miysis exhaled. “I see. I have more questions, but they can wait.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, closing her eyes again as a wave of dizziness rolled through her. Shivers racked her limbs, and the throbbing in her hand was overwhelming all other sensations.

“This is going to be a problem.” Miysis’s voice drifted to her as though from a great distance.

“Don’t look at me,” Lyre replied, equally distant. “It’s your problem.”

“If Samael uncovers the secret to using the Sahar, it’ll be a very large problem for all of us, you included.” A pause. “And he’s closer now than he’s ever been before.”

Silence fell between the daemons. Piper’s forehead crinkled, but it was so hard to hold on to their words. She couldn’t focus. Numb exhaustion was dragging her under, and her resistance faded away. Whether she fell asleep or passed out, she didn’t know, but she remembered nothing more.