Chapter 42

42

For all my determination not to lead, I was the one silently moving through the caves checking on the positions of magus, Vissimo, and Luthers. I couldn’t not. What if something had been missed? This was a matter of life and death for so many. What happened here tonight would set the tone for years or decades, even centuries to come.

The four learning centers had been reserved for Luthers and accompanying magus teams. Luthers needed space to shift and fight.

Magus were dotted in teams through the nooks and crannies of our cave systems. Some would embed in the stone to ambush victims. All had been allocated weapons and charms for the battle.

The five hundred and seventy Vissimo would largely await their victims throughout the rooms and tunnels, speed and stealth being their huge advantage. Teams of magus were periodically stationed down the tunnels to ensure all supernaturals had some level of magical backup and protection.

Magus from foreign covens were in their positions in four-affinity teams.

I entered the eating chamber, not sure that checking everything over had reassured me one bit.

“Are they here yet?” Basilia moaned.

The same restlessness plagued me. I wanted it over or started already. Then I could stop expecting it to happen. “I feel you. We’ve got ten minutes.”

She flopped into a chair, blowing out a breath. “A lot can be done in ten minutes. I could probably paint the nails of everyone in this room in ten minutes.” She glanced around, then settled her gaze upon Andie, who was standing quietly in Sascha’s arms. “What happens to your nail polish when you shift?”

“I keep my nails short to play music, so I don’t often paint them.”

Basilia rolled her eyes. “Such an Andie response. What would theoretically happen?”

Andie raised her brows and called over her shoulder. “Delta, what happens to your nail polish when you shift?”

Each supernatural had their most trusted in the chamber with them.

A female Luther broke off her conversation with Hairy. “It’s there when I shift back.”

Basilia hummed. “What about if you painted your Luther claws? Would that be there when you shifted to your wolf form again?”

Delta lifted a shoulder. “No idea on that.”

Basilia fixed her eyes on the Luther queen.

Andie shook her head. “I can see what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no—you can’t paint my claws.”

I pursed my lips. “I’d be interested in that too.”

Andie glanced between me and Basilia. “Really? Demons are nearly upon us, and this is what you want to talk about?”

Basilia clasped her hands together. “If we make it through this alive, we’ll paint your Luther claws.”

I grinned. “Just because you make a begging gesture with your hands, doesn’t mean your words can still be a demand. You need both to pull off a good beg.”

“Billionaires aren’t good at begging,” she answered. “It’s a flaw.”

Andie groaned, then glared at me. “I would’ve expected this from Basilia, not you.”

“That’s a yes,” Basilia said in satisfaction.

“Not a yes,” Andie countered.

I wanted to paint the claws of a wolf. Was that not something most people would want to do? “We should always try to further the knowledge of our races.”

“Uh-huh,” she replied. “The possible permanence of nail polish application between shifts is right up there.”

I winked at her, then couldn’t help laughing at Basilia’s wide smirk.

The princess knew exactly what she was doing. If we won this battle, Andie’s wolf was getting a mani-pedi.

“High Esteemed Tempest.”

I turned and blinked at the woman there. Well, this is a surprise. “High Esteemed Rjuc. We weren’t expecting you.”

She squared her shoulders and seemed determined not to look at the supernaturals either side of me. “I had a change of heart. I recognized an area for growth within myself and saw that only my narrow-mindedness was stopping me from doing what I knew to be right in my heart. I’m here now, with twenty of my magus. We’re ready to fight.”

Only one other high esteemed was here—High Esteemed Mydnigh. That Rjuc came personally was pretty massive, and even more massive was that she appeared to have challenged her anti-other-supernatural thoughts. “We’re happy to have you.”

I studied the threads around her. “You will be best placed with Sven and Rooke in the west tunnels. Please arrange your magus into groups of all four affinities. Stand to the back when the fighting breaks out and watch how our magus engage first. The magic is not complicated, just methodical, and the fighting strategy should be clear.” I summoned a glowing ball. “Please follow this to Sven, and I’ll send him a message to expect you. We’re expecting the attack in a few minutes.”

Rjuc tilted her head. “How do you know when the demons will attack?”

I arched a brow. “If we’re both still here after, then I look forward to telling you. Over a very strong drink.”

Her lips curved. “The only kind I drink. Keep safe, High Esteemed. You are our future.”

The breeding mare. Huxley once wrote as much in one of his fucking notebooks, and the words were proving sadly true of how foreign covens—and maybe my own—viewed me. I was the ovaries, the eggs, and the tubes. My grandmother would’ve cackled herself to death at what my life had come to.

“Already you inspire change.” A chilling voice rose.

I glanced back to find the Vissimo king himself had joined us. I’d met all of Kyros’s siblings over the last week, but the king had never joined our training sessions. The threads around him were still curled tight around his enormous Egyptian god frame, and even if I hadn’t had access to the quipu, my instincts would have told me this supernatural needed no designation. He’d fight how and where he liked and would be better for it. He’d even fight in his sarong.

“King Julius,” I said, dipping my head. “Will Queen Titania join us?”

“Before a warrior, my queen is a mother. She is needed in this respect, and so remains in my territory.”

Kyros glanced at Basilia, who scoffed, “I’m not staying at home, Kyros. Just try it.”

Clearly, he had.

I couldn’t imagine Sascha would have thought to leave Andie behind, but there were definite differences in the relationships between the supernaturals.

King Julius walked to Basilia and took her hand, bowing to place a kiss on the back. “For now, you are a warrior, daughter. One day, I see you will make a ferocious mother, too.”

Basilia stared at the king, and whatever they exchanged was wordless before she stood and stepped forward to hug him.

Julius surprised me by enveloping her in his arms like some sort of natural hugger. The king untangled himself after a long beat, then approached his son. “No mercy for the enemy. No hesitation in war. Cool logic in all else.”

“Aside from matters of the heart and blood,” Kyros said, watching his father with a curious expression. They must be words he’d heard a few times. “Father…”

A ghost of a smile appeared on the king’s face. “Son…” He tilted Kyros’s chin and looked him in the eyes.

Wild walked into the chamber. “They’re here. Those on the surface have engaged the first ploy.”

My stomach churned. The magus we’d charmed to grotesque ulceration would be stumbling back to the caves, apparently forced by the demon’s magic. “Those at the entrance are primed?”

“Charms at the ready.”

We had to make our defenses appear believable. If we were under attack and had been forced back to the caves, we’d spare no expense in attempting to keep the demons at the entrance.

The sentry pendant around my neck warmed.

Corentin’s voice pulsed from it. “The last magus is inside. Charms going up.”

We’d made sure every area had a few sentries with pendants in it, so we’d all know what was happening.

I walked forward as eyes in the chamber landed on me.

They wanted words of reassurance or hope, and apparently I’d been voted in to speak them.

I opened my four affinities and heard the gasps of Luthers and Vissimo as my relics joined me. The thick cloak covered the black tights and crop top I’d donned for the occasion. I wore a charmed and invisible chest plate over it at Wild’s request. He’d fashioned it himself. Ryzika’s pendant weighed around my neck, and I tightened my hand around the gem and dagger.

Slipping the gem into a pocket in the cloak, I summoned my father’s demon blade. One magus weapon, and one demon. The symmetry and symbolism felt right. “Tonight we fight for our lives,” I told those in the room, pushing battle into my voice so the entire coven and those in the caves would hear. “We fight for a future free of slavery and fear. We fight side by side with our new friends to protect our children and way of life.” I slid a look to King Julius. “There is no mercy for our enemy today. There is no place for hesitation in war.”

He dipped his head, ever the regal ancient.

I turned from him. “Protect each other. Fight for each other. If the Mother is willing, I will see you when the dust settles. Be safe, my coven, my friends.”

I bowed to those watching me and felt the bows and deep nods in return.

Wild moved to stand beside me. “It won’t take them long to get through the barriers.”

As if summoned, Corentin’s voice chimed through the pendant again. “Nearly through, we’re retreating to our positions now.”

I glanced up at Wild, and he leaned down to press his lips to mine.

“I love you,” he said.

“And I love you,” I replied, setting my hand gently on his chest.

He searched my face. “Where are you?”

I smiled, then released my demon side, feeling black smoke rise the instant after. I didn’t need to reach up to check that my black scales were present. I could see some on the hand I rested on Wild’s chest.

“There you are.” Wild’s lip curled.

“Something funny?”

“Just that the demons will shit themselves when they see you.”

Huxley’s voice chimed through the advisor pendant, “Passing through the main tunnels.”

We needed them inside, and that meant our magus through the entrance tunnels were in hiding until the signal went out. I gripped the pendant and answered, “What’s their progress like?”

“Cautious.”

They sensed a trap. Not enough to stay out. Perhaps they were falling for yet another ploy—that we’d try to get as far from them as possible and out into the largest fighting space.

Most of the magus here had grown up fighting in nooks and crannies.

Sage’s voice came through next, “First fork. They’re splitting.”

Good.

“East tunnels.” Delta.

“East fork, splitting,” Winona reported.

A second later… “West fork, splitting.” Barrow.

I walked in a slow circle, meeting the gazes of our fighting force of around eighty in the chamber. It was signal enough. We all turned outward to face the four entrances into the chamber.

Wild faced south with me. The tunnels from the south were shortest. Theoretically, the demons would come from here first.

All we had to do was hold out for long enough. The eighty supernatural here were chosen for a reason.

We just had to hold out.

I heard a ripped snarl and a clicking of scaled feet on stone from the tunnels outside. In almost comical fashion, a yellow-scaled demon poked his head around the corner. When he saw us, his blazing yellow eyes widened, and he quickly drew back.

Wild chuckled darkly, and then there was the strangest breath as though the entire cave was sucking in air.

Screeches and snarls erupted from the entrance, and then demons poured in from the south.

My feet were moving and walking me forward.

As I took in that the demon horde was a mix of yellow and oranges and greens, they seemed to see me.

The yellow demon who’d first peeked in the chamber slowed to a stop. “Oyx Wehy.”

Black scales.

“Oxy Wehy.” His blurted words were passed back.

My lips curved. “Oyx Wehy.” I am more powerful than you.

And there was something my grandmother told me never to do unless I wanted to make a particularly gory statement. Seemed like the right time.

I portaled inside the demon with yellow scales.

His body couldn’t contain my magic, nor me. No sooner had the feeling of air been cut off, than cracks formed in the demon from the inside out, and his body exploded outward. The chunks scattered in all directions, and his blood was too weak to harm me as it dripped from my hair and cloak.

Some of the demons screamed. This time at me. Under their screams was the deep boom of King Julius’s delighted mirth.

I walked forward and reveled in the fear in the demons’ eyes.

Then I pushed battle into my voice for all supernaturals in the caves to hear. “Begin.”

If I’d clicked a gigantic red button to launch missiles, the effect would have been the same. There was an explosion of sound and movement and magic that shook the very cave system.

Luthers launched forth either side of me. Vissimo were hot on their heels. Magic pulsed either side of the entrances from my magus.

The chamber was too large to allow the demons to sprawl out. We didn’t want to keep them out of the eating chamber, but they did need to be controlled. The magus would use four-affinity barriers to extend the tunnels and limit the space in here. Until later.

I drew back to the center where Wild calmly—to outward appearances—waited for me with the other supernatural leaders.

Demons were engaged at all four entrances.

Wild’s gaze briefly flicked to me.

“Always wanted to do that,” I replied to his silent question.

Basilia came to stand beside me. “It set the tone.”

Andie stood on the other side of Wild. “Nicely done. One of the chunks hit another demon in the face.”

The first demon broke through the masses.

Kyros blurred forward, and then the demon’s head was parted from its body.

King Julius laughed again. The guy would’ve gotten on a treat with my grandmother.

A crack of bones rent the air, and then Andie and Sascha’s wolf forms were launching in the opposite direction at another demon. The orange scales guarding the female’s neck were no defense against Andie’s sharp claws.

The sentry pendant warmed. Barrow spoke, “Back up to west tunnels. They’re pushing out.”

We wanted to push them here. Like fire, we planned to snuff the demons out by pushing them into this central space while surrounding them on all sides. Their smoke would have nowhere to go. Their fire would die.

A green demon raced toward me, and Wild and I parted, striding so ten feet separated us.

The green demon hurtled toward Basilia, and at the last second, Wild lifted his hand and I lifted mine. Our magic connected. When the demon hit our barrier, we lifted our other hands, so the growling supernatural was caught between two barriers.

Wild’s dark eyes glittered as he clapped his hands together in unison with me. Our barriers snapped together, and the demon was shredded in the process.

“Gross,” Basilia said. “But cool. And I want the next one.”

She raced forward, and I only had a chance to watch Kyros steal her kill and to note that the demon numbers were steadily increasing before blue magic sliced before my face. Wild snarled and launched at my attacker, and then I was running forward to meet another green demon.

I sliced my father’s dagger across the demon’s torso, then plunged Ryzika’s dagger into his neck. There wasn’t much resistance. I poured in my battle magic, then tore outward to sever the supernatural’s head.

A whoosh of air.

I crouched as a blade sang where my head had been. Whirling, I sliced across the red demon’s thighs.

“Ruhng Sritch!”

Unnatural bitch.I laughed and then grunted as she managed to drive the hilt of her blade into my shoulder on the draw back.

A thread lashed out from her—an intention—and I blinked at the red thread before my magic instinctively rose to redirect it.

The drive of her blade veered wildly off course, and her confusion was evident.

I tilted my head and curled the thread back through her body.

The female demon screamed as she drove her own blade through her torso.

Shit. How the hell did I manage that?

I formed all four affinities of my magic into a disc and severed her head. It took the better part of a minute. Red scales were the toughest, though, like sawing through scarred sinew reinforced with fucking diamond.

My hand lifted of its own accord, and I peered back as my magic connected with Wild’s. Ooh. We had a good batch this time. Five demons hit the barrier, and Wild and I looped the second barrier around their backs.

I felt the magical draw this time as we snapped the barrier together and shredded the demons caught between them.

I wiped sweat from my brow and took stock. There seemed an endless number of them. They were like rats pouring out of flooding sewers.

“Past first fork,” puffed Sage through the sentry pendant.

The demons were being forced toward us.

“Kyros, let me have one!” Basilia stomped her foot as Kyros tore the head off another yellow demon.

King Julius, who hadn’t budged, laughed yet again.

“They’re working on the barriers,” Wild said rapidly. His face was streaked in blood. A demon blade had sliced across his cheek, but the wound wasn’t deep.

I scanned the caves and saw the barriers to the north that were working to narrow the fighting space were being attacked by a group of red-scaled demons who’d cottoned onto our ploy.

Wild took my hand, and we erected a barrier around ourselves first before directing the flow of our magic to the weakening barrier at the north entrance. There was something extra in the magic of the magus who shared a bond. Rooke had already formed the theory during the first battle with the demons, and the sentries had tested it out when the barriers opened.

Barriers formed by bonded magus decayed at a much slower rate. And Wild and I were about as bonded as magus could get.

We wove all four affinities to reinforce the magic there, and then I felt a dark stirring in my blood that reminded me of the magic my demon used weeks ago to cover the demon gate in my quarters. This time I could understand what was happening. Black smoke was congealing and drifting to add yet a fifth dimension—or sixth if a bond could be considered one by itself—to our work. The black smoke had to evaporate from my body to stop my blood from boiling me alive, but I could send blood out with it.

The fifth layer of the barrier contained specks of it.

I grunted as a blow landed on the charm immediately protecting us. The hit disrupted my focus on the barrier. No matter, the job was already done.

Demons of every color were pouring into the room. Wild and I were jostled back by Andie and Sascha in their wolf forms, who’d opted to protect us while we worked. We dropped the barrier, and I glanced around. All sides were being pressed back to the center.

“What’s the status of the others?” Kyros asked coolly. The guy wasn’t puffed in the slightest. Though… did Vissimo need air?

Wild answered, “They’re in the main tunnels. There’s most progress in the east, but the demons are surrounded currently and being pressed inward as planned.”

I licked my lips and made way for Andie to launch forward and drag a blue-scaled demon to the ground. She yelped as the supernatural kicked out savagely, but Sascha was on the male in the next second. Basilia dragged Andie back to the center.

The ground shook.

I didn’t mean a little shake—because that was already happening with upward of one thousand fighting supernaturals in here. The stone shook hard enough to collapse the place, and would have if the caves weren’t magically reinforced. The caves trembled, and the tremble extended to my very heart.

Because a roar had caused all that.

A being with incredible power.

The demon king was here. And his roar alone had chilled my blood as effectively as the smoke evaporating from my body.

“He stands on the knolls waiting,” King Julius declared from behind. “We shall meet him there.”

I had no resistance against the eruption of threads as those attached to most of the rulers tore from the chamber to jet out and up. If we didn’t go up there, then the demon king would come in here, or call his subjects back up to the knolls.

King Julius had put together the particular challenge in the roar quicker than me. The demon king was giving us a choice. Come out, or I’ll bring you out anyway.

Considering drawing his army out was the better strategic choice, I was surprised we got a say in the matter.

“We’re needed on top,” I told the other rulers.

Kyros was fighting but zipped back at my words to join Basilia. Andie already appeared to be mostly healed. Sascha helped her over.

I opened a portal and stepped through onto the knolls high above, Wild and the others close behind. King Julius stepped through last.

And most of us got our first look at the demon king then.

I’d seen him in a memory not long ago. This was the first time seeing him in the flesh. The enormous man had long black hair that was braided tightly against his head in a way I’d associate with Vikings. Ink symbols covered most of his torso that was bare. He wore only loose trousers that were tight at the hips and ankles.

The demon king was a fighter—a tower of trained muscle. He had the confidence of knowing the exact limitations of his ability. I knew it because I’d had that once. Before discovering my demon and then gaining the quipu in my mind’s eye. Regaining that confidence would take me years, and I envied the loss of it now, even though my strength had greatly increased since.

This man killed my grandmother. My mother. My twin.

Black smoke poured from me as pure violence singed through my veins. Not a trace of smoke escaped him, however, and not a single red scale was present either. He looked almost entirely like any of us, and I understood this was a show of power. The demon king was telling us that we weren’t worth the defense his scales provided.

“You have grown since I slaughtered your ancestors,” the demon king spoke.

That he’d spoken our tongue and not his took a beat to register.

I replied, “You’re about to find out how much.”

“Tell me,” King Julius said silkily, almost appearing to glide forward. “What kind of coward sneaks into a queendom to conquer it?”

The demon king had been assessing the seven of us, but the others must have seen how he tensioned toward Kyros’s father.

He tilted his head to look at King Julius. “A smart one. Only pride would see me do it any other way.”

“Dignity and pride mean little to a demon,” Julius answered.

“They mean little to a demon who will win.”

The Vissimo king had circled in front of our line and stood directly before the demon king now. “Yet by losing them, you have acknowledged you are willing to lose something, and so you show weakness. You could have refused to lose in any capacity and win all. You did not.”

Something flickered in the demon king’s gaze, and I saw a fiery red glow deep within him for the first time. “Do you seek to fight with words, great king?”

“Nothing so foolish.”

The Vissimo was there one second and gone the next. A seismic boom tore at the knolls as the two kings collided. Andie gasped, and Kyros and Basilia both stepped forward, their eyes not leaving the fight before them.

The Vissimo king was fast. Fast beyond reason. My eyes and quipu sight could barely track him. But the demon king didn’t need to match him for speed.

He possessed magic.

Scales of the richest red appeared on the towering male’s neck in a solid band, and red smoke poured from his body and outward.

Wild cast his power forth to light the knolls, and the light poured through the red smoke, allowing those of us without Vissimo vision to glimpse the clashing shadows within.

Julius’s roar spliced through the air, and the demon king’s followed.

“We should do something,” Sascha said. “But how… fuck, I’d get in the way.”

We’d all come to the same conclusion.

“Tempest?” Wild asked.

I took a breath. “I’m worried to look. If I peer at the quipu, I don’t know if it will lock me in.”

“Do you have a choice?” he asked.

My body was shaking, and I had an inkling Wild had already put together what I’d just realized. “Maybe not.”

I groaned as threads erupted in every which direction, including under and above my feet. I gripped the sides of my head, and Wild caught me as I was driven to my knees by the force of inside attack.

Our forces below were keeping the demons contained. Those at the center had now portaled to join those pressing inward as planned. I winced as a magus tether withered to dust. A Luther tether recoiled and dropped to the stone.

It didn’t matter which side won down there.

What mattered was who won out here.

If the demon king slaughtered us now, then there was little hope for the future of my coven.

And I saw the future roll out before me like a carpet of liquid black.

The demon king would rule all three supernatural territories if we lost this day. Magus would only be the start.

Because the most powerful beings in the territories were right here, and even as that was our strength, it was our weakness because we could have just provided our heads on a silver platter for this powerful supernatural.

My mind tightened and pulsed at the pace of change in the threads whipping and curling and withering. I panted, trying to regain clarity.

Wild was pulling in my magic in an attempt to help. “Focus on one part,” he whispered urgently in my ear.

I shook my head. Not in refusal, but in a bid to do as he’d suggested. I needed to see if we could help King Julius. That was why I’d opened myself fully to the quipu.

Hands clawing in the dirt and grass, I pulled in the lens of my mind’s eye inch by inch. Doing so didn’t block out everything else, but the threads within my lens brightened.

“That’s it,” Wild said low. “Keep drawing it in.”

I was either projecting the vision before me, or he could feel my magic tightening.

Sweat poured from me by the time I managed to narrow the quipu to the battle before me.

I looked ahead at the two kings. The demon king’s torso was a mess of gouges that I could blame Julius’s claws for, but Julius wasn’t free of injury. Blood poured freely from a shoulder wound, and others I couldn’t see—not even in my mind’s eye.

He’d slowed.

The demon king’s magic was curbed too.

“I can’t see that we’re meant to be helping,” I said, but part of that was because Julius’s threads weren’t playing the game and were stubbornly curled in on each other still.

“You know there is only one way to kill me,” Julius said suddenly.

Kyros grunted, and Basilia gripped his arm tight.

“Tey dslyk ths.” The demon king spat out a reply in his tongue, too far in the instinct of battle to be thinking in ours.

“You’d like that,” I said for the benefit of everyone else.

My body was shaking from the onslaught it just endured, and Wild seemed to sense I couldn’t stand, opting to remain crouched beside me.

“I would,” King Julius purred.

He was before the evil king in a flash I hadn’t tracked.

The red smoke was sucked in from the knolls and back into the demon king’s body.

“Yes,” Andie whispered.

Julius’s arm was through the demon’s body. Sticking-out-the-back through. The demon king hadn’t uttered a sound. In fact, the two kings were in a strange sort of silent exchange, neither seeming particularly bothered by their current situation.

Where he hadn’t been able to before, the demon king bizarrely spoke our tongue now. “And so you have chosen your fate.”

“The fate was mine,” Julius replied. “I meet it with all the pride and dignity I have gathered in life, knowing I leave that pride and dignity behind in my children.” His gaze flickered to Kyros, then back to the demon. “I meet this fate in a way you no longer can, demon king. Yours is a fate far worse, and I only pity my executioner at the end.”

Dread had steadily built as the conversation continued, but with the way Julius skewered the demon king, I gathered that none of us had truly believed the finality and gravity in the Vissimo ruler’s words.

“Father,” Kyros exhaled.

He broke into a blurring sprint, Basilia hot in his wake. Andie and Sascha burst forward after, but I remained still.

I’d finally understood something.

Julius roared and a surge of power that I’d never experienced from a Vissimo burst from him, flinging the four supernaturals back.

From my knees, I watched as red cracks started to show in the arm Julius had plunged through the demon. The red spread over the king’s grim-streaked and bloodied torso, then spearing up his neck. Red filled Julius’s eyes.

Blood started to leak from them, but Julius didn’t make a single sound. Only as blood appeared to push out of his every pore did the Vissimo shake slightly.

“No.” Wild’s voice was filled with the horror I was frozen by.

When it seemed like all the blood in the ancient’s body had vacated to make way for the foreign power forcing itself inside, there was a high keening like fingernails on a blackboard.

Kyros was on his feet and surging forward.

Basilia was getting up, a look of pure panic upon her face. Andie was helping Sascha to stand.

“Thank you,” Wild whispered to the dying king.

Julius was there one moment.

And then only red smoke remained.

I realized too late that the way King Julius’s threads curled around his body meant he’d chosen his fate with complete certainty before this encounter.

Kyros’s father knew this fight with the demon king would be his last.

And it was.