Chapter 30

CHAPTER

THIRTY

ACAROS

A demon corpse lay at my feet. I shuffled back a few feet, yet some kind of power emanating from Iza's body wrapped around both my ankles like snakes and dragged me toward her, my body feeling like it was being crushed from the inside out.

Everything happened so quickly that I didn't know how to stop it. One moment, I had been hunting Iza down and following her scent into Wrath; the next moment, I'd watched her kill a demon in a split second.

She tightened her grip on me. "Acaros! Help me! I can't see anything."

"Release your hold on me, Iza."

"I-I don't know how!" she exclaimed. "I don't know what's happening."

I had been in war and battle, and usually, demons went for the souls, to suck them right out of the body and end a demon's life for good if they were trying to kill another. Typically, I could fight back. But I couldn't. Not this time.

When Iza pulled me all the way to her, her eyes were pure white with a ring of black around the edges. With the last of my energy, I reached out and grabbed her hand. Iza took a huge breath and stumbled back, releasing the magic.

She landed on her ass and stared at the corpse a couple of feet away.

"Oh my God," Iza whispered. "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God!"

After shaking her head, she slowly backed away from the demon's corpse. Usually, a demon couldn't die unless another demon—or angel—sucked out their soul and stored it in their own. But I couldn't even see a remnant of a soul.

None.

Not even a smidgen of mist anywhere.

Which meant that this demon's soul was still intact in his body, but he was dead.

"Impossible," I whispered.

Iza turned to me with heavy tears in her wavering eyes. "Acaros, wh-what did I do?" She ran toward me, hands shaking. "I didn't mean it. Is he dead? I-I don't even know what h-h-happened."

"It's okay, Iza," I said, still staring at the demon.

Nobody had this kind of power. Nobody alive at least.

A tree branch snapped to my left, and I glanced over to see Dani emerging from the dead trees.

She set her gaze on the man, then looked at Iza, her lips turning into a small smile. "I knew it."

"What is going on?!" I exclaimed, wrapping one arm around Iza's shoulders and pulling her toward me. I shifted my body to shield Iza from Dani, in case Dani had put some kind of spell on her. "What have you done?"

"I didn't do anything," Dani said.

"You heard me tell Iza to stay at The Lounge," I growled. "And you brought her here ?!"

"I needed to make sure."

"Make sure of what?!"

Dani pursed her lips together. "That she was the one."

Iza trembled in fear beside me, her body shivering in panic. I tucked her into the crook of my arm and held her even tighter in an attempt to calm her down while I took care of Dani, the queen of Lust and apparently now an enemy.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I snarled.

"Do you know Beliel's Prophecy?" Dani asked me.

" Three demons will rise from the ashes—the Devil, the Beast, the False Prophet. God will call them the Triad of Sinners; we will call them the Unholy Trinity. Under them, Hell will rule the Earth, and heaven will fall to ruin, " I repeated from memory.

As demon boys and girls, we had been forced to memorize the prophecy, had been told that it would be fulfilled soon. But soon in demon years could be hundreds or thousands of years from now.

What did that have to do with this?

"What you learned, what Eros learned, and what your friends learned wasn't the entirety of the prophecy. Pieces of it had been sheltered away, hidden within each of the seven kingdoms. And we found another piece two months ago, just days after the war began."

"Where did you find it?"

"The Kingdom of Wrath."

"And what'd it say?"

"Written on the walls of the Tartarus Caves, it reads: Twenty-three years before the war begins, a human will be born who possesses the same image of who angels call Mother—hair set in pretty coils, dark skin that glows in the sunset, and innocent brown eyes so everyone thinks she can do no harm. And with her, my power will lie ."

Eyes widening slightly, I shifted my gaze to Iza. " God looks like Iza?"

"Yes," Dani said. "I've spoken with her."

"And you think that Iza has Beliel's powers?"

"I've thought that since I met her." Dani gestured for us to walk to the lava pits that demons had to trek through to even get here. "If she didn't, there isn't a way that she would survive multiple nights with any Lust demon. Especially you."

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" I asked, picking Iza up and following Dani.

"Because"—she smiled softly—"I haven't known you for long, but it was the first time I had seen you so happy. I wasn't going to ruin that before I knew if Iza certainly possessed the powers of Beliel. Besides, Eros told me not to get involved."

Iza stirred in my arms, still shaking.

After turning her attention to Iza, she nodded. "So, will you join us?"

"No," I said.

"I'm not asking you," Dani said to me. "I'm asking Iza."

I growled. "I don't care who you're asking."

"Iza is perfectly capable of making her own decisions."

"Decisions about a war that she knows nothing about? Decisions based on her power that she just realized today—that she also knows little about?" I pulled her tighter. "She's not making any hasty decisions based on a prophecy that we don't even know to be true."

"The prophecy is true," Dani said. "Ask any of the commanders. And the war is here."

"She doesn't—" I started, only for Dani to interrupt me.

"I don't expect that we'll need Iza anytime soon," Dani said. "It'll give you and others a chance to train her to become stronger. She has the power of all the kingdoms, not just Lust. So, she will need extensive training."

"What if I don't want this?" Iza asked softly, her voice barely audible. Her eyes kept opening and closing in a haze.

"Then, don't accept," Dani said, offering another smile. "But please take your time and think about it."