19. Chapter 19

Ilurched, my eyes snapping open with a gasp as if I'd been drowning.

"Shhh, Hellspark. I got you," Cyn said, smiling as he cradled me in his brawny arms. "Don't worry. You're safe."

An amaroidal taste lingered on my tongue, and I smacked my lips.

"Are you okay, Myna?" Elias asked, running a hand over my hair. He briefly turned, speaking to someone else. "With the Creators as my witness, I swear if your obscure healing potion harmed her, we will make you wish you were never born."

An arrogant laugh sounded. "Please. The potion will merely ease her pain and stop the bleeding, make her feel a little better. What would be the point of killing her now? We want Mynarin to partake in the finale so you can scramble to protect her, and everyone may watch you fail. No need to be so hostile … yet."

Poison? Potion? The finale?

It took me a few seconds to remember what had happened and where I was.

The House of Grief.

Acceptance.

The ritual, giving my brothers my flesh and blood … But hadn't I been naked?

The circle had disappeared, and I was dressed again, from my boots to my tunic, the injuries I sustained numbed. The pressure of a tight bandage wrapped around my left upper arm where Elias had bitten me, and the weakness of losing blood from Cyn's feeding had lessened. I briefly exposed my abdomen, and though the runes in the circle had burned when I touched them, they had left no marks.

Overall, I felt great, but I knew this effect would only last as long as the potion did.

"I'm fine," I said. "How long was I out?"

"Quarter of an hour or so," Cyn said. "We put your clothes back on. You were shivering."

"And how the Hells did you clean us up this fast?"

Acceptance clicked his tongue. "That was my doing, Myna dear. Just a little spell. You three were positively disgusting, smeared with wax and each other's fluids." He shuddered. "I don't want to get any of that on myself when I tear you to pieces."

Despite being grateful I didn't have to battle with wax and cum all over me, I didn't feel the need to thank him.

"Can you stand?" Cynthian asked.

I nodded, prompting him to put me down, but he didn't let go entirely. One arm stayed wrapped around my shoulders as he set a kiss on the crown of my head.

"You were fucking incredible during the ritual. Just thinking about it gets me Creators damned hard again," Cyn said.

Elias moved to my other side, taking my hand and bringing it to his face, his lips brushing over the back. "Thank you, little one, for everything. Experiencing your emotions, your pleasure, your love for us—it was sublime. I lack the words to describe the divine sensations you permitted me to witness. And Myna?" I felt his mouth curve as he spoke the words against my skin. "Your flesh is delectable."

Heat needled my cheeks. "I love you, my brothers. No matter what happens to us, death and damnation are a fair price, if it meant embracing you again."

"Shit, am I now supposed to say something about finding you in the afterlife?" Cyn cackled, leaning past to kiss Elias, then me. "But I'm not gonna do that. Cause we're not dying today. Not if I have anything to say about it, and I feel stronger than I ever have." With a last squeeze, he stepped away and took the cleaver from his belt.

As I slung my quiver over my back and took up my bow, I studied my brothers' stances and expressions. I could no longer find any signs of the poison affecting them, and a few of the knots in my gut unraveled.

Eli stood tall, composed calm spreading over his features, flickers of emerald sparks dancing along his raised hands.

Cyn's grip on his hatchet was firm, heels digging in, a wide grin on his face and irrefutable madness flashing in his gaze as it found Acceptance.

The positive effects of the ritual might have been temporary, but at least now we stood a fighting chance.

"Finally, we may proceed," Acceptance said, clapping once as he rose from his throne to saunter down the dais.

We retreated with each inch of his advance, instinctively moving together.

"Behold, worms, perfection none of you could ever achieve!" Acceptance shouted, his words echoing like distant thunder, the first harbinger of the storm to come.

The hairs on my arms rose as his magic surged, swirls of sluggish scarlet and black enveloping him. Like the weaving of a bizarre cocoon, the mist thickened and grew until it swallowed him entirely. But the mound was yet swelling, growing toward the ceiling. Higher. Higher.

I nocked my first arrow.

A bang sounded, and in a shower of crimson mortal blood, the undulating mass exploded. Yet the nightmare it revealed looked far from ever having been mortal to begin with.

A gigantic monstrosity stood before us.

Acceptance's changed body was covered in red scales, and my heart dropped as I gazed upon the spikes along his thin arms and four, muscular legs, reminding me of a grotesque spider. His paws ended in long, dark claws, but he didn't have hands. Instead, bone blades grew from his forearms, shaped like scythes. His massive wings beat as they spread, sending a brutal gust of air through the room. Large, twisted horns decorated his head, and rows of sharp, yellow teeth glinted in his maw beneath three sets of vertical, red eyes.

"Finally, a fucking challenge!" Cyn shouted, cackling. He dashed forward, cleaver raised.

His blade met one of Acceptance's legs—and was deflected with a dull clank. Acceptance laughed, his voice booming. Cyn froze for a split-second before he caught himself and attacked again.

I aimed for Acceptance's neck and let go. My breath halted as I waited for my arrow's impact. It clinked against the scales, ricocheting, and fell to the floor. I wasn't sure if my poison would've affected the Demon, but I'd held out a glimmer of hope. Without reaching his bloodstream, however, it was pointless. The air left my lungs in a hitched sigh as I took out another arrow.

"You can't hurt me, wretches," Acceptance mocked. "Your puny weapons can't harm me!" He swiped at Cyn, but my brother was quicker, dodging with a long leap.

"Shut up! No one is fucking invincible. I just have to hit you harder!" Cyn belted as he ran at the Demon again, this time striking his side, narrowly avoiding two massive paws.

The same result: Not a scratch on Acceptance's natural armor.

"Myna, I need something to work with," Elias yelled, gesturing at the corpses hanging from the pillars.

To the tune of Cyn hacking away at Acceptance, and the Demon taunting him relentlessly, I fired four arrows in quick succession. All those years of daily training had paid off, steadying my hand even in a crisis. The broad arrowheads severed the ropes stringing up the cadavers, freeing them from their imprisonment.

With a single gesture, Elias raised the dead from their slumber—the ritual had definitely empowered him, too.

The half-rotten bodies clamored from their cages of cloth, groaning as they ran toward Acceptance. These thralls were faster and more aggressive than the ones I'd seen him command in the church when we first met. They beat on the Demon, tearing at his scales. Their movements were less like sluggish meat puppets, rather focused and targeted, as if Eli projected his determination directly into their maggot-riddled brains.

Their lack of free will and inability to feel pain made soulless Undead the perfect soldiers. Unless the crystallized core in place of their heart was destroyed, they would keep fighting.

The ghouls demonstrated that outstanding tenacity when Acceptance flung them aside with an annoyed roar. They assailed him again immediately, ignoring their twisted limbs and gaping wounds. But even their relentless attacks combined with Cyn's battering strikes couldn't damage Acceptance. They couldn't rip off a single scale.

I shot another handful of corpses free, and Elias raised them, too.

Nothing made a difference. Acceptance was a brutal behemoth with impenetrable defenses.

Cyn rolled, evading the bone blades whooshing over his head. He came to a halt a few feet away, his breath ragged, forehead slick with sweat.

An unsettling coldness expanded in my chest. My skin crawled with terror when I realized the worst thing about the fight so far:

Acceptance hadn't attacked in earnest once.

We couldn't wait until he got bored with merely flicking away the ants crawling at his feet.

My knees went weak, and I lowered my bow. A part of me wanted to give up. To surrender and beg for our lives, accept defeat.

But Cyn renewed his assault with a war cry, now lashing his whip at Acceptance. And Elias, brow furrowed and all eyes alight with power, directed the Undead with smooth gestures.

I shook my head, readying my weapon again.

We wouldn't give up.

We'd never given up.

We'd been beaten and abused, left for dead from the day we were born. Nothing had ever been handed to us.

We didn't owe this violent life anything, and it didn't owe us shit, either.

The world didn't care about us, and we didn't care about the world.

But we cared about each other.

And I owed it to them, to our love, to keep fighting until my very last breath. Even the storm of a hopeless, tumultuous fate could be broken upon the cliffs of our combined strength.

No one is fucking invincible.

I chewed on my lip as Cyn's words flitted through my mind. It was true, everyone had a weak spot. There must have been something we could do, an advantage to turn the tides in our favor.

My gaze slid along the pillars and the walls, and my brows rose.

The paintings of Acceptance had transformed with him. Where his human form had been depicted, was the same beast that now occupied this very hall, recreated in all its detailed monstrousness.

Cyn screamed, and my attention snapped to him. Acceptance's paw found its target, catapulting him across the room. He hit the floor with a crack, holding his side.

"Cyn!" My stomach hardened as I ran to him, offering a hand.

"I think I've broken one or two ribs, Hellspark. Maybe more."

He winced as he let me help him up, though given our difference in weight and height, it was more of a metaphorical gesture.

At the other end of the hall, Acceptance drove back the Undead with a flap of his wings, pushing himself into the air. The ground shook as he landed ahead of us, a malicious chuckle rumbling in his throat.

"I grow tired of your games," he bellowed, his voice making my ears ring.

"Come on then, let's end this, you ugly fucker!" Cyn yelled, swapping whip for cleaver once more. He turned to me, lips pinching, the humorous confidence slipping from his features. "I can't keep this up much longer, Myna. I'm sorry I've failed you and Eli."

My lips parted and my heart squeezed, but before I could say anything, he was already gone.

"Oi! Over here you oversized lizard spider or whatever the fuck you're supposed to be!" he shouted, and Acceptance whirled around, snarling.

"I'll enjoy turning you into gore stains beneath my paws," the Demon barked, and the earth rumbled as he galloped toward Cyn.

Elias chanted under his breath, and the same spectral hands he'd used to restrain Denial rose beneath Acceptance. They grasped his ankles, tightening—and ripped like thin thread, fading into tendrils of green mist.

I sucked in a shallow breath.

This fight wasn't over until I said it was.

I looked back to the paintings. They were all variations of the same theme: Acceptance's demon form razing villages. Acceptance's demon form stomping on mortals. Devouring them. Tearing them apart.

All but one painting, half obscured by a pillar next to the throne.

My eyes slitted and my head cocked.

One painting hadn't transformed with him.

One small, square canvas still showed an average male with brown hair and brown eyes, standing atop a hill in the countryside. His pose was neither heroic nor threatening, his expression neither hostile nor friendly.

Hope tightened my throat as I looked to Cyn, finding him still dodging Acceptance's sluggish attacks. The abomination's size worked against him, but sooner rather than later, Cyn's stamina would run out.

I dropped my bow. My fingers trembling, I yanked the hidden blade from my boot and dashed toward the plain little painting. Elias shot me a confused glance, but I smiled as I ran past, and he returned the gesture. He trusted me.

I skidded to a halt in front of the artwork. With all my might, I burrowed my blade to the hilt in the painted man's neck.

Acceptance howled—not in anger, but in pain.

Black blood welled from a gash at his throat, and he pressed a paw to the wound. He twirled around, maw gaping, eyes fixed on me.

"How dare you!" he shouted. "I will end you!"

I couldn't help smirking, then laughing, as I withdrew the blade, plunging it into the man's shoulder. Into his abdomen. His chest.

The beast hurtled in my direction, his anguished cries rattling my bones.

I sliced at the man's legs and the Demon fell, leaving a trail of dark ooze as it crawled toward me. He tried to use his wings, but he was already too weakened by the poison on my blade, their slow flapping not enough to lift him.

My concoction might've not been able to hurt a being from the Hells, but it worked just fine on a mortal human like the one in the shredded painting.

I didn't stop stabbing. Didn't stop slashing.

When Acceptance stilled, and the canvas was nothing but torn, painted bits of cotton, I lowered my blade. My heart raced and my arm ached as my eyes searched for my brothers.

For a moment, we all stood gawking at each other. Then Cyn laughed. His cleaver clattered onto the floor as he cackled wildly, voice breaking.

"What do you say now, Malachar?! Didn't expect this, you piece of shit, huh?" he shouted.

Indeed, Malachar, who had seemed keen to speak to us through the wards before, stayed suspiciously quiet.

"Fuck, we did it! We fucking killed the bastard!" Cyn paused, pointing at me. "Actually, you did it Hellspark! You Creators damned genius!"

Suddenly, I was laughing again too, wiping at my misty eyes. Elias strode toward me and wrapped his arms around me, picking me up. He set kisses on my temple, my jaw, the corners of my lips.

"Maybe I was correct after all, and the Creators sent you to save us," he said, smiling as he carried me toward the dais. "You are our gore-stained angel of death, protecting us with your darkened wings of poison shadow."

I averted my eyes, my face burning. Over the years, I'd almost forgotten how good Eli was with words, how his compliments never failed to make my heart flutter.

"This was my last idea. I didn't even think it would work," I admitted, twisting as I slotted the dagger into its sheath in my boot again. "He must have somehow preserved his vulnerable mortal form in the painting."

"For a skilled magic user such as a powerful Demon, it would be child's play. Some liches and other sentient Undead conceal their mortality in similar ways, hiding them in soul cages or organ jars. I suppose why not a painting?" Elias gave a gentle shrug. "His usual prey would be here by themselves, and I doubt they would get much of a chance to look around and notice the art while fighting for their lives. Let alone keep a cool head like you did."

Cyn picked up his hatchet and met us at the throne, smirking. He threw his arms around us, and kissed first me, then Eli. "For a minute there I thought we were done for." He tousled my hair, and I giggled. "Close call. But thanks to Myna, we still get to fight on."

He lifted the dome from the exhibition stand and hurled it against the nearest wall, the glass shattering. Whooping, he picked up the key from the pillow, tossing it in the air before catching it in his fist.

"As a celebration, I'd like to fuck you both senseless while Malachar is busy shitting and pissing himself in fear, but the effects of this damn ritual won't last forever. I don't wanna wait and find out what the poison has done to our bodies while we're jacked up on demon juice or whatever," Cyn said.

"You're right." Elias nodded as he put me down. "Malachar's personal guard will be keen to welcome us outside of this room. Once the doors are open, I wish to raise some of Acceptance's remaining victims outside of the wards' boundaries. Myna, would you kindly shoot down a few more bodies?"

"Of course."

My grin widened. I felt weightless, as if I could take on the entire world. If we could defeat Acceptance, we could overcome any obstacle.

"And then …" I said, squaring my shoulders. "Then we take the fight to the man himself and show him what happens when you mess with the three orphans."