And her abdomen… Mother, she was torn open. Gutted. Vampires could survive so much. But this… how could any being survive this?

A sickening CRACK rang out. The floor quivered, groaned. For a terrifying moment, I was certain we were about to fall to our deaths. In the distance, the screams grew louder. I couldn’t tell anymore where they were coming from—in here, or out there, or both.

Raihn and I, both braced over Mische’s body, exchanged an alarmed glance. No time. How long did we have before this tower collapsed?

“Come on, Mische,” he murmured. “We have to go.”

He gathered her in his arms. She let out a tiny whimper that made my heart leap—if she was in pain, she was alive.

A burst of light flared behind us as the Nightfire swelled. It was everywhere. Raihn abandoned his gentleness for urgency as we lurched back towards the window and away from the flames.

He turned to me. “I can take you both.”

No, he couldn’t. He could barely extend his hand to me with Mische in his arms.

I said, “Bring her down and come back for me.”

He grimaced. “Oraya—”

“It’s no use to anyone if we all fall. Go. Fast, because I don’t feel like dying tonight.”

He hesitated, then said, “Fine. I’ll be back. Don’t burn to death,” and was gone through the window.

It was only once I was alone that I realized what a supremely stupid idea this was. The floor moaned and quaked precariously. I struggled to see anything. Surges of white and blue ballooned, walls falling to the flames.

Thirty seconds and the Nightfire would overtake this entire apartment. That, or the tower would collapse. Raihn would never get back fast enough.

That is, if he even came back at all. He could just leave me here.

BANG.

It was so loud it transcended sound and became force. I whirled around just in time to see the door burst from its hinges, the light consuming me.

I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear.

I was suspended in nothing but pain.

I rolled over. Pushed myself to my hands and knees—or at least I thought I did. I could be upside down. I could be falling. I wouldn’t even know.

My eyes were wide open, groping desperately for something—anything—other than blinding white, and failing. My hands slid across the floor, searching for my blades. Feeling blood-slicked tile, crumbled stone, broken glass, the ice-cold ash of Nightfire debris…

I would die here.

I was blind and defenseless. Injured—my body didn’t move the way I expected it too, but the pain from the Nightfire was so universal, hitting every nerve at once, that I couldn’t even tell what was broken. Every sound was distant and muffled, as if I was underwater.

Take stock of your senses, Oraya, Vincent commanded in my head, the only clear thing in a blurry world.

I drew in a deep breath. Let it out.

I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, but I could feel. I pressed my palms to the ground—let the vibrations from it run through me.

And there, I found something… strange. A hot-cold sensation bubbling up inside of me, reaching out. All at once, I became aware not only of the floor beneath my palms, but the walls, the imprint of the window frames. I could feel myself here, in the center of this room. Feel the placement of my blades, one several feet to my right, the other lingering just beyond the reach of my left hand.

And I could feel… strength. Delirious strength. It surrounded me, ready to be drawn upon. The Nightfire. It was energy. It was power.

Mische’s words, which not long ago had seemed totally illogical—it’s just there—suddenly made sense.

I reached for that power the way I reached for my senses, like it was already a part of me.

My eyes still saw nothing but white. And yet, I knew the exact moment that the demons came bursting through the door. Three of them—no, four, the last one lingering somewhat behind, its back leg injured.

I didn’t think.

I rose, opened my hands, and let out a wordless roar.

Heat and cold flashed over my skin. A shriek pierced the numb silence of my ears. A wave of euphoria shivered over my flesh. For two seconds, I was the most powerful being in the world. I was fucking untouchable.

And then I was in agony.

My knees hit the ground hard. I doubled over, covering my face.

“Oraya!”

I didn’t hear Raihn until he was right next to me, grabbing me and pulling me upright. I blinked at him, his face a blurry imprint in a world of oppressive white. He was looking past me, to the apartment, lips parted and brow furrowed.

Then, he pulled me into his arms and hurled us out the window.

We fell for a gut-clenching moment before his wings splayed out, turning our freefall into a graceful arc. The darkness of the night was a relief to my eyes, though I blinked hard, over and over again, trying to clear my vision—now all acid spots of white against sky.

“You’re alright?” Raihn said into my ear.

I choked out, “You missed your chance to get rid of me.”

I didn’t think he was even capable of joking right now, with Mische in the state she was. So it seemed like some grim victory when, where my cheek pressed against his neck, I felt his throat vibrate with a raspy, humorless laugh. “Shame. I considered it.”

I laughed, too, in a strange broken sound that was too high and too loud.

“I thought I was going to be too late.” He leaned close to me, his voice low and drawn. “What did you just do in there?”

What? I wanted to say, but the words stuck in my throat.

“The Nightfire.” As if he heard it anyway. “You killed four demons.”

The wave of nausea had nothing to do with motion sickness.

I didn’t know how to answer him, so I didn’t.

Instead, I looked down. The white spots still speckled my vision. I realized, after a moment, that they didn’t fade because some of those spots were actually Nightfire, spreading through the streets.

Before us was the Nightborn castle, foreboding red against the night sky. The Guard had been deployed. Vincent’s army was a wave of blue and purple falling across the city, the mass of them a singular smear of death to my broken eyes.

Still, I found Vincent immediately: right there at the front, his wings spread, the black glow of Asteris surrounding him. The red outline of his wings was visible even from the sky, as was the crimson shade of his sword—the Taker of Hearts.

Even from this distance, he emanated death.

I had witnessed Vincent’s power many times before. But I had never seen him like this. A horrible feeling coiled in my stomach.

“Your father has his war,” Raihn remarked. “He’s been waiting for this moment for a long, long time. He was made for this.”

I wanted to argue. But all I could think as we soared over the wreckage was that something had changed tonight. Something would never be the same again. I couldn’t describe it, couldn’t make sense of it, but I felt it in the air.

This was not just an attack. Not just a culmination of tension. Not a final death spasm.

No, this was the beginning of something horrible. A bloody birth of a bloodier monster. One that could devour us all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It was nearly a full day before the Nightfire was extinguished and the demons disposed of. Whoever had launched the attack had been very strategic about their entry points. They came in through the southern entrance of the Moon Palace, which was the quietest and least protected. The greenhouse had been easy to breach, and the plants provided fantastic kindling for the Nightfire. Now nothing remained of it but shattered glass, all buried beneath the remnants of the tower that had collapsed above.