Yet the magic that pulsed around her left hand, which was closed tight, was different than the Nightfire. I could sense it even from here—feel it, in the air. The clusters of smoke around that clenched fist were red and dark, and otherworldly in a way that made my skin crawl, even from all the way over here. It clung to her like it was made for her, wisps lingering at her skin and the blades at her hips.

I had no doubts of what I was seeing.

She had it. She fucking did it.

For a few endless seconds, my relief and pride battled each other for dominance, neither winning.

But then I saw Simon’s head turn. His bloodthirsty fury melted away, replaced by something even more terrifying: lustful desire.

He knew. He felt it too.

He dropped me and started to turn.

Oraya’s gaze met mine across the ruins. A second of eye contact that seemed to last an eternity, holding a million unspoken words, teetering on the edge of the end.

I wished I could use this moment to say all that I wanted to. So many things I wished I’d said.

I hoped she knew it all, anyway.

Because I didn’t even have to think before I charged.

It was like my body knew what was happening, and deemed it a worthy cause for one last push beyond the edges of my capability. Every shred of my remaining strength—physical and magical—united in this single lunge. Asteris roared to the surface of my skin, clinging to my blade, my hands. My arms managed to lift the weight of my sword one last time.

I leapt at Simon, wings spreading to propel me through this final strike, and I buried my sword into his back, pouring every scrap of magic I had into that blow, ripping him apart from the inside out.

Black light overtook my vision.

Simon let out an animalistic bellow and whirled around. The only piece of the world I managed to cling to was the hilt of my sword. Everything else withered.

I’d just unleashed something in Simon, his strikes now nothing but feral rage. Gone were the final vestiges of the calculated warrior. He was practically coming at me with teeth and fingernails.

He hurled me against the wall. His hand slammed against my throat, pinning it to stone.

I couldn’t see. Couldn’t feel anything but my grip around that hilt.

That was all I needed, anyway.

Because as his fingers tightened around my throat, as his blade drove into my flesh over and over again, I clutched that hilt with everything I had and pushed.

And pushed. And pushed.

The blade parted leather, muscle, organs.

He was so far gone that it took what felt like an eternity for the wound to catch up to him. Slowly, his eyes, bloodshot and frenzied, went distant.

At least, I thought to myself, I got to see what that looked like.

His arm faltered mid-swing. My strength gave out. My hand, blood-slicked, slipped from my sword, which was now lodged firmly into his torso.

I couldn’t reach for it again.

A sudden release of pressure, as someone grabbed Simon and yanked him off me.

The blurry image of Simon’s slackening face was replaced with Oraya’s.

Now that was a welcome trade. I tried to tell her so, but I couldn’t speak.

Her eyes were so wide and bright, like two silver coins. She said something I couldn’t hear over the rush of blood in my ears. She was shaking.

You don’t have to look so scared, princess, I tried to tell her. But when I attempted to straighten, I only fell to my knees.

And everything was dark.

73

ORAYA

“Raihn!”

I didn’t mean to scream his name. It ripped itself from my throat when he fell. I barely heard it so much as I felt it, a distillation of emotion too powerful to remain inside me.

I had run from those tunnels into the bowels of fucking hell.

The sight of it had shocked me, horrified me. The sky was dark with warriors tangled in combat, and the sandy ground of the ruins drenched with flower-bloom spatters of blood that rained from the bodies above. In the distance, beyond the rocks, our ground forces were locked in combat with the Bloodborn—human, Hiaj, Rishan, Bloodborn, all tearing each other apart.

No horror story could top this. No nightmare. Not even the prison of the gods could be worse than this.

And yet, none of it was as horrifying as seeing Raihn like this, a collection of broken tissue and tattered flesh, lying on the ground.

Suddenly I was on the grounds of the colosseum in the final trial. Suddenly I was losing him all over again.

“Raihn.” I grabbed him by the shredded leather of his armor and shook him, hard. “Get up. Get the fuck up.”

His head lolled. I expected a bleary blink, a half smile, a fuck you, too, princess.

What I got was nothing.

I pressed my hand to his chest. Or at least, I tried to, even though it required me to do the impossible—find an expanse of skin that wasn’t an open wound.

It rose and fell. So, so weakly.

He was alive. But I knew that wouldn’t last. I’d spent so much of my life sensing death looming over me. I knew what it felt like when it was near.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Simon stir. He was a monster at this point, a grotesque puppet of twisted flesh and gore. But that magic, that noxious, terrible magic, would keep him going.

I shook Raihn again. “Raihn. I forbid you to die on me. Do you understand? Get the fuck up. You swore to me—you swore—”

Never again, he’d promised me, in the springs. He swore to me that he would never betray me again.

And this—losing him—felt like the greatest betrayal.

No. No, I refused to let it happen.

I grabbed my blade and sliced my hand open again, squeezing the blood into Raihn’s parted lips. It pooled and dribbled out pathetically from the corner of his mouth, useless.

And still, he did not move.

Everything else in my mind simply shut down. Grief cracked open inside me, drowning me, uncontrollable.

Behind me, Simon twitched again, gurgling groans rising from his decimated body.

Above me, blood rained down from the heavens.

Around me, my people fell to the blades of my enemies.

Before me, my husband died.

And in my hand, clutched against burnt flesh, was a power strong enough to end it all.

All my life, I had wanted to be something to fear. It was my father’s dream, shouldered from the moment I could understand how to build the strength he expected of me and excise the weaknesses he disapproved of.

If I used the blood of a god, I would certainly become something to fear. I would be more terrifying than Simon was. I could destroy him. Septimus. The Bloodborn. I could kill every enemy and make sure no one ever would question or threaten me or my people ever again.

They would write legends about me.

But that would be the power of destruction.

I would not be able to save Raihn.

I opened my palm. The skin cracked and bled, charred by the power of the vial I clutched against it. Yet that ugliness only highlighted the incandescence of what sat within it, the blood a galaxy of colors against the darkest shadows of night.

It was so incredibly beautiful.

I blinked and a tear rolled down my cheek.

I wouldn’t lose one more thing. One more person. I couldn’t.

This blood could be used as a tool of destruction, yes. But how else could it be used?

Once I had cherished my dead father’s dirty wine glasses. I’d wrapped myself in his discarded clothing. If someone had offered me a piece of his hair, I’d have wept for it.

This blood was more than a weapon. It was a piece of someone who had once been loved. It was a bargaining chip, priceless to the one being who I knew would treasure it above all.

As Simon grunted and pushed himself to his hands and knees, I lifted my eyes to the sky. Beyond the winged bodies above, storm clouds swirled in unnatural wisps—like fish circling a pond, fragments of suspended lightning dancing between them.