“Alright, out with it,” I finally said. “Tell me you hate the idea.”
“I don’t hate it,” he said after a pause. “I hate what it asks of you.”
Fair enough. Were I in Rathiel’s shoes, I’d hate it too. Except, I wasn’t in Rathiel’s shoes. I was in mine. And they were rather big ones to fill.
“This is war, Rath.” My voice came out harder than I intended, clipped and precise. “You know that. You’ve fought beside me since the beginning. We need as many soldiers as we can get. I can get us those numbers. Whatever this costs me—energy, sleep, sanity—it’s worth it if it helps us put an end to all this.”
I stepped in front of him to force him to stop walking. “I’m past pretending we can win this easily. We both know what Gavrel can do. We saw him step onto the battlefield and turn my people against each other. He’ll do it again unless we strike first. And my father…” I clenched my jaw. “He destroyed me last time. I didn’t even get a chance to touch him. He had me on the ground in seconds. You hurt him, yes, but that was luck. I won’t rely on luck again.”
Rathiel winced.
“I will do whatever it takes to protect what’s mine. And that includes resurrecting any and all hellspawn.”
“I get it,” he murmured before reaching out and brushing his knuckles along my cheekbone. His touch lit a fire under my skin. “I just worry about you. I love you.”
“And I love you,” I said.
Screw appearances. I stretched up on my tiptoes, wound my arms around his neck, and kissed him. Anything to reassure him that everything would be fine. That no matter what my magic required of me, I would always find my way back to him.
Rathiel’s arms instantly closed around me, his embrace almost tight enough to hurt, but I didn’t mind. He needed reassurance, and I could give him that.
“Lily!” Varz’s voice interrupted our kiss.
We broke apart, and I sighed before dropping back onto my heels and turning.
Varz strode toward me, his face grim. “There’s something you need to see.”
Rathiel and I were already moving. Varz led us back to the western side of the outpost, to the same door I’d chosen to ignore earlier. It was open now, and a faint sickly green haze bled out from within.
“Inside,” Varz said. “I don’t know what it is, but it looks bad.”
Of course it did. Things in Hell were rarely good.
I spared Rathiel a glance. His jaw was tight, and his hand already sat on the hilt of his blade. Together, we eased through the door one inch at a time. A thick and oppressive blackness engulfed us, except for the center of the room where the source of the sickly green haze sat. The moment my eyes adjusted, I gasped. Because there, sitting at the room’s center, was a grotesque orb half the size of me. It throbbed with magic and stank of rot and sickness.
I knewexactlywhat that was. I’d seen it before.
A pestilence bomb, compliments of Miriel.
“Well,” I muttered. “That’s inconvenient.”
The sound of my voice seemed to stir it. Its pulse quickened, throbbing brighter, red veins flaring across its surface. Then the bomb began to pulse red, like a clock ticking down the seconds.
Oh, goody. I’d just activated the bomb.
Chapter Seventeen
RATHIEL
I knewMiriel’s work the moment I saw it.
I was more than familiar with the glistening, greasy sphere pulsing in the middle of the room. It was the size of Lily’s torso and veined with hairline fissures that crawled like a living entity. Pestilence hummed beneath the surface, and it stank of a cloying sweetness. It reminded me of the weirdbananathing that had sat on Lily’s counter back on Earth when it’d started to turn brown.
The room itself was small, barely enough space for the two of us. The narrow walls and low ceiling kept anyone else from stepping inside. Small mercies. The door, however, hung open behind us. Varz and Calder stood just beyond the boundary, hovering like shadows. And behind them, a larger group gathered, including Korrak and Rathgor.
The bomb itself pulsed red, and knowing Miriel’s magic, it would explode any moment now. Just like how I knew the pestilence would attack and rot everything it touched. Miriel’s abilities didn’t discriminate. It likedallflesh. Even celestial, ifshe’d designed this one that way. It seemed safe—if notwise—to assume she had. This was war.
“Clear out!” I barked. “Evacuate the outpost!”
