“Please.” The viscount looked terrified. I didn’t stop. I had no mercy. I sent another blast of black flames at him.
But the viscount’s magic was not as drained as I had assumed, and the fall to his knees had been a feint to distract me—to lull me into thinking he would be easily defeated. This timewhen I sent those flames, he was ready, and he blasted his own power to meet them as he rose to his feet.
Black flame collided with red, sending sparks flying. My fury answered, rumbling through the walls of the cavern.
Ciaran, who had been taking down gendarmes, stepped in; his shadows leapt between our flames, dousing them and attempting to smother the viscount where he stood.
“You cannot defeat me,” the viscount hissed and spat. “I am more powerful than you can even imagine. I don’t know how you got out of my thrall, but regardless, you will not defeat me. I have been training my magic since before you were born, girl.”
“I will send you to the Demon Queen of Hell myself,” I hissed back, as he sent a plume of red flames toward me—it was a closer call than I cared to admit, and I smelled my clothes burning where the flames licked at them.
Ciaran moved to stand beside me, but I pushed him away. “I told you: he is mine.” My magic was driving, and much like when my panic took over, I could not wrest control.
“Are you ready to do it again, Ciaran? To let the woman in your life die for you?” The viscount sneered at him as I sent a wall of black flames at him. He parried easily. “Seems like that’s what you’re good at.”
Ciaran snarled, throwing himself into the fray.
“You haven’t even said thank you.” The viscount tutted, sounding casual as ever, though his brow sheened with sweat and effort.
“Thank you?” Ciaran spat.
“For exterminating your whore of a mother. For eradicating that vermin from your life. I’d expectsomegratitude at least.”
I screamed as Ciaran’s shadows shot out at the viscount. Together, we advanced on Erik de Barras. Black flames and shadows entwined as they launched at him. Our magics werealready so intimately familiar with each other that they knew they could fight together.
The viscountwaspowerful, though. I had never seen anything like it. His flames were relentless, coming at us so fast we barely had time to block them.
On and on we fought, the walls of the Bowl rumbling around us as magic slammed into them. Until the black flames within me sputtered and died out. My reserve of magic had all but run dry, my hands no longer spidering with those black veins, and the wind around me quieted.
The viscount smirked: he had broken a sweat, but he still seemed barely fazed by our fight. “Silly girl. You blew your entire load. Tsk tsk. Shame you’ll never learn how to control your own magic.”
I was ready for this battle to be finished. My well of flames and wind might have run dry, but I still had tricks up my sleeve. An idea, maybe, for how to end it once and for all. Before the viscount or Ciaran or anyone else could make one more move, I unleashed what remained of my power in an unholy explosion.
I opened my mouth, my throat, my airways and sang in the highest note I could manage. It was beyond what I had ever thought possible, the sound as primal as the creation of the world, with all the power and energy of a burning star. It was Ishtar’s power—queen of the celestial realms, whose song had created this entire universe. And I aimed every bit of that power at the viscount, holding my hands out in front of me and sending the ensuing blast straight for him.
The Bowl did its job—at least, I assumed that’s what happened. I shouldn’t have been able to summon the magic I had. I was wiped out. Empty. But the sacred space carried my voice—amplified it. My fury was unstoppable. I wasn’t even Seraphina anymore. I was rage incarnate. I was a vessel for the tumultuous anger of witches who had burned before me. Everybit of that rage aimed straight for the viscount’s chest, punching a hole six inches wide through the centre of him.
The viscount blinkedat me twice; there was only shock on his broad face. He gasped, a dribble of blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth as he looked down to see a portion of his torso gone. He crumpled, falling to his knees once more, mouth opening and closing wordlessly like a fish out of water. Blood bubbled from that mouth now.
I thought of everything this man had done—all the people he had murdered. The people whose lives he had changed irrevocably. All the deaths he planned to be responsible for in the future. What he had done to me— I was livid. And I was not finished; I hadn’t even begun to tap into my rage. I bent down and retrieved the dagger that the viscount had held to my throat, what now felt like a lifetime ago. The dagger he had used to control and violate me. To control the people I cared about. I walked toward him, as if in a dream. The hole in his chest was an eerie void in his body. But it wasn’t enough. I needed tofeelhis life force as it left his body. So I grabbed the viscount by the top of his white-blonde hair and slid the dagger across his throat.
A human body holds more blood than I would have ever imagined. As the viscount’s life-force spilled out onto the floor of the sacred space of the Bowl, my magic fled my veins and my vision returned to normal. Blood flowed and flowed, pooling on the earthen floor. I settled back into my body, watching as it ran over that spot where the Pentacle still sat in the earth.
COLD
The horror of what I had done settled in: I had killed Viscount Erik de Barras. I had killed my ex-lover’s father. I may not have been responsible for the deaths the night of the chandelier disaster, but I was certainly responsible for this one. The viscount’s blood warmed my hands, the dagger still clutched between my sticky fingers. I couldn’t stop watching as his blood poured from his lifeless corpse. It was horrifying and fascinating and terrible. More and more of it, pooling on the floor of the seventh and final level of the Bowl.
I admit I had never considered what it would be like to take a life. I had never considered the possibility that it would be necessary. If I had, I suppose I would have assumed it would feel horrible. That I would have felt instant regret or sadness. But I felt nothing as the viscount’s body crumpled to the ground, his vacant eyes staring up at the raw rock ceiling.
The sounds of fighting quieted around me as my friends ended the lives of the gendarmes. They could not be allowed to survive now that they knew of the existence of this city. It was an unfortunate and necessary series of executions.
I sensed Rory’s approach as he sidled up to me—he had bested the brute of a gendarme he had been grappling with. Heswore, low and quiet, reaching down for the Pentacle. It was sitting in a puddle of the viscount’s blood. Somewhere, distantly, in my mind, I thought that was probably a bad thing; if the viscounthadbeen planning a sacrifice, this was surely not what he had in mind. But I didn’t have the clarity or focus to consider the ramifications now.
Ciaran appeared at my side. We hadn’t spoken a word to each other since I stormed out of his bedroom. It felt like eons had passed since that moment, when reality had shifted—had slid out from under me. I didn’t even know what I would say to him. I didn’t know what I felt.
But Ciaran didn’t say anything or demand any explanation from me. He simply stood beside me and took my blood-soaked hand in his as we stared at the body on the ground before us.
We walked in silence,back to Ciaran’s apartment. The tiny one, where we had spent so much time, cooking, reading, laughing—living together. It was full of phantoms. And I felt nothing. I went into the tiny bedroom and sat down on the bed—I was so dirty, and covered in blood, but I didn’t care.
