That's the first thing I'm aware of when consciousness returns, not pain exactly, but heat. Like every cell in my body has been set on fire and is now slowly consuming itself. My skin feels too tight, too hot, stretched over bones that ache with a deep, fundamental wrongness.
I try to open my eyes. Can't. Everything is too bright, too much, like staring directly into the sun.
Voices filter through the heat haze. Urgent. Arguing.
"--can't survive this much longer, "
"--divine energy wasn't meant for mortal vessels, "
"--find another way, "
"There IS no other way!"
That last voice cuts through the others. Croesus. I'd know it anywhere, even through the fog of pain. And there's something in his tone I've never heard before, not anger, not possessiveness.
Terror.
I feel him inside me. Desperate. Fraying at the edges. Watching me die and unable to stop it.
I force my eyes open.
I'm in the ritual chamber, the one deep in the house of gold with the domed ceiling carved like a night sky.
And around me, at each point of the star, sit seven fallen angels.
The sight would be overwhelming even without the divine energy tearing me apart from the inside. They're all here, all seven of them, and their combined presence makes the air thick enough to choke on.
Croesus kneels at his golden point, hands braced on his thighs, gold eyes locked on me with an intensity that makes my chest ache. He looks wrecked, hair disheveled, shirt untucked, dark circles under his eyes like he hasn't slept in days. I feel his emotions pouring into me: fear, rage, desperation, love.
So much love it hurts almost as much as the burning.
"Raven." His voice cracks on my name. "You're awake.”
"What..." My throat is raw, the word coming out as barely a whisper. "What happened?"
"You killed an archangel," Seraph says from his point on the star. He's sitting perfectly upright on a white cushion, platinum hair shining in the chamber's soft light, mirror eyes reflecting my pain back at me. "And nearly killed yourself in the process."
Memory crashes back. The battle. The archangel. Pulling on all seven bonds at once, channeling their combined power through my very mortal body. Turning divine essence to gold and fire and nothingness.
The archangel's final words: She's begun... the reunion... God help us all...
The angels' absolute refusal to explain what he meant.
And then..
"The bonds," I gasp. "They didn't break. They were supposed to break after..." I stop.
I try to sit up. Can't. My body won't obey, too busy burning itself out from the inside.
"The divine energy you channeled," Kael says from his red cushion. The angel of wrath leans forward, ember eyes fixed on me, scars standing out stark against his skin. "It's still in you. Human bodies aren't meant to contain that much power. It's destroying you from the inside out."
"We've tried everything," Dorian adds quietly. "Purging rituals. Binding spells. Even trying to pull the energy out through the bonds. Nothing works."
"You absorbed something that shouldn't exist in mortal flesh," Lysander says, and for once there's no seduction in his purple eyes, no lazy smile. Just honest concern. "Divine fire mixed with seven deadly sins. The combination is...volatile."
"She's dying," Croesus says flatly. "We have maybe hours. Maybe less."
The words hang in the air. Final. Inescapable.
