“NOOO!”
“Dellilian!” I stutter, unable to let a smile spread to show my undying love and gratitude for her. Because she came. Despite her fear of the bad man. She came! She came for us!
But as she lands on her feet, Vrath uses the broken branch to slice into Dellilian’s chest.
Her blood is red like ours, but with stardust and an opalescent shimmer.
It is everywhere.
“DELLILIAN!” Niklaus bellows.
This…thispaired with his father’s death…
He is not grieving. He is becoming a mausoleum.
The Morphing Onyx Short-Haired Windila falls on her side, air thumping out of her lungs from the tumble. And she lies so still, each small breath invisible.
74. Guardian Angels in The Form ofDellilian
Niklaus
“What happened—what has happened!” Vrath smacks himself in the head, fighting an unseen battle with his own rotting mind from old age. “Where am I! What has happened to my precious tree?!”
I rise despite my body deteriorating from Vrath’s plague of a presence. My walk is heavy, willing to lose everything for the vengeance of my father—for striking down my dear friend who stayed by my side in that prison. The gentle friend who tucked herself against my cold skin on long winter nights. The one who found a way to bring me food when I was being starved by the kitchen.
A chord is struck behind my half-crest stare. Every word I hold back trembles in my jaw.
It hurts to move.
To breathe.
To think for too long.
But this atomizing wound that turns leaden in my chest is stronger than any disease Vrath spreads to me.
One hand scoops the other half of the branch from the ground, and I jog up to Vrath who is spinning in confusion, throwing his bowler hat to the ground.
Pitching my arm in an upward motion, I hook the splintered, frayed end of the abominable wood up Vrath’s throat, splitting into his esophagus. Severing tendons and puncturing his windpipe. Heat gushes over my hand.
It’s a fountain of spurting blood shooting from Vrath’s painted mouth.
“You tookeverythingfrom me!” I say through my teeth, then twist the branch until it crumbles to dust in his bloodstream. “BURN. IN. HELL. YOU SON OF A BITCH!”
That tree’s poison floods Vrath’s veins, causing him to convulse before it turns the whites of his eyes black, then decays every cell and organ from the inside out. His corroding skin decomposes to mold and mush at our feet.
And the sickness lifts like a wet, moth-eaten veil—but not without lasting damage that we may see for years to come.
Sapphire and I rush to Dellilian still on her side, unmoving and bleeding into the frosty dirt.
“Hi, sweet girl!” Sapphire murmurs.
“Dellilian. You’re fine. You’re okay. That was amazing!” I kneel in front of her face, sliding my hands around her snout.
“Come on, girl. Tell us you’re okay.”
Dellilian’s eyes are open, and they blink slowly. Still breathing.
“Dellilian still hurt?” she asks.
