The silence broke with movement among the ranks as the Harbingers came through. Hadeon was missing an eye, and Calla pressed on the gash at her waist but that was the worst of it.They dragged the Dominions of Wrath and Lust forward. Blood leaked from Ira’s many wounds, antlers severed, his face burned so badly that his ears were nearly gone. Morvenna whimpered, blood leaking from her lips. Deimos’s Shades did the heavy lifting by hauling Balgor over next. His bulging body had been sliced to shreds, his eyes gouged out.
They forced the Dominions to kneel.
“We yield, sire.” Balgor immediately groveled, reaching out to him blindly. “We were fools to ever question our king.”
Morvenna wailed like a petulant child. Her mouth was a gory mess and Alora realized with a sick churn that her tongue had been torn out. Calla stood with her arms crossed, flexing her bloodied claws.
She quieted to soft sniffles when Ira took her hand.
He drew his shoulders back, defiantly facing the consequences of his actions.
“No one will speak for me,” Ira barked when his court began to petition. “I will not beg pardon for my treason. I go to my death willingly.” His gaze lifted to Rune’s. “I ask only that you send me through the Gates with my dignity.”
The court fell silent, every demon turning toward their king.
Rune held Ira’s gaze for a long moment, his cloak snapping in the wind. Through the bond bristled with his cold fury, deep beneath it lingered the quiet weight of what was being severed. Centuries of rule. Battles once fought under the same banner. A Dominion he once respected.
They would die for their betrayal, but Rune would honor Ira’s request.
He sheathed the Sunstone blade.
Then air pulled as he summoned Noctharion into his grasp. The evil blade whispered in an eerie Hellspeech and Alora shivered at the taste of its bloodlust.
Rune didn’t swing.
Shadows lanced from the black blade like scythes across the hilltop, death slicing cleanly through their necks. The Dominions instantly turned to ash, crumbling away in the hush.
Only Sal’vathar remained.
But when Alora looked at where he had fallen, she found a drag path of black ichor leading to the altar. Sal’vathar lay among a patch of spider lilies, hissing a spell into the remnants of her blood. The array flashed with scarlet light.
She gasped, sprinting to him.“No!—”
The earth shook with a violent quake.
The altar crumbled, the hilltop buckled, the ground ripping open beneath them in a crimson fissure. Rune snatched her away in the air, everyone fleeing in opposite directions.
The Rift tore wide.
It split through the land like a gaping wound of the world. The earth quaked, and claws tore skyward with a roar that shook the valley. A black mass tore free from the breach, rising into the storming sky.
“He is through,”Rune said gravely.
A horrid chill sank through Alora’s bones.
Men bolted. Demons scattered. Fae and Minotaurs fled for the ridge.
The air was thick with screams.
Through the smoke, vast forms writhed, pressing at the Rift, their skeletal shapes screeching. The Wild Hunt was coming next.
Sal’vathar’s manic laughter rang out as he watched. “Even if I fall, the Titan rises! What will you do now, Rune? Your souls cannot bind a second Rift!”
Alora had enough of him.
The shadows whisked her to his side in the span of a breath.
She seized him by the throat.
