The crowd does notjustshout. They move.
Some drop to their knees to scoop lifeless loved ones into their arms. Others snatch up twigs and bramble and half-scorched branches to fight the robed figures. The cult’s hold has fallen. Their magic has weakened.
Zephyra scrambles forward, crawling across the ground to reach me, and I shudder at the sight. My wings release from stasis with an immense weight carving between my shoulders. Pain and exhaustion pummel my insides in equal measure, but pain—pain is power. And I can move. This strange man has distracted the cultists enough for me to suck in a breath, conjure the few remaining tendrils of my magic, and unleash it with brutal force.
Fuck the consequences.
I freeze the water on the cultists, turning them into foul icicles. And the Death Lord—I turn on it with a bloodlust smirk and open my fist to reveal a burgeoning ball of flame. It stumbles back a step. Another.
“You might considerrunning, Arion.” Zephyra climbs onto unsteady feet and presses a hand to her abdomen. Right where she—whereI—hurt the most. Then she tugs on my arm. Latches on to my wrist and pulls and pulls and pulls. “We have to get out of here.Now.”
But I’m not done here. I will make them suffer.
They deserve it.
The Death Lord glides toward me like a wraith. It does not fear me. It does not back down. “We know of the heart, Arion Stone.” Its voice is smoke and ash. “We know of what you seek, and we will not let you have it. That heart is ours.”
How how how—
My heartbeat pounds in my ears, confusion and rage mangling my insides, but I manage to scoff. To laugh in its hideous fucking face. Advancing with my wings unfurled wide, the ball of fire begins to blister my own skin, but the pain only strengthens my magic. It only grows the flame.
Before I release it, I say, “Scream.”
Flames erupt as it incinerates the Death Lord’s robes. The monster trips over itself, beating away the fire with its gloves, but the fire only grows hotter, brighter, bigger. It doesn’t scream, but it doesn’t need to.
I just need it to die.
“Okay. You win.” A soft hand pulls at my own. I glance to the side,and there’s Zephyra. Pink hair and mottled skin where the Death Lord had her in its gruesome clutches. “Let’sgo,” she implores, pulling harder now. “While it’s dying.”
“It won’t die,” the strange man—our savior—says as what’s left of the crowd surges around him. Whether to fight the cultists or flee, I cannot tell. The man struggles to reach us, all elbows and shoulders and stumbling steps. “Cultists do not die unless they’re drowned in the sea. That is the balance of Mortem’s cruel sycophants.”
I blink, the familiar voice tearing me from the nightmare in front of us. I know that fucking voice.
It’s the last voice I want to hear right now.
I glance at him, and my stomach falls to the ground. The man isn’t strange. And he sure as shit isn’t a savior. He’s a historian. And a criminal. And a huge pain in my ass.
“Warlock Stone.” Gavriall Praesepultus waves a sword at me, an oddly serene smile on his boyish face. “Imagine running into you here.”
I consider decking him. Right on his cleft chin. “Did youfollow us?”
“Yes,” he admits shortly. “And lucky I did. You needed help.”
“Yeah, we did.” Zephyra’s fingers twine through mine. She’s stopped tugging me forward, instead staring behind us, at the sea, before looking ahead. “And we stilldo. Please pull your heads from your assholes; we’re about to be chopped up and thrown into people stew.”
We watch the fire flicker out on the Death Lord’s robes, and the cultists begin to cackle. Every single one of them. Including their lord. The sound echoes in the air around us, building to a rising shriek, and then—they stand as one. Zephyra’s grasp hardens, her nails cutting into my skin.
“Fuck,” I say.
“Fuck,” Zephyra agrees.
“Fuck,” Gavriall adds.
I glare at him. “You’re not part of this.”
“I’m the one with the sword, aren’t I?” He puffs out his chest bravely, while his eyes close against the sudden onslaught offreezing smoke. The death cult herds us closer to the shore with sickles at the ready. And I don’t know what to do about it when, according to Gavriall, there’s no way to harm them.
Cultists do not die unless they’re drowned in the sea.
