The Embodied threw her hands forward as she whipped her power across the shield in a blast of golden light. The force of it rattled my teeth. My powers screamed in response but held strong.
I forced a mocking smile to my face. “Surely, a goddess as mighty as yourself doesn’t need this small amount of power,” I said, moving to the side as she took a step toward the nyxteria vine.
“The Starlings may have only taken a small piece of our power, but they took the most important.” Renova smiled as she neared. “We can change anything, except the most crucial piece of all things,” she continued, moving closer to my dark shield.
“And what’s that?” I dared, backing up one more step, so she was just over the line of nyxterias.
“Thesoul,” she shrieked, snapping her teeth as she slashed her power once more against my shield, the force of it finally breaking through in a wave of might.
Acrackripped through the small space just as Renova’s fingers transformed into long, sharp talons, and Drystan and Kellan appeared on either side of her. They slapped two rubelline cuffs on her outstretched arms, and I moved.
The zinging activation of the cuffs reverberated through the air as I sliced Enya’s blade over her outstretched talons, and she let out an earsplitting cry that rippled through the prison of thorns.
Long, white nails rattled as they hit the ground, and Renova’s eyes went wide as they landed on the blazing red cuffs around her wrists. Her long body writhed as she struggled in Kellan and Drystan’s grip, but the goddess wasnothingwithout her power.
Her limbs lacked any definition, any strength, as she flailed them wildly around her. She gnashed her teeth at Kellan, and he whipped his face back just in time to avoid losing a chunk of his perfect face.
Rage swarmed, and the Obscura threatened to break free at the threat. The scene of Kellan’s death ricocheted in my mind, and I shook my head.
“Hold her down,” I commanded, moving closer to the goddess who killed my love, who tortured him before dragging him to the Abyss. Kellan’s bleeding body was like a translucent image painted over my current reality. His penance replayed behind my eyes—every painful moment of his life he was forced to relive.
“Open her mouth,” I said as I pressed my knee into her bare chest. Her strange organs glowed through the pale white of herskin. Kellan and Drystan’s knees pushed against her arms, and they forced her chin down as they held her head in place.
The Embodied raged beneath us, and the red of the rubelline cuffs glowed in the dimness of the cell with a violent pulse, as if they knew more power was required to keep hers subdued. I pulled the handful of nyxteria blossoms from my pocket and held them reverently in my hand. My eyes slid from the delicate, violet blooms to Renova’s twisted, enraged face.
“The nyxteria is beautiful,” I said quietly, repeating King Saros’s words from last year and leaning close to the goddess’s face. “The buds of the snowy flower can be used to induce sleep… But as its petals stretch, it becomesdangerous…” I let the word dangle as it hissed off my tongue, before a quiet smile crept up my lips.
Renova’s body bucked beneath my knee, and Kellan’s grip on her jaw hardened.
“And at night, only under the cover of darkness… when it finally blossoms…” I continued, locking my eyes onto her single blue iris. “It is a death sentence. You are the first god I give this message to, but you will not be the last. I am the nyxteria, Renova.And I’ve bloomed.”
I shoved the flowers down her throat with two fingers, careful not to brush my hand against her fang-like teeth. Renova choked and coughed, trying to force the flowers up, but Kellan had shoved his hand over her mouth. His other hand was lodged at the base of her chin to keep her from snapping his fingers off while Drystan kept her arms pinned down.
Renova’s eyes widened as she choked down the last of the blossoms, her brows narrowing in rage and realization. I stood, nodding to Kellan and Drystan to haul the goddess to her feet.
“I, Lyviánala Natara Cantor Astraeus, of the Realm of Vael, Bonder of Bellators, sentence you, Renova, to death,” I declared,gripping Enya’s blade with two hands. “Say hello to Tynan for me.”
With that, Drystan gripped Kellan’s hand, zapping the two of them across the small chamber as I swung Enya’s longsword with all my might. It sliced into Renova’s stretched neck with a sharp whine, the blade cutting through her strange flesh like butter. Her head balanced as the light in her lone, blue eye guttered out, before her head rolled to the floor with a thud.
Her body collapsed a moment later, and I moved swiftly to where her severed head had landed. I pulled Honor from my belt, and its golden gem sparkled as I plunged the sharp end into Renova’s dim, blue eye.
A distant part of my self, some shadow of who I once was, seemed to flinch, as if it was too much. But any being that tried to kill Kellan,or succeeded in it, would die three times over.
I stood with Renova’s white hair tangled in my grip as I lifted her head and turned to face Drystan and Kellan. I was Death and Creation. I was vengeance. I was thenyxteria. And for the first time in my life, I had fully bloomed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
EVONY
You have all you need. –G.
– Correspondence intended for Evony Hunt. Vander’s Bunk.
Evony – Aedrialis, Sultira
Rain pelted my face, freeing my body of the lake water and blood that continued to leak from my nose as I raced down the trail. The dimming light of Aedrialis’s city center floated beyond the last trees, and I skidded to a quick halt as I reached the cobblestone road.
Fuck, I had no clothes.
