Sintarrak curled Vander’s lips into a sinister smile, and a whorl ofwhite flamesformed at the center of his palms. The air around me heated as the Embodied gathered more and more fire-like power in his hands, those sinister silver eyes still pinned on Ronan.
The bow pressed against the soft spot between my thumb and forefinger. The familiar yew wood slid into that calloused space like it was a friend shaking my hand. The fletching slipped through my middle and forefingers before they landed on the bow’s hard string, its feathers a soft, reassuring caress.
I murmured the rubelline spell beneath my breath, the only bit of magic I’d ever mastered, and I straightened. Sintarrak’s silver eyes landed on what had to be the Celestyn Bone at my chest, carved down and disguised as an arrowhead all this time. He stretched Vander’s lips into a gut-churning grin.
As he turned to face me, my bloody foot hit the top of the balustrade, and I leaped.
The squeezing burn of the center muscles down my back steadied me as I brought the fletching to the center of my nose and chin. My eyes never left the searing silver of the living god standing below.
A stripe of moonlight cut through the courtyard, and a cry tore from my lips as I let the string slip through my fingers, the blazing red arrow tip flying straight for the center of Sintarrak’s chest. Time stood still as I fell. The red arrow cut through the air, but Sintarrak’s smile widened.
A muffled bang pressed against my mind, like someone pounding from beneath a layer of ice, like someone was trying to get in, and my body continued to fall to the broken courtyard below. The arrow followed my intent, its point heading straight for the broad chest of Sintarrak, and my breath waited on the edge of relief.
Sintarrak’s silver eyes ignited, flashing for a glimpsing moment, before they vanished completely, and his body shuddered. Horror sliced through me asVanderblinked, his eyes melting from silvery gray to a soft, lightgreen.
Lyvia said Vander had grayish-green eyes.
The soldier’s soft eyes widened. His light brows pinched up in confusion and pain as my arrow ripped straight through Vander’s heart.
CHAPTER SIXTY
NERISSA
I have yet to find the records on the original pantheon of gods you requested. And I don’t think it was the Living Library that hid them this time.
– Unopened correspondence from Khato to Carina.
Nerissa – Pyracantha, Lotrennia
Idug my nails into my palms, willing my hands to stop shaking as I crouched in the shadows of the trees bordering Pyracantha. The pain was too dull to erase the haunting memory of Renova and Ganmira sinking their teeth into my flesh, and I dragged myself away from the nightmare my mind couldn’t forget. The unholy shriek that echoed from the thorns of the prison moments ago crawled over my skin. I thought of Lyvia, but an overwhelming sense of dread threatened to suffocate my concern for her.
Get your shit together, Nerissa.
I’d been through worse, hadn’t I? I’d spent sixteen years in Mount Telum’s dungeons. I’d been tortured. I’d endured plenty, and Selvina had healed the wounds from the goddesses as soon as we’d arrived back in Ayla. I made it.I’d survived.
As Bayne rallied the War Slayers, Isla had gathered the remaining mystics of Lotrennia and distributed the múritinne rings that she and Drystan had created in Votruvia. Drystan brought additional fighters, rubelline weapons, and even winged horses from Astraeus’s homeland, but we’d yet to see the Embodied.
Ganmira and Renova had retreated when Bayne and Aquila saved me, and we hadn’t heard a thing in the hours that passed, until the roar and then the spine-tingling shriek. At least Kresida had gotten Lida and those pups away. I hadn’t had time to dwell on the return of the sacred wolves of Lotrennia. Were the pups the only two left? The Embodied hadfedon the mother… And then on me…
Something about their attack tortured my psyche. Had I lost something more than just my blood? My soul screamed in the moment, as if the part that made me an elf had been ripped to shreds… It had folded in on itself, curled into a small, aching ball. The Soleia flames had tried to comfort it, reaching a tendril of warmth to that soft, injured part inside of me, but it had retreated so far that a void arrived in its wake.
You’re bleeding, Aquila spoke softly into my mind.
I slowly unballed my fists, peeling my fingernails out of my aching palm. The cooling air slid over my bloody hands before I wiped them on my leathers. My eyes cut to where Bayne and Queen Antares knelt a few feet away, and I prayed neither of them scented it.
I’m so sorry we didn’t get there sooner, Aquila continued.I will never forgive myself.
I’m fine, I murmured.You saved me. Quit hovering.
I am your caeluma,he said after a moment, an aching pain wavering with the defeated pride in his voice, I am a part of you, and I…He trailed off as a wave of deep regret slipped through his emotional barrier.I canfeelwhat they did to you. I will spend the rest of my existence making it up to you.
I managed to send a line of reassurance to him, despite my fingers still shaking.
You sure about that, old man?I asked.You live for thousands of years. That’s a lot of favors, I tried to joke.
Though I couldn’t see where he perched in the dark canopy above, I sensed the ruffling of his long feathers. The image eased the pain in my heart for just a moment.
You can start by flying to that little shop with the morning pastries when this is all over,I finally said.
