Easy grinned, shifting his weight. "Wouldn't 'open sesame' have been much easier?"
Twister immediately shoved him in the shoulder. "It's not the cave of wonders, you tool," Twister muttered.
"Nothing is easy about this fucking op," Tex growled, his deep voice putting an immediate end to the joking. His hard eyes scanned the liquid-like swirl of the font before he turned his head to look directly at Fly.
Fly stood there, his chin tilted up just a fraction, the insubstantial wings of his Veil form settled flat against his back.
Tex stared him down, ruthless and entirely unimpressed by the magic. "Now what?"
Lechuza stared at the floating blade, her gut tightening. She knew what the next step was, and it terrified her. The vision. Fly needed the vision, and she was the only one who could unlock it.
In this fracturing moment, North’s sacrifice flared vividly inside her. He had given his life to save Fly’s. The Visionary had to survive, or everything they were fighting for would be over. In the face of North's courageous act, how could she do any less?
She reached out and touched the silver handle of the blade.
The glade vanished. Instantly, Lechuza was slammed into an overwhelming, deafening roar of fire raging, men, women, and children screaming, and the brutal, rhythmic thud of steel-shod hooves striking the earth. The metallic, hot copper smell of fresh blood filled the air, leaving the bitter taste of salt and absolute terror on her tongue. The great Inca Empire, which had stood for centuries, was falling, the choking ash of its death filling her lungs with suffocating finality.
The silver moonlight of the modern world became a frantic, erratic, blood-soaked rush through the trees. She grasped the Tumi tight in her fist. Her chest was bare, painted with the chakana in fresh ash and pigment, and every acute, hammering beat of her heart was focused on reaching the font. A deep, jagged wound oozed a steady stream of blood down her ribs where Vargas had pierced her side. He was right behind her, coming for her now, hunting her the same way his merciless soldiers hunted her fleeing emperor and the bleeding remnants of her people.
The Veil was open, shimmering and pulsing just as she had left it. It was the threshold she had crossed countless times in her owl form to reinforce the heavy wards of Chaos’s prison,a duty her bloodline had held since the Weavers consolidated their power.
If the Spaniards caught her, they would force her. They would torture her and use her blood to breach the Veil and reach Chaos. Those conquistador bastards cared for nothing but gold and slaughter and had no concept of the cosmic horror they would unleash if they freed the Unraveler.
She sobbed as she sprinted, her muscles screaming, her entire soul aching for Cisco. His absence left a massive, gaping crater in her chest. It should have been blasphemy that she wanted him, craved a conqueror from the very culture that was currently raping and destroying her world, melting down her revered icons to feed their greedy coffers. But Cisco wasn’t one of them. He never had been. His heart had turned away from the crown, from the church, from everything he knew, all for her. Now she mourned the bitter certainty that she would never see his face again in this life.
A cold, suffocating terror gripped her. The open Veil was screaming in her blood, an agonizing vibration. The Spanish couldn’t be trusted. If they found the font, they would burn the world to ash. They were ruthless, conquering monsters, and she refused to kowtow to a single one of them.
When her feet finally hit the center of the glade, she stumbled to the font. Her hands slammed onto the basin, leaving smears of her own dark blood across the stone. She had to destroy it. They could never gain access.
Clutching the Tumi, she spoke the enduring words of power. The open, shimmering doorway of the Veil whooshed shut, a hushed, vacuum-like closure that rattled the air. She had been on time.
Footsteps crunched behind her.
She whirled, her vision blurring from blood loss. “No, stop! You’re too late!” she screamed into the shadows.
The silhouette kept moving toward her through the dark trees. Terror seized her, terror that Vargas would torture her, break her, and force her to reopen the Veil. Before her thinking mind could catch up to the primal, protective instinct of her ancestral blood, her hand moved with blinding, lethal malice. The silver knife flashed in her fist.
She plunged the Tumi straight into his side.
There was a wet, sickening tear of muscle and flesh. A sudden, agonizing gasp ripped out of the silhouette's throat.
The shadows shifted, and the moonlight caught his face.
Horror jolted through her. Not Vargas…no…no…oh gods, no.
His eyes didn't fill with rage or betrayal, just a devastating, unvarnished sorrow. He staggered forward, his strength deserting him, and fell heavily against her. His blood splattered hot, thick, and real over her trembling hands, painting the ash of her chakana in a horrific crimson ruin.
They tumbled to the dirt together. He cradled her cheek, his voice a raspy, fading whisper on his very last breath.
“Quri…qammi sunkuy kanki,” he murmured. You are my heart.The words were spoken in her native Quechua, fluid and soft with the ease of long practice, proving he had learned her tongue just to love her.
Her breath hitched in a silent, agonizing shock. His lifeblood pulsed one last time against her chest, and then the light died in his beautiful gray eyes.
An anguished, shattered cry tore from her throat, echoing off the trees."Cisco!"
But even the crushing weight of her agony couldn’t stop the holy duty binding her. She forced herself to rise from his corpse, dragging her broken body back to the font. She took the silver Tumi and laid it flat into the basin of consecrated water, pressing both of her blood-soaked palms over the blade.Their mingled blood spread out through the clear, pure water, tainting the reservoir. With the last of her strength, she spoke the final words of absolute destruction.
The Guardian spirit of the font cried out in her mind, a mourning wail, but the world was already dimming for her, going heavy and gray at the edges.
