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“The Guardians are still hiding within the safety of the Sanctuary. But they will flee when the Sanctuary is ripped open. We will be ready,” the God of Heaven’s Army said with vicious delight. His hand snapped around to Nerissa. “Can’t you do anything to speed this thing up?” he demanded.
“This labor is already going very fast,” Nerissa told him.
“Unacceptable.” Faris stood there like a mountain, unmoving, uncompromising.
“Don’t mind Faris,” Grace said to Nerissa. “He never had to give birth to a child. And patience isn’t his virtue.”
“You’re one to speak of virtue, demon,” Faris snapped.
“If you two…” Contraction. “…are going to….” Contraction. “…start flirting again…” Contraction. Damn it! “Take it someplace else.”
The next minute or so was sort of hazy. I vaguely noticed Faris and Grace fighting. I definitely noticed a lot of pain. Someone was holding my hand. Bella. My cat rubbed against my leg. Then there was an explosion of magic from inside of me. And from all around me. I was just lucid enough to remember to gather all the pieces of our magic, channel it through my cat, and shoot it at the Sanctuary cloaked just beyond this realm.
And then Nerissa was setting a baby, wrapped in a towel, into my arms. My daughter’s eyes were big and beautiful. They were Nero’s eyes. Her hair was warm and soft and a sort of light brownish red. Tiny silver wings peeked out of the top of her towel.
“She has wings,” I said in awe, lightly touching her feathers.
Sierra cooed in delight. Yes, Sierra. The name was perfect. I suddenly knew it had also been the name of the pale-haired angel from the past, the first bearer of the weapons of heaven and hell. That name was my daughter’s destiny.
“Deities and demi-deities are born with wings,” Nyx said beside me.
I noticed she held her baby too. He was a boy with white wings and a full head of black hair. Those black locks were swirling around him as though he were underwater. It seemed he’d inherited his mother’s trademark hair.
Past Nyx, the others all had their newborns in their arms. Leila and Basanti were huddled close together with their two baby boys.
“Did it work?” I asked groggily.
“See for yourself.” Bella pointed.
I looked beyond our closed little circle. Buildings had appeared on the battlefield.
“The Sanctuary,” I said quietly, my heart feeling lighter, like a heavy weight had been lifted from it.
“It’s in our realm now,” Stash told me.
Before one of the buildings, Nero and Damiel had locked swords with Giselle and Taron.
A pulse of psychic energy shot out of Giselle, knocking Nero back a step. She followed it up by summoning a fireball and using her sword to bat it at Nero. He slashed out, his blade splitting it in two. The fire dissolved into smoke. Nero flicked his wrist, and the smoke turned green. He’d cursed it. The cursed cloud swallowed Giselle but not her screams.
When Nero gave his wrist a second flick, the smoke faded away to reveal someone hardly recognizable. Giselle was now completely bald. Her skin was deathly pale, and as she tried to rise to her feet, handfuls of feathers fell from her wings like a tree shedding its leaves.
“Surrender,” Nero told her.
Giselle’s dry lips formed into a defiant sneer. “I will never be your prisoner.”
“You would have led these people to their deaths.”
Giselle started to laugh. It was a cruel, sickening laugh. “This isn’t the end.”
“It is for you,” Nero said coldly.
Silver flashed. He’d slashed out with his sword so fast that I hadn’t seen him move. Neither, it seemed, had Giselle. Her head fell to the ground, that sick smile still frozen on her face.
Nero glanced toward Damiel, but his father didn’t need any help. Taron lay dead at his feet. I tried not to look too closely at the state of the corpse, but I saw enough to know that Damiel had let his emotions get the better of him today. The fury slowly faded from his eyes, fury that these two angels had taken Cadence from him. And fury for what they’d done here today.
“They’re not stopping.” Bella watched with wide, trembling disbelief as the Guardians’ sacrificial lambs rushed at our army. “Their angels are dead, and the Guardians have fled. So why do they still fight? They must realize that their Guardians have abandoned them.”
“I think they don’t want to believe,” I said.
