For the first time, I regarded the two on their knees, sensing now that they weren’t humans, they were celestials. When the man lifted his head… I couldn’t sort my shock from my confusion over seeing Aquilo, the High Celestial of House Sera.
“He was captured after the battle,” Drystan informed me. “Astraea removed his wings. I assume the other High Celestials had no choice but to outcast him as they do their own citizens. Honestly, I thought they might have been keeping him hidden and just kept up a pretense, but at least Nova wasn’t biased in favor of his own in his merciless ruling.”
“He is the perfect vessel for Dusk,” Father said, glancing down at the High Celestial. Once so proud and mighty, now… he was nothing. As frightened and horrified as anyone would be in his situation.
I held no sympathy for him. In fact, I was twitching to claim his life right now, remembering his cruelty to Astraea. He’dwhippedher and laughed. The echoes of it trembled through me, and if I had my full power I might not have been able to stop myself from doing whatever it took to kill him before my father could use him.
I didn’t immediately recognize the woman. A beautiful blonde who hugged herself, casting pleading eyes at me as if I could save her. Her face was muddy and her hair tangled; she’d put up a good fight against being captured.
I wondered why she seemed familiar.
“Zephyr’s bonded. Katerina Luna.” Drystan filled in the patch of my memory.
Shit.Now I understood why a spark of tragic hope lay in her ocean blue eyes. Zephyr was an ally to Astraea, and Katerina was her friend too. She would beg me to try to save her.
This confrontation had just become so much fucking worse.
“How about you forget this foolish plan and I’ll let you live another day,” I said to my father as evenly as I could while I was studying everything. Trying to calculate every possible way to get out of here with Katerina alive at least.
More imminently, my father couldnotsummon the gods to walk our realm.
To face Astraea’s creators… I wasn’t ready for the wrath that would take me over for all they’d done to her.
“I realize now I’ve trusted the wrong god all along. Death made you powerful and promised you would conquer lands. But Dusk and Dawn are far more cunning and have a vision for this world of power and prosperity in which I sit the throne of Vesitire. Once I fulfill my bargain to them, Astraea’s power will be mine when they kill her.”
“Even you can’t be this naïve,” I spat. “They’re using you like the desperate puppet you’ve always been.”
“You’re a delusional fool,” Drystan muttered.
If he could kill us with his look alone, we’d be dust where we stood, but I delighted in his visceral reactions that gave full weight to his misguided beliefs.
I couldn’t reach my ability, but I felt the void, able to step through it and snap the neck of one vampire just as Drystan darted for another, clashing blades before plunging his through their gut.
There were only a half dozen vampires, and they were all dead in a minute.While we were distracted, taking them out, my father was given a brief moment to act.
Aquilo’s wail rang through the temple hall, and my attention swung to him as I released the heart of the final vampire I killed.
The High Celestial’s hand had been forcibly plungedthroughthe mirror, which rippled around where his arm sank in to his elbow. I could only watch in horror as silver crawled up his skin, like the mirror had liquefied to engulf him.
I blinked through the void. Stepping out of shadow, I gripped my father by his clothing, charging forward with a yell of wrath until his back slammed into the nearest pillar.
“You can’t stop this now, Rainyte,” he choked in my vise grip.
“You’re a spineless, power-hungry bastard,” I seethed in his face.
I hadn’t been this close to him, staring so ferociously into his brown eyes, in so long that I trembled with fear as much as I did rage. I held the monster who plagued my entire existence, ready to snap his neck once and for all.
“You cannot kill me,” Father rasped, struggling for breath and clutching onto the fraying tethers of his consciousness. “Dusk and Dawn not only granted me the ability to use the maiden’s key, but they gave me immortality to make sure I lived to kill her with it.”
Furyconsumedme.
I snapped his neck before another thought could cross my mind, letting his body slump in a heap while I gathered myself and sanity in deep, measured breaths.
“Nyte.” Drystan said my name so calmly it jarred me out of my rage-induced state.
I twisted my head to him but didn’t expect to find him in the compromised position he was in.
Nor could I have predicted who balanced his life between twin blades crossed over his neck from behind.
