“If we go back,” I breathed, “this army remains here as a threat. Even if we destroy the gate, they’ll find a way through Morysen’s window.”
The light shuttered in his eyes, and his mouth pressed into a grim line. He nodded in a harsh jerk, glaring out at the winged soldiers who waited to unleash terror on our home. Our small army wouldn’t be enough to stop them, even with the relics the Legion of Silverstorm had collected. We’d be overrun, outnumbered, and utterly without hope. But if we could destroy any chance this army would crush our fighters and riders…
Nabil shot me a warning look. “We are two people. They are aswarm.”
I flexed my hands, and removed my gloves, stuffing them inside my leather jacket. “Legend says Varidian and I can defeat them.”
“Legend is not reality,” he hissed, imploring me. “We will die here, Ameirah. And I won’t let you die because I was foolish enough to get pushed through the gate.”
I frowned. “This isn’t your fault. Either one of us could have fallen through the gate—”
“But it wasn’t either one of us. It wasme.And I will not be responsible for the death of anyone else.”
“Nabil.” It was an effort to keep my hand at my side when I wanted to hug the grieving man. “Buchra’s death wastheirfault.” I stabbed a finger at the dark, glossy mountains and the army that filled the space between them. “It wasn’t yours.”
A muscle moved in his cheek. In this grey, watery light we were both colourless and sickly, but there was something flat and dead to his eyes that I suspected was real.
“We’ll make them pay,” I proposed, barely above a whisper. “We’ll make them regret taking her from us. And we’ll honour her death, her sacrifice. Not just stories of her greatness, but this: a blow to the Zalaam army in her name.”
His stare challenged me. “It’s suicide.”
“If these soldiers reach Ithanys, we’ll die anyway.” I might have hours, maybe even days, with Varidian if we returned, but with a host this big, I doubted we’d have a week before we were overrun. “We take out as many as we can. Give our family the best chance of survival. I don’t wish to die,” I said when his expression flattened. “I only welcome death when I’m inflicting it upon others.”
But I looked at the valley below, the soldiers packed from wing to wing, lacking armour and clothes but something told me that skin was a carapace that would reject arrows and swords. I’d been given this deathfyre for a reason, and if this was it…
“We’ll make it an end worthy of a song,” I said, meeting Nabil’s bleak eyes. “But we fight like hell. To get home, to getback to the ones who love us. Because youareloved, Nabil Azizi. That legion adores the bones of you, and they’ve lost enough.”
A look passed between us. Agreement and acceptance. Nabil was probably right, and this was suicide, but I raged against the idea of my life ending here. I raged againstanyend, whether in this lightless place or in a muddy field near Willow Green.
“I was given this gift for a reason,” I said, the words a reminder for me as much as Nabil. “Fire to burn out the dark.”
Nabil’s stare jumped from me to the army when a clatter went through the mountains, went through this world into the next. Marching—the army was marching.
Nabil nodded and lifted his hands, calling up so much power that the air already began to shiver. Varidian had been deadly even before the lightning soul, and each one of his legion was his equal. I had to believe we could do this. With my deathfyre, with the blood of two worlds that ran through my veins, with the weight and blessing of my family’s history on my shoulders and the past unfolding all around us, Ihadto believe it would be enough.
Nabil’s face cut with a brutal smile when dark flames gathered in my palms. “Burn the darkness, Ameirah. Burn it all down.”
CHAPTER 51
AMEIRAH
The journal spoke of a being of lightning and one of fire, but there was no firesoul speaking to me, no living creature guiding my actions unlike the one who spoke to Varidian. And I had to wonder, as I erupted, as black, seething fire poured into the vat of the valley, boiling a hundred winged soldiers until their screams filled the world, if I wasn’t myself a firesoul.
Nabil’s air magic joined mine, encouraging the flames, pushing them to catch on the next row of soldiers, and the next. Shrieking screams scythed through my head until I couldn’t hear my own thoughts.
“Don’t let them reach the mountain pass,” Nabil barked, and my attention leapt to the group of soldiers who’d broken away from the mass. Their path would lead them right to us—and to the gate.
I flung my hand in their direction and gritted my teeth against the torrent of black fire that burned from me all at once,hollowing out my chest to make more room for itself inside me. Again, I got the sense that I was little more than a conduit for this unearthly magic, but the last time I let it reign, it destroyed the dark heart of King Bakshi. This time, it would need to burn ten thousand dark hearts. Or a hundred thousand; the soldiers flowed so far into the distance, their lines snaking around the shining black mountains. There was no telling how far back they went. No telling if they filled up this entire world from edge to edge.
The magic rife all around us had infected the araethawn, twisted our fae into pure evil, and even poisoned our wyverns until they attacked us. Yet they were Ithanysian in origin. What would a full-blooded army from this world be capable of?
I burned hotter, panting for air as a solid wall of flame tore from me, boiling through every pore in my arms, my chest, my thighs. A living flame. I staggered back, choking down a sound of discomfort at the sheer heat that scorched the shining rock. The screams below us were so loud, I didn’t hear Nabil’s next shout.
The band that broke away from the main army scattered into ashes, and I flicked my wrist, stretching a wall of flesh-eating fire across the gap so no more could reach the pass.
Kill them,I commanded the dark power that flowed through me.Kill every last one of them. Leave nothing but ashes. Purify their darkness from this world so it can never reach my home.
I staggered—forward this time, as the magic swept me up and pulled me along. Only Nabil’s arm diving around my middle saved me from a deadly plunge to the valley below. The breath went out of me. A whole phalanx of soldiers dropped to their knees, and I stared in disbelief as they shook their heads and clutched at their faces.
