Sparks and glitter rained down on them all.
"What haven’t I done? Do you wish to see?" The Tenebrae’s hand moved up to her throat.
At first, she thought he was touching her collar, but he moved down to the clasp on her cape, and he tore it away. The small jewel keeping her cape held together skittered to the marblefloor as her white cape pooled to the ground. Beneath, the thin white gown did nothing to cover her form.
She shivered from the humiliating exposure. He held her shoulders and turned her roughly, exposing her back to them all. Sharp air gusted through the room, alighting the exposed nerves of the remains of her left wing.
Luella heard their curses and cries. And when she focused on the song in her soul, she felt their fury.
Their emotions—she could feel them again. So close, but not close enough.
She could burrow beneath their flesh, and it still would never be close enough for her.
Her right wing shivered beneath the weight of their gazes and their terror, lacing through her soul.
"I’ll fucking rip you apart," Az growled, and Luella tensed—she’d never heard his voice sound so… demonic before.
The Tenebrae spun her back around, and she wobbled as she faced her three Vincire, trying to shove down the brief shock of unease and fear as she reminded herself they were truly here.
The portal of shadows grew, and he began to tug her toward it. "You can certainly try. I believe my future bride and I have somewhere to be. I have a wedding gift for her, after all."
They disappeared through the portal.
The dragon roared overhead as the Tenebrae and Luella exited the portal right into the heart of the battle.
The fight was dwindling. The ground was littered with Umbra, more dead than alive.
Now that she knew it was real and they’d come for her, she felt strength well up, replacing her weary resignation.
Luella turned to face the Tenebrae. "You’re losing." When his features hardened, she added, "And you know it, you see it all around you. The evidence of your failure. You never thought they’d win, but here we are."
His grip tightened around her arm as he pulled her to him, her chest brushing his. Without her cape, the bare skin of her arms quickly grew sweaty and hot as ash rained down around her.
"I’ve not lost because of them. My sister—" His words broke off as Stella twirled overhead, chasing after fleeting shadows. They both watched the hunt in the air, as the Stella wrapped around the shadows and tightened like a noose, until nothing was left of the darkness but little droplets that fell from its clutches, appearing like black rain.
"My sister had decided to play in our game. Otherwise, your Vincire never would’ve stood a chance against me." His words were hurried, lit with concern as more and more of the shadows fell from the sky in a wash of dark rain, while his Umbra army fell to the mountain’s path.
She saw a flash of white in the distance, familiar braids and twin swords, cutting a path through the Umbra. When Tharen met her eyes, her breath halted in her lungs. His features were severe, more haggard than she remembered.
And she knew now, without a shadow of a doubt, that this reality was true. Because she’d never had a vision of Tharen—only the others—so if Tharen was here, looking at her with a savage promise etched into the cold lines of his face, thenthis was real.
Luella knew nothing but the desire to go to him, to feel his flesh beneath her fingertips and let him chase away the monsters in her mind. She needed him.
Please, Tharen?—
Her soul called to his.
In the Tenebrae’s grasp, Luella stared at Tharen, uncaring of the shouts that carried to her as the temple doors banged open and Az, Graves, and Bastian ran down the tower of steps. Tharen broke his gaze first, looking up to the others, then back at her. She followed his stare, and her heart leaped to her throat as she stared at them. She quickly looked away, fear curling inside her.
She had no such reservations about Tharen as she silently begged him to come to her.
And he did. The Prima cut through the Umbra that stood between them, expertly slashing through suits of armor, a line of bodies left in his wake.
"Tharen," Luella whispered.
The Tenebrae turned her, holding her in a moment of silence among battle. It was a cosmic fight between the gods of old. Beings that predated her—predated them all.
But standing there, in the arms of a dark god, Luella felt like, for the first time, she had a say in this war. That she was more than what she’d been forced to be.
