Elena gasped, and I turned back to feel a strange wind on my face that had nothing to do with the fire.
A majestic black raven flapped its giant wings before us, alighting on Emilio’s chest as softly as a curl of smoke.
Emilio stopped breathing.
And there, from the space between his lips, the thin silver mist of his soul floated out.
“Colebrook!” I shouted at the raven, terrifying in its darkness. “Liam! Don’t you dare take him from me. Don’t youdare.”
I screamed at him until my throat was raw, until I was coughing up ash, until I could no longer make a sound.
And still the soul floated out, perfect and beautiful, made of pure silver-white light.
I lunged for the raven, but he opened his massive black beak, releasing a howling wind that blasted me and Elena onto our backs.
The flames behind us receded, the air immediately cooling.
When I got back on my feet and the dust finally cleared, Elena was still on the ground, unconscious. The few remaining hunters had scattered. The flames were out, leaving black, roiling smoke in their place.
In the space where Emilio had fallen, where the great black raven had sat upon his chest and ignored my desperate pleas, there was nothing more than a single black feather, floating in a glossy pool of blood.
* * *
