The demons quickly morph into new faces—dark fae I don’t recognize. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
The fae of Wintermoon.
“You… you killed them,” I grind out, forcing myself to stay conscious through the agonizing pain. “Your… your own people! You killed them!”
“A necessary sacrifice. Their dark souls feed my magic, as do the dark souls of your mages and stepmother. As will the dark souls of your gargoyles. We’re connected, my moon. You and I. And soon, all the dark souls we’ve reaped will feedyourmagic as well.”
Turning to the Archmage, he says simply, “Bow.”
Lennon obeys, the fucking coward.
Then, without ceremony or preamble, Verrick removes his crown, its rubies glittering like blood against the snowy backdrop, and smashes it onto my head.
Chapter Twenty-Five
WESTLYN
“I crown you Queen of Wintermoon,” he bellows, holding the crown to my skull. “Daughter of Darkness, Bringer of Peace.”
“No!” I scream, refusing to accept Verrick’s words, but it’s no use.
The crown fuses with me in an instant, an irremovable extension of my body, tendrils of dark magic spiraling out from the gold and burrowing deep into my mind.
Every ounce of Verrick’s malice, his evil, his cruelty pours into me, racing through my blood like ice water. My heart is slowing, my breath shallow, everything inside me threatening to burst.
I can’t fight this kind of darkness. This pure, unfiltered hate. Even if I was a full-blooded Cerridwen witch instead of just half, there simply isn’t enough light magic in the world to counteract this darkness.
“Together, little moon,” Verrick says, his voice soothing now, “we will be as unstoppable as an army, more powerful than the demons of hell, more powerful than the dark fae who came before us, than all the witches and mages across time immemorial. The souls of the gargoyles are the final piece.”
His words loop through my fracturing mind.
Unstoppable as an army. More powerful than the demons of hell.
Unstoppable…
Holy shit. The demons.
No, not Zorakkov’s hellbeasts, but the mage-demon legions from the cathedral.
The ones who swore fealty to me.
From the glowing embers inside me, a dark flame flickers to life.
Maybe there isn’t enough light magic in the world to fight this kind of hatred.
So maybe I need to call on the darkness instead. To embrace it.
To stop fighting my nature.
Tatiana sensed the demons’ presence here right after we came through the portal. Fleur said they just hadn’t materialized because they had nothing to physically tie them to this realm.
But theyexist. Here. Somewhere.
And I don’t need their physical bodies.
I only need their demonic power.
I have to summon them to me.
