I was stronger than I’d been a few days ago, and now I had something to fight for.
There were benefits to having this entity trapped inside me—basic healing properties, elemental and celestial magic—but I could also use this primitive magic to override newer, more modern magic… like the wards protecting the DiSangue island.
I cracked my knuckles, a faint glow coating my skin. “I’ll drop them in a way so nobody, not even the high priestess, will know we’re there.”
The southern tipof the island rose out of the black water like a ship’s prow, stone stacked high, magic woven so tightly into the bones of the ancient abbey that the whole place felt alive.
We all agreed—if Emilia had the Basin, it would be hidden in the abbey, the place where her powers ran the deepest. Thankfully, it was also on the remote end of the island with the fewest guards.
Emberline stared up at the building, hair a wisp of curls around her pale face, eyes dark and wide. Reflecting a crescent of silver. Remembering, perhaps, the last time she’d been here.
“Still think this is a good idea?” Nico muttered as we cut the engine and let the boat drift inland, blown sideways by the wind. He and my brother watched me carefully, as if they were waiting for me to crack. Everyone knew something was off; they just didn’t know what.
Normally, I’d dematerialize inside, drop the wards on my way past, and land on the other side without stopping. But there were four of us, and one was the most precious thing in the world to me, and I wasn’t about to endanger a single hair on her head.
“No, it’s a shit idea, but here we all are,” I said, bracing myself against the rocking. “This is how it works. You’ll see the break in the wards, outlined by a thread of orange fire. Get yourselves through,don’t touch anything, and wait on the other side for me to join you.”
Emberline moved closer to my side. “Are you okay? You’re acting strange, Dante.”
“I’m fine,” I flexed my fingers, letting power flow down into my hands like molten metal. I wished she wasn’t here to see this, but none of us had been able to convince her to stay behind. Maybe one of these days we’d stop trying, but worrying about Emberline’s safety was the only thing the three of us could actually agree on.
“Get ready, the faster we get through, the more time we have to search.”
She frowned, reaching up to touch my face, but I straightened, pulling away.
“Go, stick close to Gabriel,” I urged gently, “and Nico. I’ll signal when you can move.”
I didn’t want her anywhere near me right now. This magic… thiscreatureliving inside me was a curse, a blight on my mortal soul. The moment I’d been infected by the Overseer’s experiments, I’d been well and truly damned, and I refused to let my poison touch her.
Gabriel and Nico watched me with the kind of intensity usually reserved for an enemy, and if they had the slightest inkling I was Emberline’s biggest threat, they would be right to drown me in these waters.
But tonight… tonight my cursed past would come in handy.
I rolled my neck, calling up more and more of the ancient power while holding the demon at bay.
The burning started low—deep in my chest, like something being dragged out by force. My first deep inhale tasted of iron and smoke, the burn of sparks on my tongue.
The dark wards shivered, then tore into thin fissures, outlined by a sliver of fire, like the edge of a smoldering piece of paper burning orange and yellow, bright against thedarkness. A hole appeared, growing wider, large enough for someone to step through.
Pain spread like fire through my ribs, my lungs, and my veins.
Emberline’s eyes were wide, her fingers digging into Nico’s forearm as she stared at me as if she’d never seen me before. My blood turned into lava, but I forced my mouth to work. “Go,” I rasped through clenched teeth. “Now.”
Nico vanished, dragging Emberline with him, then my brother, all three reforming fifty feet away, outlined by the burning opening I’d created.
Before I could stop it, fiery power crawled up my arms, jagged lines etching themselves into my skin until they reached my tattoos, and when they did… every scar flared to life, glowing brighter by the second.
Burning through my shirt.
From far away, Nico swore under his breath.
I ripped that opening wider and dematerialized, became nothing but smoke, transporting myself across fifty feet in a millisecond, crossing through the wards before they snapped shut, sending a shower of sparks spilling over the rocky shoreline when I landed.
The second I was on solid ground, I closed my eyes andpushed, shoving the demon back down, the marks on my body still glowing.
“What the hell was that?” Emberline hissed, straining against Nico’s hold. “Dante, tell me what the fuck is going on? Why are youglowing?”
I trudged past them, dragging in a breath that felt like broken glass scraping down my lungs. The light beneath my skin dimmed by degrees, the burning receding to a dull, throbbing ache in my bones.
