Nyatrix stands in the middle of the dais, moving in a tight, hungry circle. An ornate golden cage encases something—a sword, I see as I haul myself up onto the platform. The weapon emits a hum, too, like Mysterium but different. The pitch is lower, the melody darker, stranger, wilder.
Made of a shining black material, the sword’s handle is curved and elegant, debossed with a looping floral design. Theblade itself is a dark silver metal with a sleek, slight curve to its end. Nyatrix’s hand hovers over the pommel as her eyes meet mine. I hold her gaze, time slowing to a crawl, before looking out into the chamber.
The High Ecclesia is nearly upon us. Mysterium crackles like lighting. Their vestments stir as though a storm has entered the Crypta, though there is no wind that I can feel. That corpse-light has returned, emitted from whatever lies beneath Their masks.
I am, I think, about to die.
I look back at Nyatrix. Perhaps I should behold something holier before I meet my God at the gates of Inferna, but I cannot stop myself—I am drawn to her. Her expression is magnetic, the slant of her eyes wolfish as she tilts her chin up, looking toward the High Ecclesia.
Then she slides her hand between the bars of the ornate gold cage, wraps her fingers around the sword’s pommel, and pulls it free.
Everything happens at once.
The High Ecclesia shriek in a piercing yowl that sends me to my knees, my hands clamping over my ears. The fall is jarring, the pain reverberating through my joints as my body slams against the marble. My cane clatters to the ground, just out of my reach.
I look up, sure that I am going to see a High Ecclesian’s gauntlet reaching for me, spider-like fingers outstretched, and then nothing at all. Probably nothing ever again.
Instead, from my knees, I take in a sight that my mind struggles to understand. Nyatrix is untouched on the dais, the sword drawn free of its cage, both hands wrapped around the pommel. It fits her fingers, I find myself thinking, like it was made for her. Like they were both created from the same darkness, the same nightmare of some long-forgotten goddess.
Impossibly, from Nyatrix’s back now sprouts a set of unearthly wings. Silvery-black and feathered, they span nearly the width of the chamber. She is otherworldly and deadly in her beauty. The Lupa Nox. Death-Bringer. World-Eater. The last of the Fallen. So many dark and terrible things, I think, my entire body thrumming.
And yet I would worship her instead of Him.
Chapter 24
“You would dare,” snarls the High Ecclesia as a single being, the same words leaving ten throats at once, “move against the Holy Lord, the One True God?”
Nyatrix flips the sword in her hands, testing its weight. For a split second, her gaze strays to me, and then her attention is back on the High Ecclesia, somehow both keen and casual at once. Like she’s waiting to see who strikes first, or trying to decide if it should be her. A laugh escapes her mouth, low and slinking. It should be horrifying, I think, that sound, and yet it makes my pulse pound in a way that has nothing to do with terror.
She casts her gaze behind each shoulder, examining her wings. Some power still holds her slightly aloft, her feet just off the ground, though her wings do not beat. Experimentally, she flexes them ever so slightly. Just that small movement causes a powerful down-thrust, propelling her higher into the air and nearly flattening me back to the ground.
“It seems I’m winning, though, doesn’t it?” Nyatrix says, settling the sword into her dominant hand, the other stretching out. Toward me, I realize.
Does she think I’m goingwithher?
The High Ecclesia holds preternaturally still. Behind Their tight ranks, I can just make out a sea of armor and weaponry rippling in the low light. Fear grips me, and I frantically grope around the slick marble for my cane. As I struggle to my feet, I notice something that almost sends me back to my knees.
The neat stonework of the chamber walls is barely more than rubble now. The cases and cabinets are intact but covered in mold, the wood sagging. Trembling, I look up to find the vaulted ceiling is gone—instead, the night sky greets me, stars winking like this is all a joke that I’m too stupid to understand.
Even the marble dais I stand upon is cracked and crumbling, weeds snaking through the cracks. I watch, dumbfounded, as tiny violets poke through the brown weeds, blooming right before my eyes.
But then the smell of rot overtakes me suddenly, so thick and heavy that I retch.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper miserably to no one in particular, though a secret part of me hopes Saintess Lucia might finally answer.
“Return the blade,” booms the High Ecclesia. It is not a request.
I force myself to inch closer to Nyatrix and face Them. Their vestments are mottled with stains and mold. The glorious embroidery upon Their chests is falling apart, bare threads dripping down like spiderwebs, beads missing, the ones remaining cracked and dull.
Though Their hoods remain, Their masks are gone. And that is how I find myself staring into the face of ten corpses. Their eyes are sightless, milky and rotten. Any features They may have once possessed are long faded—skin sunken in, bones jutting out. Barely more than skeletons in flowing, tattered robes.
My entire body shakes. I cling to my cane, eyes darting between the High Ecclesia and the small army at Their back.Between my people and the usurper. The wolf who strolled into my pasture of lambs and tore flesh from bone, leaving me with little more than a carcass of a world.
Time grinds to a halt, and I remember when Nyatrix first tried to tell me the truth of things. How I pitied her, immense sadness rising against my breastbone for the way the world was nothing like she thought. Grief rises in me like a tide, something sharp-toothed beneath the currents.
And then I reach out and take Nyatrix’s hand. Her fingers close around mine instantly, her larger palm enveloping mine. She pulls me into her body, tucks me against her ribs, and then, all at once, we are airborne.
Chaos erupts in the Crypta. High Ecclesian shrieks fill the air, heavy as lead. They move as one single organism again, Mysterium crackling at Their fingertips, reaching toward us like hungry vines. The Holy Guard is too busy looking dumbfounded about the ruined room or gaping at their armor and weapons, which are no longer gleaming bronze—instead, they are dull and rusted, pitted with pockmarks.
