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The magic I'd taken into myself, the magic breaking my body apart, transmuted from fire to ice, flame to deadly, murderouscold.Let him kill me; I didn't give a shit.
A body shot past me like a cannon, huge and bristling, twin rows of horns wrapped with black fire and dark claws dripping flames made of shadow. Taj slammed into Eidolon, knocking him away from Ark, but I kept my eyes on my dead mate as I crossed the grass, my knees shaking.
"He can't—" someone choked out. Joseph, his voice choked and wrecked. "He can't be, there's no way, he'd never—"
"Wraiths can't die," X breathed, sounding as hollow and numb as me. "Right? Devil?"
Dev didn't reply. I already knew the answer to that; I'd killed Ark's father. I knew well enough how easily they died. No one could recover from having their heart ripped out.
"Taj," Dev gasped, and blurred past me with a growl. No miasma of power followed in his wake; the air didn't shudder or burn. I swallowed the knot in my throat, dropping down beside Ark and swallowing a sob.
Every part of me had already been broken, but none of that compared to the torture of seeing his empty, sightless eyes fixed on me, his mouth set in a stern line even in death.
My bottom lip shook, a strangled cry bursting up my throat as I stared at the empty, bloody hole in his chest, jagged where Eidolon ripped out his heart.
It wouldn't work. Iknewit wouldn't work, but I couldn't stop staring at the chasm in his chest, couldn't stop crying, a scream filling my head until I couldn't even hear the maddening carnival music anymore.
You were never supposed to have this much magic inside you at once. No one can contain it, not even a devil.
No one had ever had this magic before. No one had held it inside their crumbling body. Only me.
If Eidolon could take the magic from one infernal relic—and steal my damn power, too—to raise an army of the dead, I could raise an army of one. Ihadto. If Ark wasn't part of this fucked up, pain-ruled world, I didn't want to be in it.
I ignored how gross it was, and lifted the heart to my lips, brushing a kiss over its still, cold flesh—and slammed it back into the chasm in Ark's chest.1
Tell me how to use the magic,I ordered Dev, my voice empty of emotion.
What?he demanded.Avie, no!
Avie, yes,I replied numbly.Just show me how. You know I'll do it anyway. My best chance of survival is with you.
A heavy body thudded to the ground beside me, the sound disrupting my numb for a moment and letting screams and yells filter into my ears. It sounded like a massacre, like the night I murdered a wedding party.
"If you channel it through your body again, it willkillyou, Avie," Dev breathed, and I startled at the raw plea in his voice. I'd expected growls and disapproval, not begging. "You're barely clinging to life, and I canfeelyou fraying apart. Don't do this. Please."
I swallowed. Stared at the blood on my hands, at Arkan's empty blue eyes. "Just tell me how."
I felt the tremor through his soul, and tasted salt on the air. "Let it flow through you, and focus on your intention. Don't let it run free; bend it to your will. I'll be right here. I'll temper the damage as much as I can."
Warm hands wrapped around my wrists, his body pressing to my back. I swallowed roughly, the ice spreading inside me as the magic realised I was letting it free.
Heal him. Save him. Or I'll burn myself into ashes and take you with me.
The ice spiked, driving into whatever parts of me weren't bleeding, burned, and screaming with pain.
Heal him,I snarled, and pushed my hands against Arkan's chest, dragging the power through my palm and blasting it into him.
The relics' magic might have been furious at the idea of ending with me, but it didn't hesitate to flow out of me in a tidal wave of raw, wrathful power. It hit Ark so hard that his cold body jerked.
I was already alive with pain; for a moment, I didn't feel the spike of magic as it clawed itself through my body, cracking three ribs and burning my arms.
"Shit," Dev breathed, resting his lips against the back of my neck. "Avie, slow down. Slow down, babygirl, please."
I took a rattling breath and screamed at the magic toheal him.The ice began to burn away until it wasn't shards that cut me but a raging, endless blaze. A fire with no end, no beginning, and only me in the middle, the desperate conduit.
Please,I breathed, but the word never formed on my lips.Please. Heal him, and I'll give you anything.
My heart stopped for a second as the magic paused, like my plea interested it. An image flashed through my head like a mirage: me lounging cross-wise across a throne, with a crown on my head, a sword leaning against the side of my seat, and power thrumming through my veins.
