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Heart in hand, I strode back across the room and knelt at Farryn’s side, stroking a hand down her face. “My love,” I said on a shuddered breath. I bent forward and lifted her into my arms, her body limp and cold against mine. “You are not alone. I will come for you in the darkness. And I will bring you back into the light.”
For a moment, I held her to me until the sounds of my father’s suffering died away, and I turned to see the insects had consumed him to the bone. Only small bits of flesh clung to his skeletal frame.
For a moment, all was still and quiet.
An outcry from the other side of the door snapped my attention to where Vaszhago stumbled into the room, his body bent in pain as he tumbled to the floor. The boy followed in after him, running toward me. His brows winged up as his gaze flitted from me to Farryn and back to me.
“Mama!” He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, as if he’d known her his entire life.
I lowered her to the floor and rested my hand on his shoulder.
He flinched and scrambled to the other side of Farryn, away from me, but I couldn’t stop staring at him.My son. “I promise I will bring her back.”
Vaszhago let out another howl of pain, and I pushed up from them, crossing the room to where he lay convulsing on the floor.
I reached for his hand, where I had carved theba’nixiumcurse tying him to Farryn’s life. Placing my palm over his, I felt the warmth expel from my hands into him, healing the scar made the day I’d retrieved him from the prison and releasing him from the curse.
His outcries died down, and he lay shaking at first, then he exhaled one long breath and stilled. “Thank you.”
A thunderous boom shook the room, and I turned to see the heart that I’d left on the floor beside Farryn sparkling with bolts of electricity. A gnawing sensation clawed inside my stomach, just as before. The energy inside of me faded a bit, though not entirely.
Vaszhago sat up from the floor, frowning. “You killed your father.” When I didn’t answer, his gaze flicked from me and toward the skeletal remains of Claudius Van Croix.
“I’d say so.”
He turned toward Farryn, who lay unmoving. “Then, we are doomed.”
Another boom of thunder struck like an earthquake, and I threw out my hands to steady myself. A loud, unified screech drew my attention toward the window, and I crossed the room, staring down at a sea of Mortunath gathered in the yard below. Thousands of them, as far as the eye could see.
“Scratch that. We are fucked,” Vaszhago said, where he strode up beside me.
“No. We are not. There is one escape from this labyrinth. Destroying Letifer’s mind.” I ran my hand over the wall. “All of what we see is his making. We run a blade through his skull, and the labyrinth collapses. Once free, I’ll return his heart to Venefica and Farryn lives.”
“That’s your plan? Good grief, man. This is the last time I follow you into a corridor.”
I turned to face him. “You’re no longer under any obligation to protect Farryn. But if you could get her to a safe place until I am able to free us from this labyrinth, I would be in your debt.”
He rubbed a hand over his jaw and shook his head. “It does not require a branding across my palm to remain loyal. It only requires that you get us the fuck out of this mess you created.”
I wanted to smile at that, but the agony of Farryn’s condition still clawed at me. I nodded. “Keep the heart safe, as well.”
With those parting words, he strode back toward Farryn, hoisting her over his shoulder with the heart clutched in his other hand. The boy followed after him, glancing back at me when he reached the door.
At my nod, he kept on after Vaszhago.
“You’ve killed us all. Every realm will suffer.” I turned to find Bishop Venable stumbling out from the other side of the armoire, his hand cupping his bloody groin. “You cannot defeat Letifer.”
“Don’t you ever just fucking die?” I groaned, turning back toward the window and watching more Mortunath pour in from the horizon.
A few windows down, Venable peered out and let out a whimpering sound in his throat. “They will consume us until there’s nothing left.”
“If that’s so, then I should hope they start with your tongue so that I may be blessed with your silence.”
Gripping the wooden frame, I stretched back and shot through the window’s pane into the sky. The wind caught my wings, taking me higher into the air. Gods, it felt good. Incredible.
From a bird’s eye view, I could see the breadth of the army below. A black sea of moving figures, whose growls and snarls hummed like a dirge. An intense heat gathered at my palms. Electricity danced over them. Silver glowed at the rim of my good eye. I threw back my arm and sent a bolt of electricity down onto the crowd below. Flames erupted like a wildfire. Black dust marked a dead hit, as the Mortunath exploded into a murky plume.
I threw out both hands, sending lightning down in both directions, and flew across the sea of Mortunath, taking out hundreds of them at a time. Giants stood among them, large humanoid creatures with charred flesh who swiped out for me. I dodged their massive palms and set fire at their feet. Like the Mortunath, they exploded into black ash that rained down over the yard. The fires burned in patches, yet the creatures continued to pour in. I flew higher and closed my eye, gathering the energy of vitaeilem to my palms. In one sweeping motion, I blanketed the stretch of Mortunath below me in a wall of flames, taking out several hundred more. Dust polluted the air with a thick fog of ash.
