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“We only have right now. If we wait much longer, we’ll be fighting them in the streets of Deepwood or Blackcastle, and then…then we might as well not bother.”
Raz shook his head, but Zor looked at the approaching force, eyes narrowed as he studied their movements. “I’ll get Raz clear.” Raz’s ferocious growl told me he wasn’t leaving so easily.
“Then I’ll come back for you. I’ll get you as close to the center as I can. You’d better be casting the second your feet hit the ground, Anaria. You cannot hesitate, not for a second. Swear to me, you’ll release your power immediately. You do not wait for me.”
“I swear.” I clenched my sweaty hands. “Get Raz out of here before they spot us.” I scanned the skies once more, but they were clear. Maybe the Reapers couldn’t travel far outside of a host. Maybe they were too high for even Fae eyes to see.
“You’re sure about this?” Zor asked, while Raziel muttered something incredibly foul. “Nothing you can think of that could go wrong?”
I wracked my brain, but all I could envision was Ember’s look of shock when the Reaper had left her body, before she melted into a puddle of black goo.Oh gods, this was going to be horrendous.
“No,” I said firmly. “This will work.”
“If anything goes wrong, if I so much asthinkanything is wrong, I’m getting you out of there.”
“Agreed.”
“This is a piss-poor idea.” Raz turned his furious glare from Zor to me and I glared right back. “This is not up to you. Taking on an entire army…is not up to you.”
“Then who else?” I took his hands, marveling at how much bigger they were than my own. “If I don’t do this…shewillkill Adele and Tavion and Tristan. We tried to find a way to avoid this outcome.Itried to find a way not to spill blood, not to give her what she wanted, and she still outmaneuvered me.
“How are we supposed to outwit her when she’s probably a million years old? She’s watched a thousand wars, manipulated countless rulers, made kings, then killed them when they didn’t do her bidding. Maybe all we can hope for is to save our friends. Save my mother, buy us a few months, a year of peace before she decides to use us again.”
“This is not the way, Anaria.”
I nodded to the army, so close a faint haze of dust settled over us. “This is the only way. We get our friends and family back and we head to Lucius’s. We regroup. We figure out what comes next. Maybe there’s something we haven’t yet considered.” I sucked in a quick breath and ended up with a mouthful of dirt. “Maybe Adele knows something. She was Carex’s consort, after all. She would have been closer to him than anyone else.”
“He is not our real enemy,” Raz pointed out. “Not anymore.”
I shook my head. “No, but he is one of them. That army is our first concern. Then the Fae King, then the Oracle.” And then, if we managed to survive all that, we’d decide what came after.
Somehow, I doubted our future was filled with peace and quiet. Probably just more running for our lives and figuring out how to stay alive.
“I still don’t agree”—Raz’s eyes landed on me with the force of a blow—“but I will trust you, Anaria, to know your magic and to do this.”
Raziel leaned in and kissed me, a quick, brutal kiss that left me gasping in the dust-filled air. His eyes dipped to my pocket where the stone was. “Useeverythingyou have. No matter how dangerous, if it means you stay alive. Do not hold back; show no mercy.”
Then Zorander grasped Raziel’s wrist and they were gone, leaving me alone, the ground quaking beneath my knees. I slid the bands off my arms and into my pocket, the iron clanking in time to the marching feet. I brushed my fingers across the keystone, letting that cool, soothing magic calm me.
Stardust sparkled inside the dusty air, forming whirlpools of pure light.
A second later Zor was back, his mouth set, nothing showing on his face but ruthless determination. All around us shadows swirled softly, and like they had once before, they rose behind him, looking almost like wings.
“I can do this.” The army was almost on us. “I’m ready.”
“Focus on spreading your magic evenly through the soldiers, then keep pushing and don’t stop until they’re all down. I’ll pick off the stragglers. I see anything I don’t like, I’m taking you out of there. I left you alone and unprotected once, Anaria. I won’t leave you again.”
“My magic doesn’t differentiate between enemies and friends, Zor.”
If he reappeared while I was casting my power, if he got in the way… “You can’t come back until that army is down or I am out of magic.” But today, my magic had no bottom, just a depthless well that reached to the chasm of my soul.
“I’m well aware of what your magic does, Anaria.” Zor dragged his rough knuckles down my cheek, and I leaned into his touch, drinking it down like it was water and I was dying. “But you have your nonnegotiables, and I have mine.”
“Okay.” We didn’t have time to debate, and this was the only way to eradicate the enormous, cursed army. “We’ll only get one chance,” I reminded him softly, our eyes meeting.
Zor’s gaze settled into me, the picture of pure male dominance as he yanked me against him and kissed me, longer and deeper and fiercer than Raziel. As if he wanted to imprint himself on me until the end of time. The kiss scorched me to my toes, and I was still catching my breath when he tugged my hair back, forcing me to look in his eyes.
“You had godsdamned better come back to me. If you don’t, I will hunt you down and drag you back from the Great Beyond myself.”
