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“Oh, I think we are,” Hunt said, and launched his lightning at her.
The world ruptured as it collided with a wall of her power, and Hunt poured more lightning in, snow melting away, the very stone beneath them buckling and warping as his lightning struck and struck and struck—
“Athalar!” Naomi shouted. “What the fuck—”
Celestina blasted out her power, a wall of glowing wind.
Hunt snapped his lightning through it. He was done with the Archangels. With their hierarchies. Done with—
Isaiah stepped into the fray, hands up.
“Stop,” he said, and power glowed in his friend’s eyes. “Athalar, stop.”
“She deserves to die—every fucking Archangel deserves to die for what they do to us,” Hunt said through his teeth. But it registered, suddenly, that Bryce was no longer by his side.
She was running back toward the Rift, her star blazing. So bright—with the two other pieces of Theia’s star now united with what Bryce had been born with, her star blazed as bright as the sun. The sun was a star, for fuck’s sake—
“No!” Celestina shouted, and her power flared.
Hunt slammed his lightning into the Archangel so hard it shattered her power, sending her flying back into the snow with a satisfying thud.
Celestina’s wings splayed wide, flinging snow in all directions, blood leaking from her nose and mouth. “Don’t!” she cried to Bryce. “I’ve dedicated years of my life to preventing the Rift from opening,” she panted. “Find another way. Don’t do this.”
Bryce halted, snow spraying with the swiftness of her stop. That magnificent star blazed from her chest, casting a brilliant glimmer over the snow. Breathing hard, Bryce said to the Archangel, “The Princes of Hel have offered their help, and Midgard needs it, whether you know it or not. Hunt and I have already killed two Archangels. Don’t make us kill you, too.”
Hunt glanced to Bryce in question. As if there was an alternative to killing Celestina—
“You …,” Celestina said. “You killed Micah and Sandriel,” she whispered.
“They were stronger than you,” Hunt said, “so I don’t think much of your chances.”
Hunt’s lightning flared around him, poised to strike, to flay her from the inside out, as he had done with Sandriel.
But Celestina’s brown eyes widened at his lightning, released from its bonds and spreading through the world. She’d never seen the full extent of what he could do—she’d never had the chance during those weeks they’d worked together. “How is it … how is it that you have the power of Archangels but are not one yourself?” she asked.
“Because I’m the Umbra Mortis,” Hunt said, voice unyielding as the ice around them. And he’d never felt more like it as he stared at Celestina, and knew that with one strike to her heart, she’d be smoldering, bloody ruins.
Celestina’s gaze lowered, and she dropped to her knees. Like she knew it, too.
A plume of pure, uncut lightning rose above Hunt’s shoulder, an asp ready to strike true. He looked to Bryce, waiting for the nod to incinerate her.
But Bryce was staring at him sadly. Softly, lovingly, she said, “You’re not, Hunt.”
He didn’t understand the words. He blinked at her.
Bryce stepped forward, snow crunching under her feet. “You’re not the Umbra Mortis,” she said. “You never were, deep down. And you never will be.”
Hunt pointed a lightning-wreathed finger at Celestina. “She and all her kind should be blasted off the face of Midgard.”
“Maybe,” Bryce said gently, taking another step. Her starlight faded into nothing. “But not by you.”
Disgust roiled through him. He’d never once hated Bryce, but in that moment, as she doubted him, he did.
“She doesn’t deserve to die, Hunt.”
“Yes, she fucking does,” Hunt spat. “I remember each and every one of them—all the angels who marched against us on Mount Hermon, all the Senate, the Asteri, and the Archangels at my sentencing. I remember all of them, and she’s no better than they were. She’s no better than Sandriel. Than Micah.”
“Maybe,” Bryce said again, her voice still gentle, soothing. He hated that, too. “No one is forgiving her. But she doesn’t deserve to die. And I don’t want her blood on your hands.”
