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“Hakkan!” she shrieked, scrambling toward the edge. Her cousin clung to the roof tiles with one hand, legs swinging out over the bubbling magma. She clasped a hand around his forearm and heaved.
But Balhudhal hadn’t given up on them, despite her father doing his best to lure the beast’s attention back to him. Its fist smashed through the building, leveling half of it in one strike.
Tenah was launched into the air. She screamed as her cousin hurtled into the magma. Gone in an instant. Her father roared her name before it swallowed her up too.
She didn’t fight against death this time. Somehow, that felt like the right thing to do, even though she doubted Cirel would be able to revive her this time. Her heart only carried sorrow for her cousin who wouldn’t even be mourned by his father.
Hakkan.
Why was death taking this long? The magma should have incinerated her flesh and bones by now. She lifted her hands through the molten substance. Her pulse quickened when she glimpsed the aura of golden light surrounding them.
Rama had shielded her.
She didn’t have much time to claw her way out, sensing it dwindling in her channels. This wouldn’t be a fight she won with healing magic alone, but maybe she wasn’t supposed to. The elementals had blessed her with the affinity for more than one type of magic. There had to be a reason for it.
Right now, she needed raw power, and she knew where to get more. She called out to Chaos.You want me to become a vessel, so be it.
Dark energy blasted from her palms, shooting her up through the magma and into the sky. Black feathered wings tore from her back. They snapped out wide to catch her weight.
Her lightning crackled down to strike her father but not with the intent to harm. She’d infused the branches of lightning with strings of Rama, hoping it would be enough to keep darkness in check. All she wanted was to siphon the power in her father’s channels.Herpower.
She left him a drained husk braced on his knees.
This curse belonged to her anyway. And with Rama, she should be able to manage it.
You bow to me now,Tenah commanded, launching her Chaotic energy at Balhudhal.As will your king.
Something inside of her shifted. Some part of her soul, patched together by Cirel’s foreign magic. She wasn’t sure what that change meant, if she’d severed their bond or enhanced it. Regardless, the power flowing into her now, wherever it stemmed from, was enough to rupture Balhudhal’s core. Rocky armor and magma rained down onto the streets.
Tenah paid no mind to the lingering whirlwind of Chaos hovering toward her, magnetized to her channels. It slammed into her, penetrating her skin. Dark magic burrowed into her very bones. Bled into every crook of her mind.
Vision dissolving, she tumbled from the sky. Her wings fluttered uselessly, bent at awkward angles from her rapid fall.
Something collided into her side. She struck the top of a building and skittered across its roof, breaking delicate bones in her wings. While she hadn’t felt pain, her nerves entirely shot, she’d heard the audible cracks.
Her father pulled her up into his arms. Cradling her against his chest, he wept a decade’s-worth of tears.
Chapter48
Renton
The cutting of the shard from Renton’s heart had been unfathomable. Worse than any pain that had ever been inflicted upon him, a dull knifepoint slowly piercing every nerve over and over again.
But then her touch was upon him, her hot tears splattering down on his jaw and neck. Staining his very soul with the love that she spilled.
Love. Could it be possible? Was a shadow like him allowed to love a goddess?
He surrendered to her touch, enticing him back to the realm of the living. He thought to force his eyes open, just to take in another look at her, even though he’d memorized her features. The woman that had burned her way into his life so vibrantly he would never recover. He would never see another light again.
Tenah was beautiful and fierce and sensitive. She made him hopeful after a lifetime of suffering. She was the sunset bleeding over the crest of that impossible hill he’d been climbing, tempting him with what sprawled on the other side, should he prove his worth and finally reach the top.
His heart thudded beneath her palms as if she owned it.
It’s yours, he wanted to say.I’m yours.
He would willingly give himself, over and over again. Whatever she needed, he would provide it. She made him want to be more than the shell of a tormented hunter.
When his eyelids fluttered open, he absorbed smoky sky instead of black rock, and the lack of warmth from her tender hands on his chest was starkly absent.
