The key.
The sorceress had found it.
I wasn’t going to get there. I couldn’t stop her. I swore and did the only thing I could do – I flung Amaya, with as much force as I could muster.
She arrowed through the air, her flames trailing behind her like a comet and her scream rolling across the rapidly darkening antechamber like a call to arms. The hands tearing at me seemed to pause; then as one they turned and raced after Amaya, quickly overtaking her and rushing on.
Too late.
We were all too late.
There was a blinding flash of light, followed by an explosion. Air hit, the force smashing into Amaya and sending her spinning away. A second later it did the same to me.
As I tumbled over and over, the air around me began to shudder, gently at first but gathering strength, until it seemed as if the entire field was about to shatter. Then it shifted. Dropped. The warm brightness of the antechamber flickered and, in the brief darkness, the gossamer fingers rushing forward found shape and form, became beings who were twisted and misshapen, and whose very countenance spoke of pain. Eons of pain. Then the warmth reinstated itself and the wisps became nothing more than reaching hands.
The gates were gone.
There was nothing but space in their place. Nothing but a deep and threatening sense of uneasiness.
I’d failed again.
But there was still the chance to stop this bitch going after the third key. Still a chance for some good to come from this goddamn mess. I swooped, picked up Amaya, and ran toward the fading light of the second key.
But the hands got there before me.
They pulled the shadows from the sorceress, then grabbed her, tore at her, as they ushered her forward, ushered her down. If she screamed I didn’t hear it. In fact, she didn’t even appear to struggle as she disappeared into the ether. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe the magic that had taken her safely to this point had faded away, leaving her defenseless.
I stopped. I had a bad feeling I didn’t want to go anywhere near those hands right now. That if I did, they’d take me with them.
Where are they going, Amaya? Into hell?
No. Pens.
Pens? Even as I watched, the last part of her was swept away. The hands stopped moving, but the calm warmth of this place didn’t reinstate itself. There was only one gate left. Only one gate to protect the Earth and the fields from all of hell’s demons.
Because of me. Because I’d failed to do what I’d been sent here to do.
I closed my eyes and flung myself back into my body. The force of it sent me toppling off the bed and onto the floor. Where I screamed and ranted and cried at the unfairness of it all. And at my own stupid uselessness.
Hands eventually touched me, cocooned me. I wrapped my arms around Azriel’s neck and pressed my cheek against his chest, drawing in the sweaty, bloody, and very real scent of him as I listened to the steady beat of his heart and wished mine was anywhere near as calm.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered eventually. “I tried.”
“I know.” He brushed a stray strand of hair away from my cheek, his touch so warm against my skin. “The blame for this lies not just with you, but all of us who seek the key.”
I sniffed. “The rest of you weren’t at hell’s gate. I was.”
“Yes, but the path that led to that place is where the blame can be placed.” His voice was grim. “That road is scattered not just with our failure, but the failure of the Raziq to guard the place they desecrated with their conceited slaughter of the priests, and by the failure of your father to fully tell us what his chrání was capable of. And it also lies with those of us forced to take over guard duties and yet who still do not understand all the magic of that place.”
“Was it magic that prevented the Mijai at the gate from interfering?”
“Yes. He was not aware that anything was amiss until the gate opened.”
“But he sensed my presence?”
“Yes, and thought nothing of it because you wore the marks of my tribe and my energy resonated within you. But he had no sense that anything was wrong. Not until I was able to slaughter the sorceress’s Dušan and get into the temple grounds. By then, it was all too late.”
Because I’d failed to do what I’d gone there to do. He could dance around it all he liked, but that was one fact we were never going to escape.
“Will the pits hold her?”
“It would depend on how much knowledge the Aedh passed on to her.”
I shifted so I could look into his eyes. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning the priests have always been able to enter either gate at will. As the Aedh was your father’s chrání, he will have gained some – if not all – of that knowledge.”
“You should have ignored my wishes and killed that bastard when you had the chance,” I muttered. I scrubbed a hand across my eyes, smearing the remaining tears. “So what the hell do we do now?”
“Now,” an ominous, all too familiar voice said, “your friend dies.”
I scrambled to my feet, Amaya suddenly in my hands and screaming her fury. Valdis joined in the noise as Azriel rose beside me.
My father’s energy filled the room. How he’d gotten so close without us noticing I had no idea, because technically, he shouldn’t have been able to get into this place. Ilianna’s wards were still active, and they should have prevented any Aedh other than the now dead Lucian from getting in.
Of course, my father had created those wards, even if Ilianna had rerouted the magic within them. And it would be just like my parent to have created a back door within the original magic for such an eventuality as this.
“One move, Hieu,” Azriel said, voice soft and yet filled with death, “and it will be the last move you ever make.”
Amusement spun around us, thick and sharp. “Save your meaningless threats, Mijai. I have no intention of harming anyone here. Elsewhere, however, it is a different matter entirely.”
My eyes widened. “Don’t you dare touch Mirri —”
“Touch? I assure you I have no intention of ever touching another human, even if I had the capacity and the form to do so.”
“Then why threaten —”
“Oh, I do not just threaten,” he murmured. “I do. And your friend is not human as the word is defined in this world. And she is, unfortunately, no longer a part of this world.”
Someone screamed a denial. I wasn’t sure if it was me or Amaya or both of us. Suddenly she was no longer in my hand, but aiming toward the wash of heat and power that was my father’s presence in this room. Only she did so silently, and in full shadow. She was an unseen and unheard arrow of revenge.
Azriel gripped my arm, as if to hold me in place. He was speaking, I knew he was speaking, but I couldn’t hear the words, neither aloud nor in my mind. All I could see, all I could hear, all I wanted, was death.
And that’s exactly what I got.
Amaya sliced deep into the heart of the energy that was my father. For a moment, nothing happened. There was no immediate response from my father, and no reaction from Amaya.
Then her chuckle filled the silence.
There was nothing nice about that chuckle. Nothing nice at all.
Azriel swore, but the words were distant, meaningless. My mind was still with Amaya, with the destruction she was about to wreak.
He spun, wrapped his arms around me, and transported us out of there. We’d barely reappeared in the street when the entire warehouse – and everything Ilianna, Tao, and I owned – exploded into a million different pieces.
And deep within the heart of that explosion, my sword consumed the energy that was my father, sucking him dry until there was nothing but dust and memory left.
And those remnants she burned.
My father was dead. Gone.
I had my revenge, but I felt no better for it. I just felt… empty.
As empty as Ilianna’s life would be without Mirri…
Oh god, Mirri.
I didn’t think, I just reacted. In an instant I was in Aedh form and streaking across the city. The fierce energy that was the Brindle’s protective field reared up in front of me but just as abruptly gave way. I raced unimpeded through the shadowed halls, not changing shape until I neared the chamber where Ilianna, Kiandra, and Zaira had been attempting to free Mirri from my father’s noose. I hit the doors at a run, and with enough force to slam them back against the walls. The crash reverberated through the silent halls and, in the room, three figures spun.
Three, not four.
A sob tore at my throat. I stumbled, tried to catch my balance, and failed. I hit the stone floor hard enough to shred my jeans and skin my knees, but I didn’t care.
My gaze met Ilianna’s. There was nothing there. No anger, no grief. No pain. Nothing other than surprise.
I swallowed hard, and somehow managed to say, “Mirri? Is she —?”
Zaira said, “What the hell —” about the same time as Azriel appeared behind me and said, “Risa, there is no need —”
“Ilianna!” I cut them both off, my voice rising to a near shout as I added, “Is Mirri okay?”
She didn’t answer, just stepped to one side. And there, sitting on the floor, looking shocked and a little worse for wear, was Mirri.
She waved a hand as my gaze met hers, but didn’t actually speak. Though there was no sign of the energy collar around her neck, her throat was red-raw and decidedly painful-looking.
But she was alive, even if hurt, and the relief that swept through me was so great that if I hadn’t already been on my knees, I soon would have been. I closed my eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. At least one thing had gone right. It might not have been the most important thing – at least in terms of what was at stake for both this world and the other – but on a personal level, this was the only thing that really mattered. I’d done a lot of things wrong, but at least I hadn’t killed Ilianna’s heart.
Ilianna walked over, knelt in front of me, and wrapped her arms around me. She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. Not for the longest time.