Page 43 of Oath-Maker

My jaw locked tightly. “It’s not Merek. Not anymore.”

“I know, but—”

“Ian,” I snapped, which shut him up. “It’s not him. We have people here who support us. He killed them. I wanted Merek to be in there, too. So badly. But it’s not him.”

Ian’s expression hardened, but he didn’t falter. “Then I hope Lucius ends this.”

“We both will.” Because as soon as I got to the surface, once Lucius and I were within closer range of each other, our magic would grow together. I’d feel better the same way Lucius had healed considerably after ingesting the flower cure of light sickness.

“You need to be careful,” Jessa commented as we climbed. “You already look injured.”

“That stream of magic,” I said. “It burned me, but I’m okay. I’m ready to fight.”

Ian stopped us. I slammed into him with the unexpected pause in our ascent. He straightened me and then reached beneath a side plate in his armor to retrieve another celestial sword hilt. Mine. I felt my own power resonating within it from my last use.

“Take this before we get to the surface,” he said as he handed it to me. I took the sword gratefully. “Jessa?”

She pulled the healing salve from her belt and uncapped it. “Let me get those burns quickly.”

“We don’t have time,” I argued.

Jessa held fast and quickly swiped the salve over the visible burns. Immediately, I felt a relief from a burning sensation I’d forgotten about. A loosening in my chest. I’d lost all ability to maintain control of much of anything and had only now realized it.

“There,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow at my closest friend. To her innocent eyes that held so much pain behind them. “You sound like a coach in a fighting ring.”

Jessa chuckled. She would know, having fought illegally in demon rings for years. “Funny. I’ll always be in your corner, though.”

I pulled her in for another quick hug. “I know.” I may have saved Jessa first, but she’d ultimately savedme. And that was all there was to it. “Now, let’s go. Lucius needs me.”

And all of Lightport needed us.

CHAPTER19

By the time we got to the ground floor of the tower, the tremors wracking Lightport had grown into full-on earthquakes. Buildings all around us shook and threatened to topple. Between them, celestials fought demons and paladins alike as if the ground weren’t currently threatening to open up and swallow them whole. I admired their ability to stay on task because even as Ian, Jessa, and I fell into our first skirmish against a full-blooded celestial who was all eyes and strange form, all I could think about was the fear that the ground would give away beneath us.

I wanted to be with Lucius. But though Ian and Jessa had said he was up here, I couldn’t see him. It was hard to look for long, anyway, with all the fights happening around us. Innocents weaved in and out of the skirmishes, with parents guiding their children quickly out of the city and other, older couples, shuttering their windows.

My heart broke for them. A few people I recognized, as I’d lived in Lightport my whole life. But even the looks on strangers set my chest back to squeezing tightly. How had Jessa lived like this butworsefor so long?Feelingeveryone’s pain and suffering, not just seeing it?

But then a new sensation careened over me. Strong like gravity, pulling my entire awareness across the street and over a set of still-standing taller buildings. With wings of night and surrounded by paladins in armor made from what appeared to be shadow was Lucius—going toe-to-toe with the Guardian.

I recognized those shadows. They had sparkles of light inside them like stars. LikeLucius. Lucius had made my Shadow Paladins armor with his own magic. He’d rescued those captured and rallied the rest.

Ian had been right. He was back to full power.

“There!” I shouted before taking off. Ian got the last attack in on the full-blooded celestial and then followed me with Jessa in tow.

We moved as quickly as possible through the streets. My familiarity of the city clashed with fallen stone debris from buildings and blood from the fights. Injured persons and creatures from both sides began falling in and taking shelter where possible.

But unlike in Alastia, there was no time to stop and help them. Because as soon as we got far enough away from the Tower toward where Lucius and the Guardian were facing off, I saw what was causing the tremors. And it was so much worse than what I’d guessed.

The tear in the Veil had doubled in size, now dwarfing the larger full-blooded celestials who looked more monster than man. The sheer enormity of the tear—as if the Guardian had been trying to quite literallyshoveSoltar into Serenia by force instead of gently allowing a crossover point—stopped me in my tracks with one piercing realization.

We can’t fight that.Hell, I wasn’t sure Lucius and I could evenclosea tear in the Veil that large on our own.

A wave of Lucius’s magic crossed the distance between us and rolled over me like a wave on the shore. A reassurance as well as a query. I turned my attention back to where he, also outfitted in armor, clashed with the Guardian. Around them, demons and Shadow Paladins faced off against celestials.

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