Page 77 of A Game of Monsters

“You’re too late,” Duncan groaned, shaking hand reaching for my face, tears streaking down his dirtied face. “Duwar has been…”

“No,” I spluttered. “I accept. I accept the transference. I’m willingly giving myself to Duwar. Please. Ibegyou. You can’t die, I will not let you do this for me. Let me pay this price, let me fix this.”

“Duwar has been… taken.” Duncan’s eyes shifted over my shoulder, peering at something behind him. His brow creased, his eyes closing and refusing to open again. I turned to see what he had, to find Cassial afloat in the pews of the church, wings beating down foul wind upon us.

His eyes glowed with fire. Light spewed outwards from his hands, but there was nothing angelic about him. Power – pure, undiluted chaos – filled Cassial’s veins, making him more god than man.

It wasn’t Duncan’s fall that severed the refracting vision spread across the mirrors. Perhaps it had never even been Duncan to open it. That was just part of Cassial’s glamour – making us and the world think we were the monsters.

The truth was far more horrifying.

Cassial had been in control all this time. He played the part of the victim, showing the world a well-painted scene of the fey attacking them, Duncan’s body a puppet for a demon god. Duwar was inside of Cassial.

“He told me you were…” Duncan flattered, eyes rolling back into his head. “Cassial tricked me in Imeria.”

Duncan confirmed the transference had happened before they even stepped through the mirror.

That was why Cassial looked like he had won. Because, in his opinion, he had. And from his smile, the waves of undiluted power pressing out from the fine hair-line cracks across his skin, he knew.

Duncan’s death would be meaningless. My chance of taking his place and paying the great sacrifice no longer a possibility.

I looked around for Rafaela in hopes that she had worked it out quick enough to act. If Cassial died, Duwar would perish. That was what we had to do.

Gyah was screaming bloody murder as four gryvern lifted her from the room. More gryvern rushed for Elinor, clawed fingers tearing at the stone bindings. I saw it then, the concentration on Erix’s face as he attempted to orchestrate an escape, using his monstrous siblings as our means.

I had to do it.

Begrudgingly, I made a move to leave Duncan. There was a blade not far off to my side, one I could use to kill Cassial and end this.

As if reading my mind, Cassial snapped his head around to me. A resounding crack exploded through the room. Beneath my splayed hand, the floor was crumbling, dust and stone shards rising upwards, guided by an evil power.

“No longer will this world be threatened by the power of Altar and his children,” Cassial shouted, shadow and light swirling in his upturned hands.

All around him, the church walls shattered, the ceiling splitting into chunks of stone. I looked toward the blade, then to Cassial, just as he turned his hands upside down.

The stones began to fall. Large chunks of wall and ceiling crumbling upon everything. This was what Erix tried to get us away from. He’d recognised Duwar using Cassial as a new vessel, the danger of that truth.

A chunk of wall fell upon the blade ahead of me, burying it.

Althea shrieked at my side. I risked a glance, cowering over Duncan’s unconscious body, to see her running toward Elinor Oakstorm. But she was too late. A chunk of the church’s ceiling fell atop Elinor, crushing the fey queen and the labradorite throne she had been bound to. Dust billowed outwards in a wave, swallowing everything it touched.

Death came for Elinor swiftly. I was only thankful that she was already unconscious. Hopefully her suffering never registered in those final last moments.

Elinor Oakstorm’s death was only the start of an avalanche that was to come.

I reached a hand toward Althea, who stood as still as the stone raining down around her. My throat closed on itself as I attempted to call her name. The Nephilim who chased after her exploded beneath chunks of the building, as did Erix’s gryvern who attempted to reach for her.

But I was helpless to watch as Althea disappeared beneath debris, her eyes closing softly just before the stone devoured her from view.

“No!” I screamed, throat bleeding with the force. “Althea.Althea!”

In a matter of seconds, two of the most important people in my life had perished.

I turned to Cassial, murderous intent in my eyes. But before I could so much as act, he positioned the swirling mass of power toward me and unleashed it.

The church continued to crumble without prejudice to who it killed.

There was a peace to come at the end. A silent lullaby that blocked the world out. Where I expected pain, I found nothing but a sense of relief.

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