Page 166 of Faeling
Through her agony, Ravenna clutched her dirk tight. Turning, she mounted the final steps up to the dais.
There, Leita pushed against Amaranthe’s magic, throwing her arms in literal punches. The Fae Queen took each blow, her own magic mostly shielding her, but as Ravenna looked, she began to see signs that the battle was taking its toll.
Every time Amaranthe moved, her face took half a moment longer to follow. Glimpses of another one, her true face, peeked out with every strike.
It gave Ravenna vicious pleasure to see it.
Coming alongside Leita, Ravenna added her own magic. Together, they battered against Amaranthe’s defenses, allowing her no quarter. Her magic counterstruck wildly, looking for an opening, but Ravenna and Leita held their ground.
Amaranthe staggered back a step, her desperate eyes flicking back and forth, searching for an escape.
“One more,” Ravenna whispered to Leita.
The magic surged, one last expelling of rage and grief. It burst across the citadel, devastating punches of power that caught Amaranthe on either shoulder.
Ravenna ran forward, ducking under the Fae Queen’s defensive swipe. Leita punched again on the right, and Ravenna went left. Drawn in two directions, Amaranthe snarled, arms wheeling to defend herself against two onslaughts.
With a great flap of her wings, Ravenna jumped forward, closing the distance.
Amaranthe caught the blade of Ravenna’s dirk in her clawed fingertips. An audacious grin slid across Amaranthe’s two faces, a haggard, horrible thing peeking out from the distorted pale visage she wore. “A blade can’t fell me, whelp.”
No, Ravenna understood that now.
Only a force of nature could kill a being as ancient and powerful as Amaranthe.
Wind rushed in through the gaping spaces left by the stained glass. The mangled lead framing creaked and groaned, swaying in the breeze.
The sea crashed far below them, hundreds and hundreds of feet.
Another punch of Leita’s magic forced Amaranthe to the left, and Ravenna was there. Slashing her blade down, she caught the silken sleeve, pulling it down to restrain Amaranthe’s arm.
Wings beating at her back, Ravenna put her shoulder into Amaranthe’s chest and wrapped her arms round the Queen’s chest and two wings. A terrible gasp shuddered against her cheek, and her arms squeezed a form far thinner than the one she saw.
Magic at her back, Ravenna shoved forward.
The metal frame groaned under the strain before giving way.
Wind whipped around them. Amaranthe clawed at Ravenna’s head, her free wings flapping uselessly. A withered face screamed with no sound, the sharpened yellow teeth stark against gray gums. Collapsed eye sockets glared out, horror coalescing in the black pits.
Together, she and the Fae Queen broke free of the metal frame to plummet to the sea below.
Forgive me, my love.
For the last time, Ravenna fell.
40
“Ravenna!”
Her name burst from his lips, shaking the ground as surely as the Fae Queen’s magic.
In horror, Vallek watched his mate barrel into Amaranthe and thrust them both through the remains of the central window, out into the open air beyond.
She can’t fly.
His heart shattered like so much glass on the floor.
When the two tumbled past the ruined window, the citadel fell silent. The manacles round his wristsclickingopen then clattering to the floor was deafening.
