Page 139 of The War of Wings
“What?No!” I screamed, whirling in place before I halted completely. For one moment, one miniscule fraction of a second, there they were. Two figures, standing in the nothingness. Before I could blink, before I could comprehend what I was seeing, they were gone. “Katia! Rhedros!” I called desperately, but there was no answer. I felt the sensation of hot tears welling in my eyes and I frantically called out, voice hoarse and cracking, anger flaring. “Mother! Father!”
My eyes squeezed shut so hard I saw lights dance behind my lids. I needed to get back to the Human Realm. How hard had I hit my head? Fuck! I moved through the silent darkness, pacing as I willed myself to awaken.
“They’re humans,” I murmured to myself. “What the fuck are they doing? What the fuck are they thinking?”
The barrier between realms began to thin. No voices filtered through this time. No sign of Cal holding my body to his, waiting for me to wake up. Only the cold awareness of open space behind me.
Consciousness reentered my body on a gasp. With no time to orientate myself, I scrambled to my feet. I was so dizzy I swore I saw Miles stir where he laid dead in the dirt. I pocketedaway the grief that slammed into me at the sight of him. I could grieve later, when all of this was done.
One way or another.
I took one step and tripped, my palms slamming into the ground and a string of curses leaving my lips. I scrambled to my knees, but my movements halted when something scraped against my boot.
Hooked around my toe was a crown of twisted silver bands, studded with stones so black, they seemed to swallow the light around them. I brought it to my face, my brows furrowed as I turned it over in my hand. What the fuck? Where did this come from?
But my question was answered when I saw what lay just a few feet away. A gold diadem that looked a hell of a lot like the one Castemont had gifted me. Except this one, I knew, was not a replica.
With a crown in each hand, I sprinted through the forest. My head was on a swivel, ready for an Occulti or some other equally horrifying monster to catch sight of me. But there were none. The noise from the battle had changed, the sound of steel and grunts giving way to breathless, panicked shouts.
Oh no.
I burst through the treeline again, my gasp tearing through my throat when I saw them. And there he was — Malosym had deigned to show his face when the Keepers were involved. In fact, he’d wasted no time at all.
Their faces were softened with youth, though I knew it was Katia and Rhedros the moment I laid eyes on them. Tyrak had said that, right? That Saints came to the Human Realm in a body no older than sixteen years? My breath stopped in my lungs as I took them in. Even as a young man, Rhedros was tall, his deep brown hair shorn close to his scalp. He had my nose — rather, I had his nose, and the set of his chin. He had an intimidating exterior, but he didn’t feel that way to me, because I was his. I was his daughter.
And Katia… Emotion pummeled me as I stared. I was her exact duplicate, as if there were simply two of me. Aside from the nose and chin, we looked nearly identical. Pride and warmth surged through me at the sight of her brown eyes and caramel hair that were so much like my own.
I wanted to stare at them for hours, take in everything about them and pick apart the traits I inherited from each. My parents. The Keepers of the Saints. And they were human, now. Fragile, breakable, mortal humans.
But why?
They hovered above a column of smoke, Malosym in between them, as if the smoke itself was keeping them in the air. Their wrists and ankles were chained with what looked like solid shadow, and they pulled against their restraints, their eyes locked on me.
Gone were the Occulti. Gone were Malosym’s drivas. Gone were the beasts of the Onyx Pass. The soulhags stood quiet, their stony faces just as still as the herd of kelpies waiting among the waves. Katia’s remaining drivas stood in the sand, their wings tucked and eyes slitted. The cannons sat silent and dark. The crossbows were still. Swords and shields hung at soldiers’ sides. The fighting had stopped, and instead everyone stood watching. Some people wept. Some people anxiously shifted their weight, unsure of what to do. Other people were completely motionless in their shock.
And as I beheld Malosym in his true form, all shadows and darkness, he smiled the kind of smile reserved only for the darkest of my nightmares.
“She has the crowns,” Rhedros breathed to Katia, his eyes on me. “She has them.”
“And they’ll do her no good here,” Malosym called, eyeing me. “This could all be over, Petra. Think of how much pain and suffering you could prevent if you just joined me. This entire battle, done.”
“No,” Katia bellowed, her voice hoarse.
In a heartbeat, Malosym’s hand collided with Katia’s cheek. Rhedros surged forward, his chains pulling taut as he yanked against them. “Don’t fucking touch her!” he roared.
My heart ached, tears streaming from my eyes and turning to steam before they could fall. “Release them, Malosym, and you can have me,” I shouted, my voice trembling. Katia and Rhedros both began to protest, but both quieted at whatever they saw on my face. A quiet murmur moved through the crowd around me. A single brow rose on Malosym’s shadowy features, but he remained silent as I spoke again. “You couldn’t kill them when they were Saints. Why try to kill them now?”
I needed to get him away from them. I needed to lure him to me so I could finish this.
“And how do you know I couldn’t kill them?” he called back.
“If you could’ve, you would’ve done so a long time ago.” My fingers flexed where they gripped the crowns in each of my hands, the metal heating as my flames came to life for the final time. I took a cautious step closer, the crowd parting as I continued on. “You have no real power.”
Finally, I saw his mouth twitch the slightest bit. It was working. In a flash of blue light, Malosym was gone, but it was less than a second before he reappeared directly in front of me. People scrambled back, giving us a wide berth. I just hoped it would be wide enough.
“I have power,” he growled, his eyes boring into mine.
“You have pain,” I spat. A low rumble of thunder sounded from above as I burrowed into myself.
