Page 140 of The War of Wings
“I grow stronger when other people weaken. Is that not power?”
“Relying on others to be weak so you can be strong? That doesn’t make you powerful. It makes younothing. And that’s all you are, Malosym. Nothing. You want real power? Release Katia and Rhedros, and you can have me.Iam real power.”
“Maybe I couldn’t have killed them when they were Saints.” His nostrils flared as he sucked his teeth, staring down at me.The first drops of rain began to fall, spattering on my cheeks as I stared right back at him. Malosym leaned in, whispering in my ear, “I guess you’ll never know.” Movement caught my eye behind him, and I realized it wasn’t rain that had begun to fall.
My heart seized in my chest, my knees weakening as I stared, open-mouthed at my mother and father, their throats slit ear to ear.
Katia and Rhedros were dead.
And all at once the Occulti were back, the drivas flying overhead and the monsters of the Onyx Pass surging forth as swords swung and teeth snapped around me. But I hardly noticed, because I launched myself forward, fire erupting from my hands as Malosym’s blue flames flared to life, surging toward me. I met his blow, pushing back with everything I fucking had. Lightning crackled overhead as my flames battered his.
Malosym was going to die, and he was going to diescreaming.
For Katia. For Rhedros. For Da and Larka and Wrena and Marita and Miles and Tyrak and Adorex. For Cal, wherever he was. For every fucking life he ruined with his touch, for every ounce of pain he caused to people who deserved nothing but good.
For the final time, I burrowed as deep as I could within myself. I scraped at the very base of my soul for the final dregs of my power, for everything I had left. With a war cry that rang over the beach, I cast it toward Malosym. I didn’t know what was waiting for me on the other side, if there was anything at all, but I was ready.
“Fuck you,” I breathed into my flames as I exploded.
And as if they’d never existed at all, the blue flames disappeared. I tumbled to the ground as his power gave way, scrambling to my feet in confusion just in time to see Cal plunge the imbued blade through Malosym’s skull.
Chapter 56
Petra
White light erupted and Cal was tossed backwards as if his body were nothing but crumpled parchment thrown into the wind.
And standing above him, impossibly alive, was Malosym. The imbued blade hadn’t worked.
Malosym reached for the sword protruding from his skull, sliding it from the wound as if it were nothing but an inconvenience as blood streamed down the sides of his face. His features had morphed from that maddening smirk to hard lines of unbridled fury, outlined in crimson.
With a war cry forged in the depths of Hell itself, I lunged for him.
I thought I’d expended all my power, but watching Cal fall… My flames reignited with an all-consuming vengeance, meeting Malosym’s blue fire as I burned from the inside out. My teeth gritted, eyes watering as I pushed with everything I had, everything I was. Lightning tore the sky in half as thunder mercilessly rattled the earth below me. Everything in me was breaking, splintering, burning away anything that wasn’t raw power.
Just weeks ago in the Taithan throne room, I thought I was going to burn myself out. I thought I’d been made for that moment.
No.Thiswas the moment I was made for. I was made to break the chains that had for so long been tightening around the realm. I was made to die within these flames. I was made to take Malosym and his darkness with me.
Red blurred my vision and as I blinked it away, I realized it was blood cascading down my cheeks from my eyes. The unrelenting pain gripped me and I gripped it right back, channeling it into more fury, more force, more wrath. I didn’t hear Katia speaking to me this time. Her calming, emboldening voice had been silenced.
And through the blood and the terror and pain, my life began to unravel in my mind. My earliest memories, running along the waterfront in Eserene, following behind Larka as Ma and Da laughed and the sun shone down. Dreaming of seeing the world alongside my sister, laying side by side in our too cramped, uncomfortable bed. Meeting Cal, falling in love with the man I thought he was then feeling him being ripped away.
My entire body burned as the past twisted itself into something new, into what could’ve been. What could’ve been if Malosym hadn’t entered my life. If I’d never found out I was the prophesied Daughter of Katia. Maybe I would never have left Inkwell. Maybe I wouldn’t have met Cal. But what if I had? Cal and I could’ve stayed in Inkwell or left Eserene altogether. He could’ve built that house he promised he would. Maybe Larka and I could’ve traveled to Edenna. Fuck, we could’ve been happy.
Thecould’vehurt more than I could fathom.
I opened my mouth to scream. I wanted to ask Cal why he’d fucking done this, why he’d been so foolish once again and triedto kill Malosym. But Cal was dead. He was with the Sanguilite. He’d never go on to live in the light of a new world rid of this darkness.
And I hoped this fucking worked, that Heaven would be restored. That the Saints’ Realm would be rebuilt. That everyone ended up where they needed to be, happy and whole. I hoped the Human Realm would never know an evil like this again. I hoped in a generation or two, when this whole thing was nothing but a cautionary tale and people had forgotten the details, the people I loved would spend eternity together. Maybe they’d remember me. But I hoped one day, so much time will have passed with peace that they’d forget me entirely.
“Last chance, Petra,” Malosym’s voice echoed through the flames, muffled by the fury eating me alive. “Join me.”
“Fuck you!” I snarled, and with one final roar, I ignited. White flashed through my vision. Then red. Golden. Black. Nothingness. Flying? No, falling.Thud.Solid ground. Screaming. Terror? No. Not terror.
It was all abstract before I opened my eyes. My ears rang. My head pounded. I tried to speak, but my mouth didn’t seem to be connected to the rest of me. Something trickled down my cheek. Tears? Blood.
And as the world lost its focus, my eyes landed on the blurry form of a lifeless body made of nothing but shadow and ash, and I knew in the deepest part of my soul, I’d done it.
