Текст книги "Horns of Wicked Ebony"

Автор книги: Lacey Lehotzky

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 43 страниц)

41

The piercing psionic wave dropped hundreds in front of me. Hands clamped over ears. Faces contorted in agony. Mouths unhinged in silent screams. Plunging into my well of magic, I yanked shadow into existence and plugged my ears. The force of the blast brushed over me, and I half-expected for it to knock me unconscious like so many before me. Yet my magic held.

Panting, I raised my sword and leaped into action, defending those still recovering from the deafening attack. None of them would be able to hear for a while, though. It wasn’t the first time many had experienced the brutality of high-level Angel magic, but fuck if they sent one of their aquamarine-eyed here, it wasn’t a good sign.

They weren’t probing, testing our defenses. This wasn’t mere strategy on Zahal Ishim’s part. This was a step in their extermination plan.

“Assyria, are you okay?” I sent down our bond.

But I was met with silence. Numbness. Emptiness.

My stomach plummeted to the core of the earth.

Fuck, what if she’d been knocked unconscious by the blast?

But this void wasn’t that; it was the very same as when the Angels had taken her before. Rage boiled my blood and renewed my vigor. I never should have allowed her onto the battlefield. I should have kept her behind the walls of the keep, safe.

Shadows surged from me like a volcanic inferno, clawing across the ground without my command. A roar shredded my throat, halting the Angels racing toward me. Their blue eyes were wild as I whipped my blade around, clearing a semicircle in one savage swipe.

Because right fucking now, I needed every ounce of my power to slaughter those who dared take my mate from me.

Dragging in a desperate breath, I dropped to one knee, the impact shaking the ground around us.

Assyria was the kindling that stoked the flame inside me. She was my reason for fighting, reason for fucking breathing. She was everywhere in me—the roses tattooed on my skin, her name the blood rushing through my veins, our bond the center of my power.

Her initial was carved into my wrists. She’d claimed me as much as I’d claimed her.

She could not die. I was the fucking Halálhívó. The Fates would bend to me. The Reaper could not have her, not today. Not until I was fucking ready.

With teeth gritted against any possibility of losing her, I cocked my fist, curling my fingers into my palm with the force of my fury.

And

Then

I

Punched.

An earthquake rocked the ground as a riot of ebony blasted out of me. The shockwave swept in all directions and yanked corpses upright just as Angels fell to their knees from the force of the tremor. A hundred, then a thousand rose, their lifeless eyes staring, unblinking, into the oncoming enemy.

The sight of them trembling didn’t slake an ounce of the primal panic eating me alive.

I flung my hands forward. Disjointed bodies plunged into the still-living, tearing frightened screams from the throats of many Angels. The sound invigorated me, called to the dark parts of me that craved violence. While the corpses worked, I scanned the chaos for Assyria.

Ice froze my spine. Air lodged in my lungs. Blades dug between my ribs.

Instead of myself standing on the hillside it was her. A maelstrom of onyx swirled around her, and a bronze blade, coated in a thick layer of ruby, barely held a silver sword off her chest. Rapp was curled on the ground beside her, his back to me.

I went utterly still as her arms trembled.

Like a tremor before a collapse.

Like a roll of thunder before a storm.

And then…

She fell.

“No!” I roared, taking off at a dead sprint toward my mate. Along the way, more bodies rose, racing for them with unnatural speed. Cries of alarm sounded from the group facing off with Rapp and Assyria as the horde of the lifeless confronted them.

The Angel female that had been battling with Assyria turned, screaming at her soldiers to close rank. They did, polearms jutting forward and halting the dead’s advance. My mate and Rapp were blocked from me.

A snake constricted my chest. More shadow poured out of me until the bottom of my massive well appeared.

But I couldn’t stop.

I had to get to her.

Had to stop this agony.

Living Demons joined me a moment later, Destructors picking apart their lines while Corruptors rotted the ground beneath their feet. I angled myself to the outside, trying to work around them.

Grem and Zeec bounded out of the chaos, jaws snapping around weapons and ripping them from steady hands. I’d trained them for viciousness, but the way they went for throats next, dragging Angel after Angel to the ground, was feral, as if they too sensed the importance of bringing this group down.

A pile of Demon bodies became visible—the last place I had seen Assyria. I dragged in another breath and called them to rise, praying Rapp wouldn’t ascend with them.

Begging the Reaper not to let Assyria.

Sweat slicked every inch of my skin. My limbs trembled from the effort of holding thousands aloft at once. And blinding, debilitating pain gripped my ribs.

Burgundy eyes flashed at me. Then a devious smile. Those long lashes blinked, brushing against her high cheekbones. Her hips swayed as she approached me.

I fell to my knees at the sight.

“Assyria,” I breathed, reaching for her.

She opened her mouth to laugh, but the snarky edge to it was gone.

And something sharp bit against my neck.

The illusion fell away, leaving two Angels standing before me. An ice-blue eyed one laughed again, the trilling grating against my nerves as she pressed her sword harder into the spot between my chest plate and my helmet.

The other stood where I’d seen my mate.

I’d been so desperate for any sign of her, these insects had exploited me.

Just like in my dream.

Grem and Zeec snarled, but I barked an order for them to leave me. To search for Assyria instead.

“Quiet,” the one holding the blade hissed. “Release your magic.”

I did, mostly because I needed to conserve what little power I had left to blast these two away.

“The mighty Halálhívó on his knees for you, Hayyel,” the Illusionist cackled in Angelic.

“Should I blow powder in his face too? Shut down his bond?” she replied.

Primal rage tightened every muscle in my body. This parasite again. She needed to die as much as Zaph did.

“I think he’ll come willingly since we have his mate,” the second replied, her grin all wicked maliciousness. “After all, he sacrificed fifty thousand for her last time. What do you think he’d do to have her now?”

My sanity snapped.

Disregarding the pain, I gripped the sword and flung it from Hayyel’s hands. Ruby slicked my palms as I bled for the Fates. Made another offering so that Assyria might still live. I wrapped them around her throat and crunched.

“I would do anything for my mate,” I snarled in her face. My Angelic was rough and violent, so unlike their lyrical voices. “I’d crawl across Keleti with jagged shards in my knees if that’s what it fucking took to get to her. I’d hunt down every single white-winged fanatic until I had her in my arms again. I’d burn the Eső Forest down tree by tree. I’d melt the glaciers atop the Skala Mountains and flood the earth with my fury. There is nothing I wouldn’t do. Nothing.”

Her feet kicked helplessly as I lifted her into the air. The other female lunged for me, but I caught her by the neck too and lifted them both high into the sky. Their faces morphed from a Demon red to a satisfying purple.

“Where is my mate?” I growled as they clawed uselessly at my arms.

The Illusionist pressed her mouth into a thin line. Hayyel’s lips mouthed nothing but panic and lies. With a crunch of my fist, I ended the first and tossed her away like a broken prey.

Hayyel, I eased to the ground. Two bloody corpses rose again and dragged her to her knees. She thrashed against my dead’s hold. I called a third to yank her head back.

With an animalistic growl, I curved down, my face inches from hers. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” she choked out, tears leaking down her face.

Pathetic.

“Are you stupid or were you bluffing?” I snarled, my fingers itching to reach forward and choke her again.

“B-bluffing,” she coughed out. “She went down, but then your dead arrived and I lost track of her.”

Hope twisted my heart. She could still be alive, our bond muted by Hayyel’s magic.

I found my sword a few feet away, caked in mud and blood. Flipping the hilt in my hand, I leveled a feral, hateful glare on her. “No one, and I mean no one, who dares to harm my mate lives.”

With one powerful thrust, I split her in the middle. Ruby spittle flew from her mouth and landed on my armor. But it was already soaked in Angel blood. One more stain meant nothing.

Next, I grabbed a dagger and dug it into her arm. She screamed, but that only furthered my pleasure. I dragged it along the length of her bicep, splitting muscle until I saw the white flash of bone.

A wicked, evil laugh rumbled in my chest. I dug my fingers in, wrapping around it. Crimson poured out of her, coating my hand, but I didn’t care. In fact, I very much enjoyed it, especially as her cries grew more and more frantic.

“This is for daring to swing a sword in her direction.”

I yanked.

The bone ripped free. Tendons popped, audible over the cacophony of battle.

A piercing wail, sharp enough to be another incoming psionic blast, tore from her throat. The Angels around us whipped their attention to our altercation.

I raised the bone high like a scepter. Held their gazes. Let the beast inside me loose.

“Surrender now and you won’t face the same fate,” I bellowed in Angelic, voice booming over the battlefield.

Then, I redrew my dagger. In one swift slice, I swept it across Hayyel’s throat. Not deep enough to kill her immediately, though. She’d drown in her own blood first.

I kicked her chest, flattening her on the ground, then directed my dead toward the remaining Angels, fighting against the Demons who had flocked to me in my time of need.

Hundreds of my bodies spread across the battlefield, ripping at the limbs of the Angels. A wave of fatigue swept over me as I faced the direction I’d last seen my mate.

Bone in hand, I hunted her. I had to find her. Had to give her this gift.

But with no bond to lead me to her, I was lost. Adrift in the dark. My side, where I always tucked her for safekeeping, was cold, empty, when it should have been warmed by her presence. We were made to walk the dark together.

I wasn’t sure I could follow the path without her anymore.

Grem and Zeec raced in sweeping arcs around me, sniffing the ground in search of her. Piles and piles of Demons and Angels did not reveal my mate. The sounds of battle muted to a buzzing in the background as fear sank its claws into my chest again.

What if she had died?

A sob cracked out of me. I couldn’t fucking breathe without her.

Wind blasted across the grassy field, and among the metallic tang of blood was a hint of a garden. Grem and Zeec, their noses far more sensitive than mine, halted. Heads uplifted, nostrils flaring, they inhaled deeply.

And then took off at a run.

I sprinted, trusting my hounds to lead me home.

Leaping over corpses, dodging half-broken weapons protruding from the earth, we raced back toward the academy. The hounds halted at an outcropping some distance away.

My lungs burned as I approached, but I didn’t slow until I was upon it.

And there, lying on the ground, covered in blood, was my mate.

Movement from above had me throwing myself over her. Pain speared into my ribs as someone stabbed me. I whipped around, hand snapping out, only to find Vokkia gaping at me with wide-eyed horror. A dagger fell from her palm a moment later.

“Oh, fuck, Halálhívó, sir, I am so sorry.” She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face. Clasping her hands together, she prostrated herself. “Please forgive me. I reacted when I saw movement, before I realized you weren’t an Angel come to finish off the Szélhámos.”

My fury abated immediately. She’d acted out of loyalty to my mate.

“You may rise,” I commanded, and she did, though her entire frame trembled. “You followed your orders exactly, soldier. There is nothing to forgive.”

“She saved me,” Assyria coughed, and I faced my mate again.

“Little imposter,” I breathed, kneeling in front of her. “I thought I lost you.”

She offered me a weak smile. Her helmet had been discarded and rested against the ground beside her. A hand pressed into her bad shoulder, and garnet leaked between her fingers. “You’ll always be able to find me. Even if I run.”

The echoes of our first conversation speared into my heart. A choking sound escaped me as I swept her into my arms. I crushed her against my chest like I could plant her vast love there so I’d never be without it again.

“Assyria, Assyria, Assyria,” I repeated her name like a whispered prayer. Like words of gratitude to the Fates. “I will always be able to find you, mate.”

Our bond flickered like a struck match in an endless night. I nearly wept from the relief of it.

Releasing her and easing her back against the rock, I grabbed the bone and offered it to her, along with a dip of my head. Her delicious lips curled into a wicked smile like I’d handed her a crown. “This is for you. After all, the Szélhámos needs a seat beside the Halálhívó. What better day to start building it than today?”

The lust that blasted our bond made me want to fuck her right then and there. She plucked it from my palm, boasting a devious grin. “My protector. My Halálhívó. My Fate.”

“That’s fucking right,” I ground out, cupping her cheek and smearing more ruby on it.

A moan tore my attention from her and toward Rapp. The spell between us broken, we both rushed to his side. “He overdid it,” Assyria explained. “He might have pulled something again. He dove into the Angel to save me. Vokkia dragged us both to safety.”

Rapp coughed, his brows pinched in pain. “I’ll be alright.”

“No,” I snapped. “Both of you, back to the academy. We’re almost done here.”

“But I can fight through the pain. I’m already feeling–” Assyria started, but I silenced her with a heated glare.

“You will go, and you will not argue.” My attention ripped to Vokkia, ensuring she saw the seriousness etched into my face. She offered me a subtle nod, confirming she’d escort them back.

“Then release some of your dead so you don’t burn yourself out,” she hissed back, inky tendrils dripping from her palms and wrapping around Rapp.

She had a point. The sheer number I’d wielded had nearly drained my well to its dregs. Only wisps of smoke remained where the inky shadow had been. I rose, then selectively dropped bodies. From what I could see, though, they’d made quite a dent and allowed the Demon soldiers to recover from the psionic wave. Only a few thousand Angels remained, and even more Demons lived.

“Go. I’ll finish this.”

This time, she didn’t argue. With Vokkia’s assistance, the three hobbled back toward the academy. When they disappeared down the hill, I faced the battle again. I needed to find that fucking psionic-wielding Angel and get some answers out of him.

“To me!” I growled, and ranks reformed at my back. “If you hear the blast coming again, use your shadows to plug your ears.”

I carved a path straight through the middle, splitting their forces in two. At the rear, as I suspected, a Myrza waited. Fuck, how I wished I had Rapp’s binds here to help me take this motherfucker down.

Instead, I had to rely on a group of Suppressors to clamp down on his psionic abilities. More soldiers offered me small weapons to stick in him to render his power completely unattainable. All the while, he swore at us in Angelic. Even more when I forced him to his feet and marched him back to the academy with daggers in his thighs and calves.

With the battle over, the survivors started to separate out the bodies. The Demons would receive proper rites, even more blessed for their sacrifice since the High Priestess was here to see them into their next lives.

The Angels? Well I’d probably want to throw them in the ocean for the fish to nibble the flesh from their bones.

Passing Olet and a few Százados, I instructed them to do just that. “I want a full account of our losses as soon as you have them,” I added. I’d overseen hundreds of battles in my centuries of life, and I wasn’t stupid. A great many Demons had died protecting the academy and Fured. The dent in our forces was yet to be seen.

But it would be a sizable one.

“Yes, sir,” they said, all bone-weary and dragging from the exertion of the day.

With the Myrza bound and Assyria safe inside the walls, I should have felt triumphant. But with how the Angels had marched through the northern tip of the Demon Realm unchecked, all I felt was dread.

And whatever had happened to Trol…

I had a marrow-deep feeling that it was only the beginning.

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42

Exhaustion tugged at my limbs as the lead healer attended to my wound. The academy was in recovery mode, soldiers limping by the battlefield tents to seek treatment, others hauling wood toward the pyres some distance away.

The gash in my shoulder would heal in a day or two, but what of them?

A hiss slipped past my lips as an ointment-soaked cloth pressed against the flayed skin. Fuck, it hurt, even if it was already mending. The male jumped back like I’d scalded him. “Did I hurt you?”

I shook my head and gritted my teeth harder. He continued his work while I continued my survey of the living and dead.

A cart approached, carrying half a dozen females. Yet unlike many of the ones that had already trundled by, the priestess-turned-warriors were all neatly arranged, their hands by their sides, palms facing the sky.

Sleeves rolled up and revealing the devious eye tattoo.

A snake wrapped around my chest and squeezed, robbing me of all air. Tears burned my eyes, and my vision blurred.

“Is it too much?” the healer prodded.

“No,” I replied. But it was. The pain of their deaths was unfathomable. Yet, he couldn’t touch, couldn’t heal this ailment. The one that came from too much loss. That came at the cost of love.

They’d died…because of me.

Because I was a symbol for them.

Because they believed the lie I let them ink into their skin.

Because I gave them a reason to hope they could live in a different future.

Because I dared to demand more…and they followed me into the fire.

I smashed my lips together, trying to refrain from crying out. My bond with Rokath was still muted from Hayyel’s power, but I tugged on it anyway.

I needed him.

Only he could talk me out of this spiral tugging me under, under, under…

Like a Fate, he emerged from the crowd, his burgundy eyes burning straight into me. He ignored the salutes, the greetings, the veneration of his battle prowess. To him, I was all there was in the world.

The lead healer finished binding the bandage on my shoulder and quickly excused himself. Rokath stopped in front of me, his fingers dipping under my chin and lifting my gaze to meet his.

“What’s wrong, little imposter?”

My throat worked as I tried to form the words. “I–I failed them.” One tear slipped out, then another. The next two words choked out of me and opened the floodgates. “They died.”

I collapsed into his chest, clutching at his bloody armor. He wrapped his arms around me like he alone could hold the pieces of me shattering together. “This is war.”

Anger swelled, joining my sorrow. “How can you be so cold, so cruel?” I jerked back, glaring up at him. Yet instead of a furious expression etched into his face, heartbreaking sympathy greeted me.

“This is your first battle, Assyria. The first time you’ve fought, the first time you’ve watched others bleed, the first time you’ve watched others die for their beliefs. It is not mine.”

I wiped my nose on my sleeve, filling my nostrils with a metallic tang—a reminder of who was being prepared for their pyres. “I can’t do this. I can’t stand by and watch the people I love die.”

Rokath crouched so we were eye to eye. “Yes, you can. Because you are the reason they fight–”

“I am the reason they died! I was the one that pushed you to bring them here. It was my symbol they tattooed into their skin. It was me who they followed onto that battlefield.” A choked sob escaped me then, and I collapsed inward, unable to snuff the embers of grief.

“You gave them a choice, Assyria. That is what they wanted more than anything. And those still living? They’d do it again.” Rokath stroked my hair as I sobbed harder into his chest.

“You loving them is what freed them and made them fearless. You loving me is what freed me and made me more than a weapon. Your bravery is not muscle or magic, Assyria. It blooms from your heart. From the raw, relentless devotion you show others. From that fire that refuses to die even when others try to smother it. A flame borne from love.”

I looked up at him through blurred vision. “But they died because of it. Like everyone else.”

“The Reaper’s path is different for everyone. You do not influence it, as much as your mind might tell you it does,” he murmured, brushing the backs of his knuckles across my cheek.

I swallowed hard. Movement caught my attention out of the corner of my eye. My gaze drifted toward Rapp, Kiira, and dozens of others watching on.

Rokath’s knees hit the ground, one by one, like twin boulders planting themselves at the feet of the mighty mountains. From my position on the table, I was merely a few inches above him. “Do not let this battle, or any others, harden you as they have me. If feeling your grief is the cost of loving you, then let me drown in it time and time again. Because we need your emotion, Szélhámos. You are the type of leader we have been missing from the army. You will not be broken by this—you will bend it to your will instead.”

Rokath tugged open a leather bag I hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. From within, he pulled out more bones and a smattering of white feathers. Sinking back on his heels, he knelt, the bundle raised over his head. “For your throne, so you may claim your rightful place at my side.”

Those gathered went utterly still, enraptured by the scene before them. Rokath had offered me Hayyel’s arm bone, but that was done only in front of Vokkia and Rapp.

This?

This was him bowing to me in front of the army.

This was him elevating the myth of us further.

From the fringes, males appeared, some carrying feathers, others carrying bones.

They knelt behind Rokath—not to him, but to me. To what I represented.

They offered more to build my throne. To sit beside the male they had revered long before I emerged as his mate.

Females joined them, yanking up the sleeves of their armor and revealing the devious eye tattoo on their wrists.

All of this…for me.

A vindication of the softness that survived a gruesome battle.

A veneration of the sparks that smoldered through sorrow.

An honorance of grief that didn’t harden into harshness.

And in that moment, I understood.

I hadn’t failed them; I’d elevated them.

And they wanted to continue their fight.

A serrated breath accompanied the next wave. Rapp and Kiira knelt with them. All movement around the academy had ceased, poised on this very moment.

Blinking rapidly, I tried to arrest the tears, even for a moment, to imprint the scene on my memory. Then, I reached for Rokath’s bundle and lifted it from his hands.

“Rise,” I commanded with as much authority as I could muster around the thickness in my throat.

My mate did, his riotous burgundy eyes sparking with desire. Those behind him followed, piling their bones and feathers at our feet. Rokath swiped the lingering salt from my cheeks and then faced them alongside me.

“My bold, beautiful mate. Give me your tears, and I will catch them like they are precious. Let me be the hands that hold you when the world breaks you again. Let me remind you—your sorrow is not a weakness. It is the mark of one chosen by the Fates to feel what others fear.”

I’d never been more relieved to hear him in my mind.

“You are my sanctuary. My refuge. I am so fucking glad you didn’t die. I couldn’t live without you.”

“Nor I without you. My fierce protector. My primal love.”

He kissed me then, unrestrained passion igniting between us. Fuck our audience. I needed my mate.

Whoops and cheers eventually drove us apart, yet the darkness in Rokath’s eyes told me we were far from finished. He linked his fingers through mine and held my gaze.

The bones at our feet weren’t mere trophies. Decor for our war tents. They were proof that even amid ruin, the soldiers believed in us. In me.

And we would not let the dead burn for nothing.

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