I blink, suddenly aware of my soul as I look through the eyes of my body, feeling detached from it. Nothing feels real. My lips part, and I’m not breathing.
This isn’t happening. It must be a nightmare. I need to wake up.
Dephina carves Arabella’s chest, the blade grinding against bone. They’re working on her as if she is some animal brought in for slaughter.
Ari’s fingers twitch over the side of the altar, and I’m aware of every tiny movement. It’s too late.
I don’t move, staying motionless, my mouth open.
Her name is faint in my mind, swallowed by another—dead.
My sister is dead. Everything goes silent for a soul-shattering moment.
Ari. My baby sister. No.
A blood-curdling scream leaves my mouth, the permanence of what they just did rolling into my mind. I’m so cold.
I clamp my eyes shut as if I may hold on to some semblance of the past before she was dead.
I lower my head as a howl erupts from the pits of my stomach, each breath held as I wail, unable to speak, to think.
She’s gone.
I choke on another, visceral, soul-crushing wail as the pressure of the grief crumbles everything inside of me. Desperation has me reaching out for something tangible to break, to shatter in my fingers. I don’t want to believe it, and when I look up through blurred eyes, I am forced to watch as they drop her red, still beating heart into the basket.
Bile rises in my throat, burning my tongue. Nausea bubbles in my stomach, sweat dripping from my forehead. Regret etches on Drake’s face, and I can’t wait to fucking kill him for this.
“Put it back,” I shout hoarsely, my voice not sounding like my own. “Her heart! She needs her heart.”
Insanity fingers my mind as Dephina places the heart on a separate, smaller altar, squeezing the chambers until blood coats the ancient stone. Dizziness consumes me as I watch her slather my sister’s heart, so roughly, as if it is nothing.
Hot anger envelopes my grief when I climb my gaze to my sister’s blood-drenched, heartless body.
The gods. They lied to her. Essentria lied to my sister. They never intended to bring her back. They can’t.
I barely notice Drake apologizing as I struggle to stay upright, under the weight of a pain that cannot be alleviated, but the elder’s shadows hold me in place.
I watch as Dephina squeezes her fingernails callously into Ari’s heart. Swirls of gold, blue, purple, green, and red rise from the altar in illusory swirls of smoke, cloaking the heart and blood. As it slowly fades, the ground erupts with a thunderous boom. My legs slide against the marble as a loud crack penetrates my ears.
When the smoke subsides, the heart and blood are gone. Consumed by the god’s magic.
“The ritual is complete,” Dephina states to no one in particular. “The gods are awakening.”
I glare at them, the pain is so deep that a part of me wants nothing more than to die, so I won’t have to feel it. But I won’t. I will sharpen my grief into a weapon against them. Including the gods. Especially them.
FORTY-ONEAzkiel
Memories shatter into me with every step, the pain from the dagger still lingering by the time I reach the temple.
Trepidation threads in each step as I watch the remnants of silver magic shred into ribbons, falling around Tenenocti in a dome. My domain is gone, and my siblings are awake.
I have to get Calista out of here before they find her.
Her heartache echoes with each sob sounding from within the temple, and my eyes close for a moment.
Fuck!
I walk to the entrance and then pause mid-step when a familiar tingle waltzes down my spine. I grimace upon sensing Essentria’s magic—a vibrancy, filled with life, suffocating me.
“Miss me, Az?” Her deadly, lullaby of a voice reaches me.
My jaw clenches as I turn to face my sister, standing in an ombre of brown and gold. Shimmering dust covers her arms and shoulders, the rest of her body wrapped in a dress forged from vines and dead leaves.
I push my tongue against the inside of my cheek, then laugh sardonically. “You look rested, Sister. Good sleep?”
She nods rapidly, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “I hear Astraea helped return your memories. Now that the prophecy is fulfilled, you can live with every painful detail.” Her eyes are alight with revenge, fingers wiggling at her side as gold magic swirls around her hands. “But do you want to know a secret?”
I block the temple’s entrance, ready to die if it means stopping the bitch from going inside, to Calista. “What is it?”
She waves a hand in the air casually, noting my stance. “Don’t worry. I have no desire to go inside and take the girl. See, while the rest of our family is awakening in the cavern, I wanted to come and find you before they could.” She steps forward, the thorn of berries and flowers around her tight, dark curls withering. My eyes narrow when I realize she’s not at full power yet. None of them will be.
“Why come see me?” I ask, tilting my head. “I hope you’re not here to admonish me, because I regret nothing.”
“I know, Az.” Her nostrils flare. “You stole her from me,” she says. “The girls were mine.”
Fists ball at my side. “Now one of them is dead because you lied. Arabella believed you’d resurrect her.”
Her lip trembles, the movement so fleeting, but I caught it. “I had no choice. She will rejoin this world, eventually.”
