“How long?” I asked softly. He must have sensed this was the last time I would ask. My next move was to walk out the door and find out for myself. A darkness passed over the balcony, casting the room in shade.
He swallowed hard. “It’s already begun.”
Chapter 25
I ran to the balcony, ignoring the loose swaths of fabric as they twisted around my limbs, trapping me in their confines as I looked up. A mass loomed over us, a hundred times greater in size than the enormous palace I stood in, blocking the sun and blanketing Inferna in a bleak shadow.
“What is that?” I breathed.
“The Brimstone City,” he answered gravely. “It was once known as the province of Pride. Lilith’s domain.”
“It’s floating. Why is it floating?” I asked, unable to stop the panic from coloring my tone.
“Lilith wanted a city that no one could enter without her knowing; a city that transcended the barriers of magic. She sacrificed one hundred of her children to create the spell that keeps the city airborne.”
Horror washed through me. I clenched my teeth together as the world turned dark, seemingly bleached of color as the sun disappeared entirely. It was only the torches lit below us that kept the city visible in any way. In the span of minutes, Inferna had gone from a sprawling wonder to looking like a hellscape straight out of the Bible.
“People are warring in the streets.” I wouldn’t have believed it would happen that way if I hadn’t seen it myself. The way two friends turned on each other mid-stride and began trading blows with torches. Parents turned on children. Brother on sister. Wife on husband. Inferna descended into chaos as the floating city sat directly overhead, crushing the atmosphere with its very presence.
“That’s the power of Famine at work,” Laran said behind me. “He toys with their emotions. Makes them feel what he wants them to feel.”
“He can’t be doing this by choice.” There was no way. Allistair was many things…but not this.
“She took your bonds with them,” Laran muttered. “There’s no telling what she’s truly done in the days they’ve been gone.”
“No,” I contradicted him. Frowning, I tapped my chin. “She took the magic of those bonds that held us together. She didn’t take the feelings behind them. They chose to be my mates, which lends the question—how much awareness of this do they truly have?” I murmured.
“Her magic helped create us,” he said. “It’s hard to say.” The wind howled through the valley and the biblical references weren’t lost on me. I was about to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but I wasn’t praying to any god. I was prepared to finally be one.
“We’ll get them back, Laran. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises here, Ruby.” He let out a rough exhale, the knuckles of his fists turning white. “Just…be safe. Be careful. Don’t overplay your hand. I have fought so many battles and won many a war. The loser doesn’t always lose because they were not good enough, or strong enough. It’s because they made a mistake.” He shook his head slightly as he remembered things that I’d never lived through, but some of the Seelie had. “A single mistake could cost your life and I don’t want to lose you. The first time you faced her, we both died. You barely survived, and haven’t trained with the Sins but once. I don’t know how you’re going to pull this one off, baby, but…”
I stared at him—knowing the mighty Horseman I saw but only now truly seeing the man. Even demons, powerful as they might be, had weaknesses. I was his.
“Trust me,” I whispered, taking his hands in mine. “Trust that I know what I am doing. Trust that I am strong enough. Trust that…” I grasped at the fire in his eyes. “Trust that I will not fail—that I can put this world back together again.”
He brushed the hair away from my eyes, placing a kiss on my forehead. I leaned in, but I did not yield.
I wouldn’t. Not now. Not ever. Not for anyone.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“I know you do,” I said with a sad smile. This was the only goodbye I would get with him, with any of them, if I fucked this up. “But I need more than your love this time. I need your complete trust to not try to stop me. No matter what.”
He leaned away as I took his hands in mine. “Ruby, you are the only woman—demon or otherwise—that I will bow to ever again. I trust you and that you know what you’re doing…even if I don’t understand. I will stand by you until the day I die. I’ve done it once already and I will do it again. If that day is today, so be it.”
We kissed and it was everything. It was fire and passion and desperation—that connection that all people sought. Human. Demon. Fae. Mortals and immortals alike spent entire lives looking for this thing between us. Some called it soulmates, but I refused to believe there was only one person in the world you’re meant to be with. It’s an awfully big universe, after all.
I found my match in four exceedingly possessive, sometimes devious, and always devoted mates. They couldn’t be more different from each other if they were born centuries and worlds apart. They weren’t perfect, but they were mine. I’d experienced the love that some people never found in all their searching, and I’d felt it four times greater.
With it had come this loss so crushing that I was left with nothing but scraps of a soul and wisps of power when they had been ripped from me. I’d loved so fiercely that when I lost them all, it was the most devastating experience in the universe. To have a love so consuming that it burned, and you burned with it. Bright. Fierce. True.
That was what we had. That was what we all had.
A love that changed the worlds.
A love that could and would overcome anything.
I sucked in a breath as a harsh wind whipped at my skin, rattling my bones. My teeth grit as I stormed back into the bedroom and readied myself—not for battle—but for war. We dressed silently, clothing ourselves in the fighting leathers of Hell before we stormed the palace halls. Our footsteps echoed in the empty silence as we made our way down to the throne room. My footing slipped on the bottom step of the quartz stairs and Laran steadied me with a single hand—not missing a beat.
I mumbled my thanks as we approached the onyx doors with a silver pentagram engraved on them. The wood panels hung ajar, the metal hinges melted or broken.
Backs to us—I saw them.
My Horsemen.
Pestilence stood to the right wearing armor made of gold. His blonde hair appeared honeyed, his cheek bones strong and sharp. My Rysten had always seemed so carefree, but this man in metal was merely a phantom apparition of his previous radiance. I turned to Death, standing regal and glistening in the starkest of whites. He’d always been a stoic sort that straddled the edge of cruelty. Now, not even a hint of warmth resided inside him. Even with his back to me, I could sense the swirling abyss eating him alive. The darkness that swallowed all light.
I couldn’t say that the last one I saw was the one that hit me the hardest, but it was a blow to my gut, nonetheless. Allistair did not carry the light that Rysten did. Nor did he harbor the demons of Death. Allistair was a man who wore a mask. A fiend that walked into your life and stole your heart before you even knew he was reaching for it. To see him dressed in onyx, painted a dark knight…I saw the duties that confined him. The rules that bound him. The lecherous chains of submission that buried the man I knew so deep underneath…I had no doubt he wasn’t truly in control as he brought about anarchy.
They stood, soldiers of pain.
Bringers of destruction.
The apocalypse.
And I wondered…I wondered if it wasn’t the flames I was meant to stop. If it wasn’t the barriers between the worlds—I wondered for the first time…if it was them. If they, the Horsemen who brought me here under the guise of a savior, were the very apocalypse that I was destined to be the savior of—or to fall myself and bring both the worlds with me.
A cackle pulled at my attention.
And I knew who stood there—the
woman in white that stole them.
A crown of lilies adorned her head, their color tainted in comparison. Her dress, if it could truly be called that, was two panels of fabric hung over both shoulders and bound around the waist by a golden chain.
“I heard your rumors. That the girl lived…” her voice carried as she stared down the Sins—all of them but one. Sinumpa was absent, but she’d already betrayed me one too many times for me to think she’d stick around. I don’t know what my mother was thinking, but she chose a coward. Both her and Jax were gone, but not the others. The Sins and Moira were armed and ready to defend without even knowing if I would make it in time. Bandit stood tall on her shoulder, teeth bared and eyes blazing. Pride swelled within me. “How pathetic.”
“Pathetic?” Hela asked, her voice carried as well, fueled by an errant wind. Her flaming hair lifted as lightning’s wrath filled her gaze. “You killed the very man you claimed to love after killing the mother of his child. You’ve sought vengeance for a throne that was never yours. You’ve tried to steal the power of the primordial, and committed war crimes against our people and yours—all in the name of a throne that doesn’t belong to you.” Power radiated in every word as that rage she was known for came to life. She stood like a beacon light against the darkness. “Your end is now, Lilith. Lucifer is gone, and we will not allow this madness to reign in our domain any longer.”
“My, my,” Lilith mocked. “You have grown rather big for your britches, Hela. Tell me, is there any bite behind that bark.” She flicked her fingers and the flames leapt at her command. My flames. That rage I’d kept so close to my heart came bubbling up as they incinerated Hela’s clothing. It seemed she had been smart enough to consume brimstone before this fight.
“Is that the best you’ve got?” Hela taunted, throwing her hand in the air. Thunder roared as a bolt of lightning came down on her. The hairs on my arms rose when she pointed to Lilith and the electricity at her fingertips struck her with enough force it rattled the building. I held my breath as she stilled, neither falling nor retaliating.
“You should know by now that these childish abilities you have won’t work on me,” Lilith spat. The sweetness of her tone had dried up. “You were merely a flaw created by Genesis. I am of her blood. Her very soul,” she said, her tone dripping with disdain.
Hela’s fingers balled into fists, and while she’d never show it, there was very real fear there. It was palpable.
Lilith lifted her hands as if in a gesture to say, my turn. Demons did not play fair, though. The moment she moved, both Moira and Ahnika stepped forward and let out a scream.
As a child, she was strong enough to shatter an eardrum. As a transitioned banshee-legion, Moira held the power to bring down buildings. That was by herself.
When the Sin of Sloth let loose her own scream, they had the strength to cause an earthquake.
The ground began to rumble as the earth protested against the mighty power being thrown at it. Lilith clapped her hands over her ears as all three Horsemen before us fell to their knees under the strain.
Lamia stepped forward and the veins around her eyes turned black as she extended her hands toward the fallen woman and whispered a word I didn’t have a prayer of hearing, if not for her thoughts.
“Bleed.”
At her command, Lilith’s skin split. The arteries of her neck exploded, raining blood upon the dark navy floors. Her legs collapsed, her white dress stained red as her blood seeped into the fabric. Lying in a pool of her own blood, the earth split and opened its gaping mouth.
Her body tumbled into the chasm.
Lost to the darkness within.
The screams died away, drowned by a sea of silence and apprehension.
No one rejoiced or applauded. I did not dare to even speak as the gaping mouth closed shut.
Because deep down—knowing what I did now—I knew that even I could survive that.
Which meant Lilith could as well.
The moments spanned in time, but the Horsemen never rose. Behind me, Laran had grabbed a handful of my shirt to steady me as something thick and pungent began to clog the air.
Dark magic. Blood magic. Only it wasn’t Sinumpa or me using it.
The ground shook as a great power built beneath it. Chunks of stone the size of baseballs rattled. Poison burned at my nostrils.
No one had even a moment to dive for cover. One second the ground quaked as a whining sound resonated deep inside. The next, it didn’t just split. Oh, no. The stone itself fractured and caved in.
A figure cloaked in red and black rose, floating upwards as if suspended in water. The lilies in her hair were crushed into nothing more than bloody petals and broken stems.
“Did you really think that would work?” she asked them. I heard it in her voice in that moment. She meant death; if left to her own devices, she would destroy the very world she wished to rule if it meant obliterating the Sins.
Her hands raised and a phantom darkness wrapped around her. It took only a second to realize what was happening. I’d never been on the outside when I used that particular ability.
I never saw the way one’s own soul poised to strike.
She intended to rip every soul in that room from its body.
But she hadn’t planned on one thing.
Me.
My fingers twirled as the depraved soul of a mad woman sought its victims. If you blinked, you would miss it. The glow of a rune so bright and blue it hurt to look at. My rune. My power. My protection.
A barrier snapped into place around her, trapping that hideous soul within. I squinted, searching the blackness for even a spec of blue, but there was none.
Lilith looked every which way, spinning around.
The Sins faces were set in shock. Moira’s in a smirk, despite the odds as she knew them.
But Lilith’s—her lips were set in a grim smile.
“Well, well, well,” she purred. “The bitch wasn’t lying after all. Little Morningstar came to play.”
There was a time when her taunting set fear in my heart, but when I smiled over the head of my enslaved mates, it was all teeth and no fear.
She thought she was the biggest, baddest bitch on the playground.
But I was the Devil now, and you don’t steal from the Devil without paying your pound of flesh.
Chapter 26
Rage was a dangerous thing.
It was all consuming as fire itself. It was as vast and expansive as the sea. It settled deep within, festering and rotting if you let it. But more than anything, the reason rage was so powerful was because you couldn’t simply choose to lift it.
It came and went as it willed. Sitting on your chest like a demon in the night until it decided to leave you and afflict another.
I could not change it. I could not calm it. I could simply live with it, and in that I found power among the powerless.
Most people stricken lost themselves in the grips of passion, but I honed mine into a strength of its own.
My rage guided me. It fueled me so that I had no reservation when the end came.
She’d stripped me of everything, and for that she was going to lose it all.
“I must say, you look better than when I left you,” she noted. Her eyes carefully straying towards my chest. My brand. “Tell me,” she murmured. “How’d you do it?”
I smiled even though I wanted to rip her limb from limb. Her clawed hands formed fists. It bothered her that I’d survived. She was unsure of herself now. Unsure of her power. Unsure of mine. I reveled in it.
“Well,” I started. My boots thudded against the floor as I slowly started for her. “It was really a number of things. As it was, my body was slowly trying to stitch itself back together, but with so little blood I would have died and stayed dead, were it not for Sinumpa.”
Her eyes flashed with a fury, and if for some reason I did not succeed, I had no doubt that she would hunt down her daughter to the ends of this world or the next. I pitied her, Sinumpa,
in that moment. She was a cursed child who grew into an imprisoned woman.
“Sinumpa?” she said, attempting and failing to hide her surprise. I flashed a Cheshire grin that only served to piss her off more.
“Oh, yes,” I nodded. “You see, while you’ve been planning my destruction, she was planning yours. Her actions are what set all of this into motion, after all.” I waved a hand at the palace around us. “She found me when I was a baby, made a deal with my mother, then convinced you she became the Sin of Lust because she “took” it. You were so desperate to believe that someone truly wanted to see you on the throne that you didn’t see her for the double agent she has always been. Not that I blame you there,” I added. “I’m an empath and I didn’t see her for what she was until that moment in the Garden. She led me to be slaughtered only to bring me back with a blood oath.”
Rage. It was a dangerous thing. Lilith loved to toy, but if there was one thing I realized in all those Seelie memories I’d lived through, it’s that she was a slave to her own emotions and too prideful to see. It was going to make for the sweetest of endings.
“So, you lived.” Her eyes slid to Laran. “And you somehow managed to save the spare. You’re insistent. I’ll give you that.” Between us, the three Horsemen rose and closed ranks around her.
“They can’t save you,” I said. Her expression froze.
“You may have lived but you have no power. The beast lies within them,” she growled.
“The beast wasn’t the holder of my true power,” I replied steadily. Her pupils thinned to slits, making the gold of her eyes that much brighter.
“You’re lying!”
“No,” I smirked. “But you wish I was.”
My taunting pushed her over the edge. Flames raced to greet me and I greeted them as my own. They licked at my skin and burned away my clothes until I stood nude for all to see.
“Impossible,” she whispered as I cut the flames out with a snap of my fingers. She stared at the brand on my chest. Over the hardened scar tissue, blue vines curled protectively in the form of a pentagram.
Brimstone Nightmares (Queen of the Damned Book 4) Page 21
