by Jessica Gunn
“Krystin!” I shouted.
Lady Azar laughed as the woman snapped to attention, looking directly at me. But it wasn’t Krystin.
It was her mother, Desiree.
“I couldn’t take Alzan’s champions from them before the fight,” Lady Azar cooed as the guards brought Desiree onto the dais. “But I can borrow the Daughter’s lineage to meet her there. Come, witch. We will see the city for ourselves.”
I surged forward, screaming Desiree’s name, but big arms, filled with the strength of twice a normal man’s, wrapped around mine and held me back.
“Don’t do this!” Rachel shouted. “She’s innocent!”
More like she had nothing to do with this whatsoever. Aside from being Krystin’s mother anyway. Krystin rarely even spoke to her anymore unless something was going wrong.
My heart sank. What if she’d never speak to her again?
“You can’t do this,” Desiree said, her voice quiet and broken. Her clothes were filthy, as if Lady Azar had had her for longer than a few days, and torn as if Desiree hadn’t gone quietly. “The magik you’re going to tap into—”
“It’s what?” Lady Azar asked as she grabbed on to Desiree’s chin and forced her to meet her burgundy gaze. “Ancient? Powerful? Taboo? Such things don’t frighten me, Blackwood. Your precious Jade forgets: Our kind was around long before your witch lines were even a remote beacon of hope in the Powers’ eyes. Demonic magik, true demonic magik, is nothing like what you’ve seen before.”
She meant blood magik. That stuff was so rare, so powerful that it was the only thing that had allowed Shawn to break through Kinder’s shield around Headquarters six months ago. If he hadn’t known about it or how to use it, the whole city would be leveled right now.
What the hell was Lady Azar planning to use—
An awful, broken noise escaped my lips as the pieces of Lady Azar’s plan fell into place before my eyes.
“No,” I said, my head shaking. “Don’t. Let Riley try to get through on his own. No one else has to die.”
“Ben?” Rachel asked.
Lady Azar reached behind her and slipped a knife out from a sheath on her back, one hand still cupped around Desiree’s chin. “Unfortunately, I see no other way. Originally, I was hoping to use Riley to steal the Son and Daughter’s magik. But they’ve since made that impossible, especially after my traitorous pet decided to spare them instead of kill them.”
Giyano. He’d stopped her plan while also saving Shawn’s life. Dammit. I owed that bastard more than I’d ever, ever admit.
Lady Azar brought the tip of the dagger to Desiree’s throat. “That said, I also must thank Giyano. His urging and isolating of your team from the rest of the Fire Circle facilitated them going to Alzan early. They unlocked not only their magik, but a number of the magik barriers surrounding the city while doing so. I felt them fracture and crack, the fissures growing deeper with each trip across the walls.”
She took a half-step back but kept the knifepoint against Desiree’s throat.
“Stop,” I pleaded again. “You have what you want.”
“But not what I need,” Lady Azar said, her voice a lament. “Contrary to what you might think, I do not enjoy killing. I find being alive to be punishment enough for those who trespass against my father’s and my empire. But these are times of change, and soon I will rule that empire. From Alzan.”
In a swift motion, Lady Azar drew the blade across Desiree’s throat. Her eyes went wide as she garbled, blood spewing all over her and Lady Azar. Coating each of them in crimson.
“No!” Rachel cried, fighting her captors, her own wrists growing bruised and bloody from trying to escape.
I moved to intervene, to clamp down the mortal wound Desiree would never recover from. But more hands drew on my shoulders and back, pulling me away from Krystin’s mother. Pressing me down against the stone.
I wanted to save her. I wanted to jump up onto the dais and try cauterizing the wound with lightning. To save Riley, turn his head away from this so he wouldn’t be scarred by what he was seeing. The only relief in any of this was when I looked for him in this chaos, I found him turned away, his eyes closed, brow furrowed as though in concentration.
The relief was fleeting. It’s begun.
Lady Azar took her hand away from Desiree’s chin, her fingers and palm saturated in Desiree’s blood. The guards lowered her now deadweight body to the floor. Desiree was gone. Lady Azar moved from them to Riley and knelt before him, taking her thumb and dipping it into the blood. Then she lifted one of his hands and swiped it into a symbol on the back. An “S” and a “D” intertwined.
“Now, Riley,” she said. “Use the blood lineage of the Daughter and all the magik we have amassed for you to transport us past the walls around Alzan. Bring us to victory.”
I watched, frozen in place by shock at everything that was happening, as Lady Azar closed her eyes, mumbled some words in another language, and lifted her free hand beside her.
A portal opened, white and shimmering. Like a wormhole from a sci-fi movie hovering there in the space of the chamber. And on the other side of it, seen through what looked like a broken window, was a city made of marble white stone… and a huge, gemstone-tiered pyramid in the distance.
Lady Azar cackled as she stood, turning toward the legion of Shadow Crest soldiers standing around the chamber. “It is time to end this war once and for all.”
My vision wavered as a rumbling of cheers began, filling my ears with dread. And fear.
Chapter 17
KRYSTIN
Our group stopped only briefly on the training floor in the basement of Fire Circle Headquarters. I ran to the knives cabinet and added a few to my collection of weapons before teleporting home quickly to grab my three-piece sword. By the time I’d sorted through the police tape and wreckage of the house, found the sword, and returned, everyone else had loaded up on weapons.
“This is going to be quick,” I said, looking at each of the dozen or so people in turn. Avery had grabbed Cassie and the remaining members of her team to join us in the fight. I would have loved more firepower, but amassing a small army wasn’t in my job description. “We’re going into the same lair we went to days ago. Get in, fight like hell, and stop them from going to Alzan.”
“What’s to say this will end any better than last time?” asked one of Cassie’s Hunters, a young man whose name I didn’t know.
“I don’t think they’ll still be there.” I hoped they were, to make this quicker and easier, but nothing ever went according to plan. Not with Lady Azar involved. “It’s a starting place. Hopefully, if they’re not there, we can figure out where they went.”
“As long as it’s not Landshaft,” Avery said.
I turned to him. “What?”
He shrugged as he unloaded, checked, and reloaded one of his guns. “If I was trying to start a march on an ancient city and knew the enemy was hot on my trail, I’d go where they wouldn’t dare.”
Fuck it all. He was right. “Still, we go to the Vermont lair first. Scope it out. Then we’ll see where we’re at. Is everyone ready?”
Shawn and Nate nodded, though Nate didn’t look as confident. Truthfully, I didn’t think any of us were. But the only other choice was to cower and wait this out, and that was unacceptable.
“Yes,” Avery said. “Let’s do this. Group up, everybody.”
I took Shawn’s hand. Nate wrapped his around mine. I looked to my teammates, some of my closest friends, despite everything that had happened, and prayed that we’d all see this through. But with the way they both looked at me with worried expressions and weary fear, something told me this wouldn’t end well. There would be horrific consequences no matter what we did or didn’t do today.
“Teleportante on my mark, right into that antechamber with the dais,” Avery called, and I let him. He was technically the top of the chain of command right now. But it was so easy to slip into that old way of doing things on my own, of callin
g all the shots. I set that all aside and listened to Avery count us down. “Three. Two. One. Go.”
A chorus of teleportante rang out through the room, and in the next instant, we were gone.
My feet hit solid stone. As soon as the teleportation word-magik wore off, I blinked, taking in the room around me. Looking for threats. Hoping not to find many.
“Duck!” someone shouted as a rumbling column of earth the size of an eighteen-wheeler careened across the room right toward us.
Shawn grabbed my shoulders and hauled me out of the way. My fingertips grazed Nate’s shirt, snagging it at the last second and I pulled him with me. The column sank into the far wall with a sickening crushing sound, as if stone golems had smashed and melted into earth.
I pushed off the ground, searching for the demon who’d tried to pulverize us. Avery already had his gun drawn, taking aim on the female earth-elemental in the corner.
“Ahh,” Cassie cried. I spun, watching as she was raised into the air, a shimmering layer of water surrounding her body. She swiped at it with a knife, trying to break the connection.
Nate jumped toward the Shadow Crest demons with ether-lit hands. He worked his magik into a solid form and slammed a block of ether against the earth-elemental.
Gunshots rang out, echoing through the empty chamber. Avery and his team fired round after round on the other two demons standing on top of the dais, mid-step on their way toward—
“Holy shit,” I exclaimed. “Shawn!”
He turned, his hand raised, ala-ether magik twisting around his fingers. On top of the dais sat a… portal or something, bright white and churning with a view of Alzan in the center of it. Armies marched on the city, making their way through the courtyard, trampling the flowers and stonework and—
“They’re right on top of the cianza,” Shawn said, his voice small, face pale. His hands shook.
I reached for one of them and squeezed. “We need to go right now. They’re already there!”
“But what about Ben and Rachel?” Shawn asked.
My vision narrowed. “She needed them for something. To balance the cianza, I think. Like Karen wanted to do. She probably took them with her.”
“They’re not here,” Shawn said.
We turned back toward the fighting, where only the water and earth-elementals remained, the others picked off by Avery’s and Cassie’s teams.
“Go,” I told Shawn. “Take them out.” The Alzanian magik was more than enough to vaporize the remaining demons while I investigated the portal. I hadn’t even known portals existed.
Shawn nodded and jumped off the dais, making quick work of the distance between us and the demons. A teleportante helped him along, propelling him right into the face of the earth-elemental. The Alzanian magik around his hands brightened with intensity, burning until Shawn’s hand touched the demon’s body and he was vaporized.
Nate wrapped ether around the water-elemental’s legs, distracting him long enough for Cassie to land a solid punch to the demon’s face. His eyes danced as unconsciousness teased him. I ran in, brandishing the three-piece sword before burying it in the demon’s chest. His skin grayed and turned to dust.
“The portal,” Shawn yelled to everyone in the room. “We need to go through it right now. They’re at Alzan!”
Everyone turned toward the portal, but it was, as if on cue, shrinking to a pinpoint.
“Go!” I yelled, climbing up the stairs first. Maybe if Shawn and I got to it, we could keep it open. Lady Azar had been tapping into something like our magik, right?
Stair after stair, I made my way onto the dais. Someone called my name, but I knew what we had to do: get to the portal and keep it open. It was the only way to get this many people into the city without risking my life before the battle had even begun.
My foot connected with something solid. The world tilted as I fell to my knees, knocked off balance by the sudden impediment in my way. My hands and knees landed in something wet and sticky that covered almost the entire dais.
“Ugh, what the hell?” I lifted my hands. They came away red with blood. “Whoa.”
“Krystin, don’t!” Shawn said, his voice suddenly hectic and scared. And worried. “Don’t look!”
He ran up behind me, voices echoing, but a sudden teleportante in front of me held me in place. Nate knelt, blocking me from being able to follow the trail of blood.
“Krystin,” he said, his eyes rounded and worried. “I’m so sorry.”
“That I fell?” I let him help me up but then shoved him out of the way. “We need to go. What happened up here—?”
My breath caught in my throat as my body froze, jaw hanging open. My eyes widened. All air—all of life itself—seemed to rush out of my body in one solid movement as my body froze over. A mighty shaking began in my fingers, rising up my arms with a chill, then zipping up and down my spine, all the way to my head. Every part of me was shaking as my gaze followed the trail—no, pool—of blood to its owner.
There, lying between the two Shadow Crest soldiers Avery and his team had killed, was my mother. Her throat was slit. Her eyes were closed, but she had a hand near her throat, as if she’d been trying to stop the blood.
My own mother. Dead.
I closed my eyes, a wail working its way onto my lips.
Someone’s warm hands grabbed my cheeks, forcing my gaze away from my mother’s body. Shawn’s brown eyes stared back at me. Gold flecks danced within them like little embers. I focused on them, on this Ember witch who’d become my friend.
“Focus, Krystin,” he said, looking into my eyes. “We can’t lose you now.”
“My mother—”
He frowned and his eyes pooled with tears. “I know. I cannot imagine what’s going through your head right now.”
“You can’t.” Even I couldn’t. Why had Lady Azar had my mother? Why’d she kill her? It wasn’t like Riley knew my mother. Or Ben, really. Or that she was even tied to any of this in any way, aside from giving birth to me. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either.”
“Everyone I love keeps dying.” My voice was so soft, I might as well have been whispering. Maybe I was. My head had grown foggy, my vision darkening. “My entire family.” Tears welled up in my eyes. Spilled over, down across Shawn’s hands. “My father. Aiden. Mom.”
Nate appeared behind Shawn, a severe frown on his face. “I think she was using your mother. To aid in their trip to Alzan.”
I squinted, crying harder. “How? Why?”
Nate shrugged and looked away, watching as the portal to Alzan shrunk to the size of a dime before blinking out of existence. “She didn’t have you and Shawn, or your magik. Your mother once used blood magik to find you. Maybe… Maybe she needed something of yours to cement their path to the city, even with using Riley as a siphon. Your mother might not have had the Alzanian power, but you shared her blood.”
Blood that was now spilled across the dais for all the world to see.
“I hate this,” I said. A hiccup sprung off my lips. “All of this.”
“I know,” Shawn said, his thumbs now stroking my cheeks. Not in some romantic way, but like he was desperate he’d lose me right before the final fight.
I no longer knew if I cared.
Everything, everything, was being torn from me. Ever since I’d joined the Hunter Circles. To fight the good fight. To save the world. And for what? Just to watch everyone I love die before me?
“I’m going to kill her,” I said, anger and fury replacing despair in my gut, at least for the moment. “I’m going to tear her head from her body.”
“I’ll gladly be by your side while you do so,” Shawn said. “But you need to stay with me first.”
I shrugged off his hold and paced away from him to my mother’s side. I knelt down beside her in the one spot there wasn’t blood and pressed a hand against her cheek. She was still warm. They hadn’t been gone for very long. And whatever had happened had been quick. It was a small mer
cy, if you one could call it that.
“I’ll take her back to Headquarters,” Cassie said, appearing at my shoulder. “I can make sure she’s cared for.”
I closed my eyes. More tears leaked out anyway. I pulled in a deep breath that shook my entire body. “Thank you, Cassie.”
She nodded once. “Go end that bitch. For all of us.”
I stood and looked up at the ceiling, seeing past it in my mind’s eye all the way out into the universe beyond. If all of this was part of some higher plan by the Powers, they’d have some fucking explaining to do. Because fuck any plan that involved your family dying.
“I hate you all,” I said to them, hoping they could hear. If they even had ears, the energy-made, cloud-puffy assholes. “Fuck you.”
“Feel a bit better?” Shawn asked as he slipped his hand into mine.
“Enough to see this through,” I said, reaching inside me for my Alzanian magik. It bloomed like a warm beacon in my mind, reaching down to my heart to give me some semblance of life again. “I can keep it together for another few minutes.”
“I pray that’s long enough,” Nate said as he joined Shawn and me. “I’ll collect everyone together. Should we hold hands?”
Shawn nodded. “It might be best. We’ve never tried to get to Alzan with this many people.”
“Okay. Everyone crowd around each other,” Nate said to the Hunters who remained.
With Shawn on my left and Nate on my right, we joined hands with Avery and his team and Cassie’s Hunters. Then Shawn and I looked to each other and nodded.
“To the courtyard,” I said, in case Shawn had any other ideas. “Just drop us right into the middle of the fray.”
“Right. Let’s hope Jaffrin was right.”
Shawn smirked. “Words I thought you’d never say.”
“Hilarious. Let’s go.”
Hands joined, I reached inside myself once more for my Alzanian magik. Then Shawn and I started the transfer to the courtyard, the barriers around Alzan parting for us with ease, though a hole appeared to have been drilled through them—Lady Azar’s passage.
