by SM Reine
“You look young to be my uncle,” Benjamin said. The fact that he was remarking on age rather than the exposed organs was telling. This was a boy who had grown up with Alphas, and very little surprised him.
Seth didn’t want to explain that he was a god who had once been engaged to his mother. He settled for saying, “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Benjamin probably planned to keep talking, but that was when people started screaming.
A rumble spread through Myrkheimr, followed by crashing.
Seth had a moment to register the dust that spilled from a crack in the mezzanine’s roof before it collapsed.
He dived.
If he were asked later, he’d have said that he was going for Rylie. But it wasn’t Rylie who he wrapped his arms around. It was Benjamin, teenage son of Abel Wilder.
Seth’s momentum carried both of them well out of the range of rubble. They struck the ground within the courtyard.
Benjamin came up gasping, his hair whitened by rubble. “Mom.”
Seth’s mortal ears were ringing. His core ached from his spine to the place his abdominals should have been, and the world swam around him.
Part of Myrkheimr had collapsed. Kindred energy sang to him from the resulting shadows, and infernal magic flowed through the crowd.
Possessed.
Seth could feel that in his core as surely as he felt his heart beating.
Dozens—hundreds—of the human attendees to Marion and Konig’s wedding had been seized by demon energy in that same heartbeat that an entire wing of Myrkheimr collapsed.
He was surrounded by chunks of rubble large enough that they easily could have crushed people into glue. Had Seth been anyone else, he doubted he’d have ever walked again. But many injured victims were standing. They were walking. Some were even running.
That was the demon force seizing them.
Chaos spread through the crowd.
What had been an orderly crowd barely minutes earlier had turned into a churning mass of bodies. There were no fire codes in the Middle Worlds and no laws about safe crowd capacities; likewise, there were no emergency exits that would ensure people could escape such situations safely.
Bodies smashed into Seth. He was squeezed tight, carried against a pillar as people struggled to escape. Feet smashed his feet. Elbows pummeled his ribs. The crowd grew so tight that he could barely turn his head.
When he looked down, he saw a face pressed to his knees. An adult man. Someone who had fallen and was wailing as he struggled to escape. The crowd had gone wild so quickly that there was simply nowhere to go.
Damn. Those who were possessed by demons didn’t need to rip people apart like they had in Rock Bottom. Everyone was getting trampled underfoot, pressed against columns, buried under rubble.
Seth had never heard screaming so horrible before.
And he didn’t see Rylie anywhere.
“Hold your breath!” he shouted, shoving his hand between two strangers to grab Benjamin’s shoulder.
Seth snapped his fingers.
With a whirlwind of brimstone, he vanished from the crush of the crowd in the courtyard.
There was an instant—less than the span of time it took him to inhale—that he stepped through Sheol with Rylie’s son, his nephew, cradled in his arms like a very tall infant.
Then he reappeared atop a part of Myrkheimr that had yet to fall apart. It was more horrifying to see everything from that perspective. It gave Seth a high-level view of the devastation, which meant he didn’t see many of the wounds, the splatters of blood, the faces slack in death. But he saw bodies falling. He saw people writhing under rubble. He saw the swarm of demons within the shadow.
No Rylie.
No Marion.
Seth set Benjamin down. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He brushed himself off. “Where’s my mom?”
It was a great question, but Rylie would never forgive Seth if he took one of her sons into danger. He phased Benjamin outside of the castle and deposited him on flat ground.
“Stay here,” Seth said firmly.
Benjamin was disoriented by multiple jumps through the Autumn Court. His eyes could barely focus. “What?”
Seth phased again.
He returned to what had been the mezzanine moments earlier. There was no sign of Rylie among all the broken stone fragments.
Seth phased again, and again, and again, trying to find her.
When he reappeared on a flat patch of ground underneath columns that had fallen together, like the poles of a tent, he found humans with glowing eyes and infernal runes swirling over their foreheads. People possessed by demons.
But still no Rylie.
The demons reacted to Seth’s appearance by lurching toward him. Seth could taste the Nether Worlds on the air that they exhaled. Shredded souls clung to them—the aftermath of all the murders they’d committed. These were Arawn’s creatures, no doubt about it. The Lord of Sheol was getting the revenge he wanted.
“Stop,” Seth said.
Energy filled that one word. Seth hadn’t even known he had that kind of energy within him. Something so powerful, so fatal, that the demon-possessed wedding attendees in their dresses and tuxedos couldn’t help but obey.
They froze where they stood, staring at him.
Seth reached his senses along the cables of infernal power to feel for its origin. It was no surprise that Arawn was holding the puppet strings. What surprised him was the nearness of the demon.
Arawn was in the Autumn Court.
“Wait there,” Seth said, pointing at the possessed ones so they would understand.
He leaped into the courtyard again.
The survivors who had been capable of escaping had cleared out at that point, leaving behind dozens of crushed, motionless dead. There was enough space to breathe, and enough space to see possessed ones swarming in the shadows. He also saw Rylie on the ground near the altar, lying in the one beam of sunlight that could shine through the shattered castle. Someone must have dragged her there for safety’s sake, but her guards were nowhere in sight.
That shapeshifter from the American Gaean Commission, Deirdre Tombs, was standing over her. Just like Seth remembered from her moments of death.
Seth drew his guns.
Neither Deirdre nor Rylie noticed his approach. There was no world outside of the two of them, their golden eyes connected in that sunbeam, safe from Arawn’s followers.
Some part of Seth was horrified by how easily he aimed both barrels at Deirdre Tombs’s s skull.
His fingers tensed.
But then he realized Deirdre’s motions weren’t aggressive. She was reaching toward Rylie, gripping the Alpha’s hand, and helping her stand. Even as Rylie got up on wobbling legs, Seth could see that the wounds inflicted by Myrkheimr’s collapse were healing. Rylie’s cuts and bruises faded to nothing, leaving no sign of what had happened aside from smears of blood.
Deirdre was going to kill Rylie someday.
Not that day.
Seth jammed a gun back into his belt, freeing an arm to grab the Alpha. Rylie fell against him.
“Benjamin,” she said.
“Safe,” Seth replied.
The relief in Rylie’s expression was familiar. It had been decades since she’d looked at him like that, but it felt like no time had passed at all. The timelessness of godhood took on new meaning.
But then she said, “Marion.”
He shocked back to the present.
Marion.
Where was she?
Seth’s eyes swept the area. He didn’t see a hint of her—not so much as a flash of Winter Court white.
While he’d been distracted with Rylie, he had forgotten his intent to protect the bride-to-be. And he hadn’t seen her anywhere.
Rylie pushed away from him, grabbing Deirdre Tombs for support as though they trusted one another as much as Seth and Rylie. “Do what you have to do,” Deirdre said, fixing Seth with her fierce ha
wk eyes. “I’ve got Rylie.”
He couldn’t trust her. Dammit, he knew for a fact that Deirdre was going to shoot Rylie right between the eyebrows.
Rylie knew that too, but she still had an arm looped over Deirdre’s shoulders as she healed.
“Take care of her,” Rylie said.
That was the last encouragement he needed.
He phased.
Arawn had been unsettling to encounter in the depths of the Nether Worlds. Amid the rustic beauty of the Autumn Court, he was downright terrifying.
He wore leather in shades of pink that suggested it had been tanned from no animal. The vest swooped low in the front to expose a skeletal chest not unlike Seth’s, and chains connected his studded collar to his wrists. A domino mask made of scorched iron and barbed wire concealed half of his face. Horrible yet formal.
It seemed that he had dressed up for her wedding.
Marion stood, dress heavy with Nori’s blood. “What have you done?”
“Come and see,” Arawn said, sweeping a hand toward the door behind the throne room.
Marion went to see.
She only took one step into the chamber behind the throne room before she lost the strength to keep moving.
Arawn had brought Hell into the Autumn Court.
What had once been a room for entertaining political guests had been cast in total shadow, its windows bricked, the witchlights replaced with lanterns fueled by bowls of fat. Kennels were positioned around the walls. The white-furred Hounds from Marion’s nightmares snarled inside, barely contained by flimsy bars.
In the middle of it all was the King of the Autumn Court, Rage. He had been chained to the wall and flayed.
He’d clearly been there for a long time. Weeks, maybe. Effluence caked his leather pants. There were plates discarded around him. A bucket that smelled like urine, even at that distance.
No wonder Rage hadn’t been participating in wedding preparations.
Konig was limp in a puddle of faerie limbs beside him. Arawn had lost his first duel against Konig, so he’d come prepared for the second duel. And Konig had clearly lost. He was unconscious.
Arawn strolled along the edge of the room, his sword carving a line in the floor. “You’ve got questions and I’ve got answers. Why did Leliel attack Niflheimr? She didn’t. Why did Konig lie about that? Because he didn’t want you to know what Charity saw. And where is Charity, you ask? She’s in the Nether Worlds with me, and you can’t have her back.”
“What did Charity see?” Marion asked.
“She saw me, for one,” Arawn said. “For another, she saw your fiancé making out with your cousin. From the sounds of it, Konig and Nori were sharing one hell of an embrace.”
The magic Marion had struggled to summon for Nori began to flow through her, fed by hatred. “You’re a demon. Why should I believe anything you say?”
“I don’t really care if you do,” Arawn said. “I like watching you undergo a little soul-searching. I wish you’d done more soul-searching before shattering the gods-damned Canope and ruining my deal with the gods.” He sighed. “Too little, too late.”
He rested the point of the sword on Konig’s breastbone.
Marion thrust a hand toward Arawn, letting the magic of her anger pour from her palm.
It sputtered. Flickered. Barely lit the room.
Arawn looked disappointed that Marion hadn’t hurt him. “Why aren’t you blasting me into nothingness? It’s not that you still don’t remember your magic, is it? Gosh, that wouldn’t be a problem if you hadn’t broken the Canope.”
Marion lifted the bow over her head. She had an arrow aimed at Arawn in a heartbeat. Heather wasn’t the only lightning-fast archer in Myrkheimr, and Marion didn’t need magic to be deadly. “Step away from Konig.”
To her surprise, Arawn slunk toward her. “Do you know what an ascension is?”
“It’s when demons gather power to rise in the hierarchy,” she said, adjusting her stance so she could track Arawn with the arrow. “It’s why you’re killing everyone and burning their souls in the Pit.”
“Ascensions haven’t worked since Genesis. The gods saw fit to get rid of them. Thought the system could be exploited, I bet. Can’t imagine why.” The corner of Arawn’s lips tugged into a smirk. “I’ve been burning the souls in the Pit because I want Seth’s attention. I want him to be God. Only he can give me what I want.”
“Sunlight,” Marion said faintly.
“Sunlight,” Arawn agreed.
His attack on the wedding was an ascension—but not for Arawn.
Marion released the arrow.
It seemed to appear in Arawn’s throat by magic, in much the same way that Seth could teleport between planes.
There was no blood. Arawn’s mouth opened wide, exposing rows upon rows of jagged teeth. The seam of his lips tore down his neck. The arrow simply fell out and his mouth kept opening.
Gods, he was just as bad as his Hounds.
Marion flung herself away from the doors, nocking another arrow. She whispered a basic incantation of fire and ice as she pulled the string back to her cheek.
The second arrow punched into the back of his throat. It exploded. He stumbled, mouth contracting.
Marion threw herself to Konig and tugged at the chains, seeking the lock.
He stirred. “Get out of here, princess…”
“Shut up.” Marion squeezed her hands over the shackle. “Open, damn you!” Magic zapped. Locks clicked. The metal fell open, tumbling away from his skin to reveal angry red welts. Arawn had chained Konig with iron: a metal as deadly to the sidhe as silver was to wolves.
She kicked the shackles away from him. Getting them out of his reach was like turning a light on in his brain. His eyes widened and he sat upright, as strong as when she’d last seen him.
“Arawn,” Konig snarled.
The prince thrust his hand into the air, summoning the six-foot bastard sword that was his preferred weapon. It arrived in the throne room with the sound of chimes and a shower of amber light. He gripped it in both hands.
The hoarse howl of a dog made Marion turn.
Arawn had his head thrown back, screeching like a Hound going on the hunt. The veins in his throat and arms bulged.
Then he leaped.
Konig shoved Marion aside, putting himself in Arawn’s path. He thrust the blade into Arawn’s mouth.
It sank into the roof of his impossibly massive mouth with a gush of black ichor.
Arawn kicked, sending Konig flying. But before the prince could hit the wall, he flashed back onto his feet, jumping through the ley lines to stand behind Arawn. He had home territory advantage now. And Arawn had lost the element of surprise.
They fought as only a demon and a sidhe could, making the world twist like the eye of a hurricane. It took all of Marion’s willpower to focus on loosening Rage’s shackles instead of the fight.
With another whip-crack of magic, she released him. The king sagged to the floor.
“Wake up,” Marion said, shaking him gently. “You need to wake up. You need to activate the wards against Arawn.”
One of his eyes peeled open. “Marion? You have to get out of here, kitten. Arawn…Violet…” He couldn’t seem to get what he wanted to say out. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, exposing his chest.
Marion sucked in a gasp.
Rage had been branded with an infernal rune that pulsed with deadly power.
“What does it mean?” Marion asked.
He passed out before he could respond.
Marion stood slowly. The horror that crawled over her was powerful enough that she couldn’t breathe. How was it possible she hadn’t realized what was happening until that moment? Arawn’s demons had gotten a foothold in the Autumn Court because their lord had been there for days—maybe weeks—holding the king hostage.
“Mother!”
The sound of Konig’s shout made Marion’s head snap up.
The Onyx Queen had entered the room.
Her hair was smeared with ash and dust from the collapses elsewhere in the castle.
Konig and Arawn were locked in battle, hilt-to-hilt, magic thrashing around them. “Mother, help!” the prince shouted.
Marion drew another arrow and aimed at the Onyx Queen, dread squeezing her heart.
Violet wasn’t going to help Konig because defying Arawn would mean Rage’s death by that infernal rune.
The queen pointed at her son. Magic gathered at her fingertip.
Marion released the arrow, and it flew with aim as perfect as when she’d been shooting for Arawn. The point punched into Violet’s shoulder.
It wasn’t iron, so the queen’s arm only dropped. The spell she cast smashed into the floor instead. Tiles exploded a few feet from Konig’s feet. “Mother!” he cried. This time, the word was wracked with betrayal. His eyes were wide. “What are you doing?”
Arawn shoved Konig to the ground. “Myrkheimr is mine. The entire Autumn Court is mine, royal family inclusive.” When he spoke, his enormous mouth swirled, the teeth twisting in a vortex that threatened to consume everything. “Long live the king.”
22
Seth had never needed to rapid-fire phase between multiple locations before. He’d spent a decade trying not to use preternatural powers, so on the rare occasions that he had taken advantage, it had been when he desperately needed to get somewhere in particular.
He was desperate now, but he didn’t know where to go.
Flash.
He reappeared on the lawn close to where he’d left Rylie’s son. Benjamin was still there, a few dozen feet away, helping usher people through the fences demarcating Myrkheimr’s lawns from the forest beyond.
Flash.
Marion wasn’t in her bedroom.
Flash.
She wasn’t in Konig’s, either.
Flash.
Seth reappeared in the broken foyer. Raven Knights battled humans who were possessed alongside Rylie’s guards, and that one sidhe archer who was always tagging along with Konig—what was her name? Heather? She had access to the restricted throne room.
He grabbed the archer. Heather looked surprised, but there was no chance to explain.
