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The seven covens—considerably smaller than when they left the arena after the sun burned so many to a crisp—seemed to believe the eclipse gave them faultless immunity. They thought they were invincible.
As their burns healed, their savagery radiated off them, and they flooded out of the buildings to seek out anyone still living in the deserted-looking city. Before long, screams pierced the air as citizens were hauled out from hiding. The scent of blood masked the smell of the fire, which amazingly remained in a solid wall, never spreading.
I watched Letti create a semi-transparent bubble around her and the witches that followed them as they walked. Any vampire who leaped at her to take revenge simply bounced off it.
“Like a reverse penagrum,” Tess breathed.
My heart lurched. If the witches were a target, so were we. “Can you recreate it?”
Tess concentrated with her eyes closed, the imbricatis on her neck flaring with purple light, her fingertips glowing blue as if lit from beneath her skin. Piroska and I stepped closer to her as shields. Just as we did, three vampires from the Bloodfrost coven noticed us. They charged us, claws and fangs bared.
I tensed to attack, but Piroska proved herself as deadly as she was cunning before I could make a move. Her many more years of life lent her strength and ruthlessness to dispatch all three within seconds. Their hearts thunked onto the dirty street.
My jaw dropped. “What do we need a shield for, I guess?”
“Just for show,” Piroska mused as she started braiding her hair as if we weren’t in the middle of a wide-scale overthrowing.
“Still needed,” I urged Tess, who was growing a ball of the half-invisible glow Letti had conjured.
“What do we do now?” I asked Piroska, who whirled around to dispatch another attacker.
A Rhidian female sped toward me. Not wanting Piroska to constantly come to our rescue, I battled her. She gnashed and hissed and clawed, getting a few blows to my face and chest, but she was no match for verto, imb, and cinis—the dagger I embedded in her shoulder blazed with blue fire, spreading to engulf her body. While she tried to somehow stamp it out, I yanked the knife out and drove it into her heart, repeating, “Cinis.” Then she really went up in flames—ash within moments.
I braced myself as her Rhidian companion surged forward—and then smacked into an invisible solid wall with the crack of a broken nose. He retreated with a wordless snarl.
“Did it,” Tess said breathlessly. “I think I can move it, too. We have to save the humans!” Piroska and I opened our mouths to answer, but she forged ahead fiercely, “It’s what the Kairos does. They’re dying as we speak!”
I didn’t need to turn to hear dying screams abruptly cut off.
“All right,” I agreed. “Save humans.”
Piroska was forced to tag along as we rushed to the rescue. As we did, Piroska muttered to me so fast and soft I almost didn’t hear her,
“The Kairos has a task only you can fulfill, Bastian.”
“What?”
Vampires came from all sides, slamming into Tess’s dome and clawing at it. Tess flinched with each hit. “I can’t hold it much longer.”
“You are the key to either ending the war or starting a new one,” Piroska hissed.
“I really wish I could stop hearing that,” I hissed back. “What’s so special about me? I’m just Cirillo’s half-breed second-born.”
“You’re more than that.”
Tess overheard, and she stopped, her attention faltering enough for her spell to flicker. A Bloodfrost vampire’s wild swing hit the wall and shattered it. Tess yelped and stumbled. Piroska tore the vampire’s head off and threw it across the street.
With the ward broken, the three of us jumped into action to stop the army from destroying and killing. There was no evidence of Amate’s army. It was only the seven covens wreaking unnecessary havoc.
Tess and I fought side by side, cutting through and burning vampires like it was our job—duh, it was. Piroska was lopping heads off as if her life depended on it. She didn’t seem to care one lick about all the hurled curses at her, not bothered by the new title, “Traitor!”
“Regroup,” Piroska suddenly ordered, grabbing my and Tess’s arms and yanking us around a large hedge fence, shielding us from most of the fighting. She pinned me with intense orange eyes when she said, “Today will be the day the tides are turned. It is up to how you act to the events occurring or will occur in the next few minutes.”
“Can you not be cryptic for once?” I hissed.
Piroska ignored me. “Tessia, create another ward. Bastian, you need to access Galen Shayla’s memories. Seek one where she gives you a message you could have only read postmortem. It was the best way to protect you from everyone who wants to harm you. She knew from the start what part you would play in this war. If she didn’t leave you with anything but Whisler, then she’s a fool. But even I know the batty old witch isn’t one. Delve deep. Once you resurface, we will—”
Piroska’s neck snapped to the side. The light left her eyes as she collapsed like a doll.
Tess gasped sharply and cast the ward spell out over the three of us just as Agana and Aeros stepped into view, their smiles a little too wide for comfort. Their skin was splattered with blood, staining their white and gold, and their eyes were crazed with bloodthirst despite knowing they were well-fed by now.
“Now that the traitor is out of the way,” Agana sneered, “you have lost some of your protection. Aeros, grab the witch.”
I threw myself between Aeros and Tess as the Rhidian leader reached out as if to wrap his fingers around her neck. But nothing happened. The greed in his gold and black eyes flickered with confusion.
“You can’t use your ability,” Tess said, half defiant, half surprised. Gritting her teeth, she reinforced the ward with a few words under her breath. The dome became more solid blue. “Leave us alone. Leave Sanlow.”
“Not until Amate’s head is on a spike,” Agana spit furiously just before she swiped at the dome. She shrieked when it broke one of her nails. “You little—”
Aeros’s primal roar cut off her swear as he pounded the dome with his fists, brutally punching it, tearing open his knuckles as if it were an actual wall. Tess flinched at each impact. She couldn’t hold the ward up forever.
I had to do something.
All at once, I relived every moment I had felt helpless and useless, every event—big or small, where I knew someone I cared about was in grave danger, every innocent human who could lose their life with a single vampire bite—where I could do nothing to save them. It all cloistered my senses, building and building, until the powerlessness started to morph into courage.
I remembered Egan’s fatal bite because I hesitated. I could have prevented the attack, but all I could do was make a meager promise.
I remembered Tess and Em being threatened by the Redfang vampires. I had been chained and masked, unable to protect them like some weakling.
There had been too many times that I doubted the credibility everyone was bestowing on me. They were all crediting me with being special, like some kind of savior who would defy his father’s dark past and save those affected by Sanlow’s evil.
I wasn’t a hero. How many times had Tess or Em or one of the adults had to save me? What good have I done since returning to the Kairos? All I was good for was getting in trouble and putting those I loved into life-threatening situations. I didn’t stop villains—I attracted them.
I had told myself before that I was done being used and pushed around, done with my destiny being out of my hands. I was determined to take control of it before, but I had never truly acted on that promise to myself. It had always been stamped out so quickly.
I couldn’t even prevent Tess and me from avoiding Sanlow. What kind of hero could I be if I kept getting cornered without a genius plan to outsmart them?
There was nothing I could do except give in.
Not give up. Give in.
There did need to be a sacrifice, but it would not be to appease Amate. It would be for me to finally be a hero. If it would save Tess and stop a war from breaking out, then all I had to do was hand myself over.
That was what a savior did. They were selfless for the greater good.
“This is our reality. We cannot balk from it or its horrors.”
I looked back at Tess. She was staring at me with the look of vulnerability she wore back at the cabin. Her dream—her destiny—to reclaim her birthright couldn’t be achieved until she cut ties with me. I had promised her that I would be her enemy if it meant she could wear that figurative crown.
“Think of the change we could initiate.”
All that was going through my mind was every single thing Tess had ever said to me.
“You don’t have to bear it all alone, Bastian.”
No, I didn’t have to shoulder every burden.
“My biggest fear,” I had told Tess, “is letting all the sacrifices made for me go to waste.”
The time to return every favor that a loved one granted me.
As if she had read every thought, Tess shook her head, begging. “Bastian, no—”
“I have to,” I whispered.
Gritting my teeth, I whirled on Agana and shouted, with every last bit of courage I possessed, “You can have me! As long as Tess is left alone and alive, then I’ll come with you!”
At once, Agana commanded, “Cease your savagery, Aeros.” He obeyed, stepping back so Agana could stand in front of me, inches away with a thin veil between us. “Deal.”
Tess gasped, “Bas, no.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “Drop the spell. No one will touch you.” I glared at Agana and Aeros with every ounce of rage I had. “Right?”
They exchanged amused glances but then nodded. Over her shoulder, Agana called, “No one touches the witch! Anyone who does loses a limb! Spread the word.” She turned back to me, baring her bloody fangs. “Come with me, heir. We have someone to greet in the Square.”
The ward took Tess both hands to keep up. I could tell she wanted to reach for me, to hold me back, but all she could do was implore angrily, “You don’t need to sacrifice yourself, idiot!”
I opened my mouth to assure her, but Agana jeered, “His sacrifice is what we came here for, you dumb little witch child—his and Ciel’s, wherever she is lurking. No one is leaving until there are three heads on spikes.”
“Why am I special?” I demanded, gripping onto my courage with an iron fist. I couldn’t let it escape. I couldn’t let myself be afraid anymore. “Why am I a sacrifice to someone I don’t know and who likely has no idea who I am?”
The coven leaders exchanged another look and then burst into wheezing laughter. I stared helplessly at them as they reveled in my obliviousness.
When they gathered themselves, Aeros wiped away a fake tear and sighed, “Would you like to find out?”
“Yes and no,” I said before I could keep my sarcasm in check.
Agana gnashed her teeth at Tess. “Drop it.”
“No.” Tess glared between me and the leaders. “I’m not letting him any closer than you already are.”
Aeros leaned forward, looking absolutely delighted. “Or what? This exchange goes nowhere unless you stop being heroic. The longer you resist, the more lives are ripped away.”
As if to prove his point, a human woman’s horrified scream tore the air—and then was torn out of her body as she was killed.
Tess flinched, trembling in rage and horror. She locked her eyes on mine, imploring more than ever, as if trying to say something. It was still night, the ring of silver shining above. It wasn’t much longer before the sun started to return—
Oh.
That was all we had to do.
Stall them until the sun came back out, and then the army would be reduced to ash in seconds.
Easy.
Was that why Amate’s army hadn’t shown up? Because they knew the enemy would get themselves destroyed on their own?
I smiled at the coven leaders and said, “Actually, I changed my mind. I’m not sacrificing myself today. Thank you, though. I’m flattered that I’m so important.”
Aeros’s lip curled. “Oh, yes, you are,” he snarled, and with another great roar, slammed his fists onto the dome with such strength that it shattered, knocking Tess to the ground as it snapped inward on her.
“Tess!”
I crouched to help her up, but I was hauled away, each leader holding my upper arm as they dragged me away from Tess and the still-unconscious Piroska down the street and toward a huge open area that might have been attractive once. Now, it was just a giant pile of rubble and dead bodies.
“Come out, Amate!” Aeros yowled, throwing me on the ground onto my stomach. Agana knelt to gag me with a strip of her shirt and pin my hands behind my back. Without speech or hands, I couldn’t cast any spells. “Face the consequences of your so-called liberation!”
“Bas!” Tess yelled.
I tried to twist around to see her running toward me, double-headed axe hefted, penagrum on her lips when she opened her mouth to cast it. I thrashed and tried to yell back, but it was muffled.
Agana grabbed my head and mashed it into the cobblestone. “Shut. Up. Stop her!”
Out of thin air, a witch I hadn’t seen before appeared beside Tess, knocking the axe out of her hands as if it took no effort at all. She wrapped her arms around Tess’s shoulders and whispered, “Trust me.”
Then, they both teleported elsewhere.
No. No!
Agana swore. Clearly, that wasn’t who she was addressing. “Can nothing go right?!”
The seven covens started to pool into the Square. The dying and killing waned as the army watched and waited for the Liberator.
“Coward!” Aeros jeered, scanning the desecrated buildings as if he expected Amate to stroll out of one. “We have a gift for you!”
The ground started to rumble beneath me. Little pieces of rock jumped and skittered. Vampires tensed as a war cry started up in the distance—no, it sounded as if it was coming from underground.
It grew louder, louder, louder—then erupted as a new army exploded from around every street corner, over rooftops, emerging from hidden holes in the ground. Dozens of shouting bodies clashed with the seven-coven army with silver weapons, blue and purple and orange spells, and half-inch-long fangs.
Humans, witches, and half-bloods. That was who made up Amate’s army?
Agana’s and Aeros’s shock was palpable. They watched the chaos in stupefaction as their forces started to yield in no time at all to the ferocity of Amate’s.
The Bloodfrost leader whimpered but didn’t loosen her grip on my hands. “What’s happening?”
“What’s happening,” a female voice purred, “is that you thought you could defeat me. It’s amusing, really. Is this all you could muster in seventeen years?”
I craned my neck painfully to catch a glimpse of the speaker. All I could manage was a view of her booted feet kicking aside debris and stepping gracefully over a dead Elarian.
“What’s so special about him?” the speaker scoffed.
With a whimper, Agana released me, retreating several feet behind Aeros. “He’s—”
I scrambled to sit up, yanking the gag out of my mouth. By then, the female was standing over me. My heart was pounding in my ears as I lifted my head to look up at her.
She was shorter than I expected, with long, curly brown hair and gray-silver irises gleaming sharper than an axe’s blade surrounded by black sclera pits. There wasn’t a speck of dirt or blood on her. She looked pristine. She looked...almost human.
There was something familiar about her. As I searched her face as she scrutinized mine, I swore I had seen her before. But that was impossible.
“Amate,” Aeros started to growl, but a glare silenced him.
She was Amate? She was the monster that all monsters feared? Without being drenched in so much blood that left her featureless, like in Ciel’s memory of the Liberation, she was the last person I expected to see burn down an entire city.
The Bloody Liberator narrowed her eyes. Why was she just looking? Was she not going to kill me right here and now?
And then understanding clicked in my mind.
She was familiar because she looked like me—like an echo of my own reflection.
I had seen her brown hair before. In Galen’s vision, walking away down a cobblestone street, when she whispered, “Whisler, your death is imminent.”
I swallowed hard against Amate’s silver stare and croaked, “Maer Whisler?”
