Page 17

I strained to get a look at them, wondering what on earth could manage to hold the likes of me.

Then I was choking as I got my highly disturbing answer.

They weren’tofthis earth at all.

Semi-transparent bands encircled my wrists, hovering just off my skin, not actually touching it, and possessing no visible lock to pick. Inside each band, Hellfire churned, swirling like a volatile storm trapped within.

That explained the weakness.

I was aware that Hellfire could bind the power of a Celestial being. If used in the right way.

And, as I tried to summon my wings, it was made clear that it could even prevent that.

It was a bitter pill to swallow seeing as though a single feather from the wings of an angel could extinguish Hellfire.

Son of a bitch.

Instinct, more than anything else, had me trying to break them, pulling and struggling to tear myself free, despite the fact that I knew victory was highly implausible.

It was the panic for my men, for this disturbing situation I found myself in.

I tried to calm myself, because reacting without rational thought definitely wouldn’t help the situation, or make anything better.

I looked out at my surroundings now that I could see properly again as I became fully cognizant.

Ruins surrounded me.

The chair I was bound to was situated in the heart of the awful devastation.

Stone walls were now nothing but crumbled, jagged heaps, fallen all around me, their shattered forms blackened with ash and marked in places with traces of magical fire. Cracks ran through the marble beneath my feet. Pillars jutted at awkward angles, some cleaved in half, others reduced to nothing but powder. Above, the ceiling was predominantly gone, mostly just a vast opening now revealing the night sky above.

As I stared taking in all the staggering devastation, I choked as the familiarity of some of the trace magical marks left behind from what had obviously been a brutal battle became apparent to me.

The vibrant-green of Pops’ power.

Dad’s magic, although it seemed different in this place.

The same went for Mom’s.

The magic of Grandpa, Gramps, and Grandfather was also present in its residual form.

I could even feel Papa’s sun-walker pendant energy as well.

Just traces of all that magic couldn’t be used or extracted by anyone, but it was something that, with the familial connection, I was able to recognize and feel.

They’d been here.

All of them had been here engaged in a battle for the ages.

There was another power present and, as I zeroed in on it, I realized it was connected to the unsettling evil I’d sensed earlier.

It washis.

The Beast’s.

Draco’s.

This was the site of their battle with him!