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I let out a deep breath before she pulled away, great wings beginning to move and lift her off the ground. The other drivas followed, their massive forms soaring over the city. Adorex slowed her wings once again and landed atop the north wall. Massive talons scraped against stone as she tipped her head to the sky and erupted into a roar so thunderous that I swore the Onyxian Mountains trembled where they stood. The other drivas joined in where they hovered, letting out roars that I knew could be heard throughout the realms and the Darkness Beyond. The most beautiful noise I’d ever heard.

Adorex took off then, massive and terrifying and beautiful, the other four beasts following behind her, leaving Eserene smoldering in their wake.

Smoke and disbelief hung in the air, a fragile silence descending as the skies cleared and the sun shone again. Even my own heartbeat quieted in my ears as I stood in awe of the castle I’d stared up at my entire life, now reduced to nothing but embers and ashes.

Another roar started, but this one was much less menacing. It was quiet at first, slowly growing louder as cheers rippled through the streets, sweeping each and every survivor in its wake as the feeling of victory set in. Noros, Saint of Pain, was dead.Castemont wasdead.

I wanted to see him. My feet moved of their own accord as I took off for the pile of rubble, each step purposeful as it carried me toward what remained of the man who’d pulled the strings of every destructive force in my life.

“Petra!” It was Cal, emerging from the cheering crowd, his footsteps quickly catching up to mine as I climbed over debris.

“I have to see,” I answered, my eyes intent on the pile of rubble. “I have to see for myself.”

He said nothing, simply following behind me as I carefully stepped through the wreckage, ascending the mountain of ash.

An eerie smoke clung to the stones in a way that was almost unnatural — it wasn’t stirred up by my footfalls, didn’t dissipate or float off like it should have. It was different than the smoke that floated into the air… It was thicker, almost opaque. I narrowed my eyes but kept moving, determined to make it to the top, determined to find what remained of the man who had so thoroughly ruined–

As if someone had simply summoned it, the smoke began to move up the pile. “Petra,” I heard Cal call from behind me, his voice apprehensive as his footsteps halted.

“What the hell are you doing?” Miles’ voice sounded nearby.

I ignored them both, climbing further, higher, closer. The smoke had grown thicker, still clinging to the rubble but traveling upward, a sour feeling settling low in my gut at the unnatural sight. Angry clouds rolled across the sky then, the sun blotted out within seconds, casting the city in a supernatural darkness.

“This isn’t right,” I whispered to myself. Something was happening.

Thunder cracked so loud my brain rattled in my skull, the smoke amassing in a swirling cloud at the top of the charred stones.

I blinked as I took in the scene before me. A charred body lifted from the rubble like a ghost, hands and feet burned away, features indiscernible as it rose through the air. Smoke surrounded it, obscuring it from view for a split second before revealing Castemont’s figure, completely unburned.

Only it wasn’t Castemont as I’d known him. It was like his figure was made purely of shadow and that unnatural smoke. I could tell it was him, but he was only swirling gray and black.

My jaw clenched as I swallowed against the panicked nausea that rose in my throat. I was shocked into silence.

He cocked an antagonistic brow. “Hello, Petra. I’d like to reintroduce myself.”

My teeth ground together in furious disbelief. “Noros,” I seethed.

The Saint of Pain threw his head back and cackled, smoke swirling around him. “Noros?” He lifted his arms, more smoke rising around him. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, dear.” Crackling blue flames ignited beneath him, blue flames I recognized from some distant nightmare…

Realization hit me like a fist to the gut, the air leaving my lungs just as quickly.

The Vacant who’d almost killed me, his eyes — that same swirling mass of shadow and smoke. And there were so many Vacants,toomany Vacants…

Because they weren’t Vacants at all. They weren’t even human. They were demons of the Occulti, created and commanded by their demon lord.

“Malosym.”

A wry smile broke across his face as the blue flames grew, the smoky figure rising higher into the air as thunder roared over the city, the smoke around him growing darker and thicker.

“Motherfucker,” I snarled, lunging for his figure with no plan, only rage.

“Petra!” I heard Cal and Miles scream in unison, starting toward me.

Malosym threw out a bolt of blue flame, lightning crackling around it. Cal managed to duck just enough that it only grazed the side of his head, but–

“Miles!” I screamed in terror, watching the bolt knock him backward into the rubble. Cal cried out for his brother at the sight of his chest split open, the edges of the massive wound charred and smoking. “No!”

I started toward Miles, but I was knocked back as a pillar of black smoke and blue flames shot to the sky, the noise straight from the depths of Hell as Malosym’s figure was swallowed whole.