Page 52 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

51

MAVEN

I should have known he wouldn’t emerge until he knew precisely where I was.

The Entity’s presence is too corrupted and familiar to mistake. Instead of killing the basilisk in front of me, I let Crypt cut through it with his lighter sword as I turn. I don’t even have to look for him—my gaze immediately finds the immortal being who called me his.

He just entered his arena from a side entrance. Towering over the grey-draped necromancers and liches that surround him, Amadeus is exactly how I remember. Wearing the attire of ancient kings, sapped of all color, he’s an imposing skeletal figure with pitch black, whiteless eyes set in an emotionless face that would otherwise seem almost kind.

Like the rest of the necromancers in his court, his bald head is decorated with countless necromantic runes, but right now, he’s wearing his intricate crown that is still missing the piece of etherium I stole years ago.

The sight of him brings back more memories. Things I’ve forgotten on purpose, like my so-called father ordering two of his necromancers to force-feed me meat once he learned I refused to eat it anymore. When I killed them, he locked me in the dungeons I was conditioned in and left me there for three days to fend off the Undead until I expired.

He had me fight in this arena every day for the last two years of my life in the Nether, threatening to feed Lillian to his court if I lost.

He molded me. Trained me. Called me daughter and gave me a purpose. He punished me severely when I wasn’t measuring up to his expectations of his telum, and offered the barest of acknowledgment if I ever exceeded those expectations.

In a sick way, I do have Amadeus to thank for the way I turned out.

I also have him to thank for taking away Lillian.

That thought makes me turn to face Amadeus more fully as I grip the handles of my blades. Cuttrina extends into my scythe, the etherium curve gleaming in the faint light of the green fires burning around this arena. My heart pounds in a rhythm that tells me either something big is about to happen, or it really is malfunctioning this time.

Holy fucking shit, Baelfire says through the bond when his attention finally falls on the king of the Undead now entering the arena. Fake Daddy’s here and he’s horrifying.

That has each and every member of my quintet snapping to attention as they get their first glimpse of the being who has ruled and corrupted the Nether for thousands of years.

Silas scowls from his spot near my left as he wipes enemy blood off his face. You’ll have trouble getting to him through all those casters, sangfluir . I can take them out for you.

Quit trying to be a hero. We’ll all take those assholes out, Everett says, flinging another spike of ice that impales two demons together with ease. He moves to my other side.

I could just roast all these fuckers, Bael suggests, already swiveling his neck as a royal blue glow starts to rise up the scales on his neck.

Don’t, I warn as the group of liches and necromancers draws closer through the battle, demolishing everything in their path. I recognize some of those necromancers. They’re marked with vita lathantiem charms.

What the fuck is a feet alot than TM charm? my dragon shifter asks.

My gods, that was rough to listen to, Crypt cringes.

When an enemy swarm of half-rotted Undead see their cruel master in their midst, they panic and bolt towards my quintet in pure fear. Silas whispers a necromantic incantation, and dark magic consumes the Undead at once, eating away their rotting skin and insides until their bones clatter to the ground.

Silas’s nose starts bleeding slightly. He pretends not to see my scowl of frustration at the sight of his strain as he wipes the blood away, replying through the bond. The charm Maven mentioned is also called a life force link. Whichever necomancers carry the charm can revive each other—all it takes is one to survive for the rest to rise again.

You’re saying they all have to be killed at the same time, Everett summarizes. Great.

Lighting them on fire would work, then, Bael points out as his wings flare out, his throat glowing once again as he crushes a nearby ghoul under one big, clawed hand.

They wouldn’t send all of the linked necromancers out at once, I explain as I finally start toward Amadeus’s slowly moving group.

Right. I’ll hunt down the missing link, Crypt says as he drops into Limbo.

Don’t let it become a fight, or Amadeus will see it and know our plan, I warn.

Easy as pie, darling.

The rest of my quintet moves to flank my sides as I stride to meet Amadeus on the floor of his arena. I reap a few newly dead spirits as we walk, the hollow whistle of my scythe barely audible as the battle shifts. Allies and enemies alike are quick to move out of the Entity’s way, but they don’t want to be near my advance, so a clearing is starting to form.

With every step I take forward, all I can think about is the first time Lillian heard the mantras that were being drilled into me.

I had recited them to her. “I feel nothing. I’m on my own. I need no one. I am but a weapon who is one with death. I am nothing but deadly calm.”

“What? None of that is true!” she’d snapped, so upset that she accidentally knocked over several chess pieces before swearing in fae. “That scútráche. No, Maven. You are so much more than that.”

She was right all along.

I am more than I was made or trained to be. I’m alive. I feel. My heart pounds wildly as I stalk closer to the impending danger—but what a fucking gift, to be so alive that I can fear death again.

Feeling mortality so heavily is thrilling.

Perhaps that’s why I’m smiling as I lift my hand, calling holy magic to protect myself and my quintet from the first round of attacks the necromancers and liches hurl at us. The cacophony of dark magic bounces harmlessly off the light swirling around us.

The second their attacks fade, my quintet is on the move. They work as a team so smoothly now that it almost takes my breath away. Ice flies and blasts of blood magic make my hair stand on end. Behind us, I sense a wave of heat as Baelfire’s royal blue flames annihilate anyone trying to creep up on our quintet.

My matches are keeping Amadeus’s casters busy enough that I only have to cut one of them out of my way with my scythe before I’m face-to-face with the Entity. His gleaming black eyes follow my advance, and when he speaks, his voice is the same deep, menacing rumble as always.

“And so my daughter returns to me.”

I grip my scythe. “I am not your daughter.”

His monotone response is almost drowned out by another dragon roar in the distance, but his cold, inhuman gaze remains on me. “Who but I could have turned you into this? The Reaper’s blood may run through you, but the fabric of your being was woven by me alone.”

He’s clearly caught wind of my true parentage, but I’m more interested in the fact that he still hasn’t attacked. He’s holding back.

Is the unfeeling king of the Undead hesitant to end me a second time, or am I missing something?

I found the spare, Crypt’s voice echoes through the bond. I can kill him now.

I can take the rest of them at once, Everett says. On my count.

“Yield, my telum,” Amadeus rumbles as I keep my face perfectly blank to hide what my quintet is about to do. “This fray is but a passing moment to ones such as us. These mortals are subject to a fleeting existence, but your divinity may easily be traded for an eternity. I will show you?— ”

Everett starts counting down through the bond, so I tune out Amadeus and prepare myself.

As soon as he reaches zero, massive spikes of ice protrude from the ground, skewering every one of the necromancers and liches out here. When they shriek and wither away instead of reviving, I know Crypt has killed off the last of them.

Amadeus reacts quickly to his lack of protection. Whatever he was saying, he cuts off before a wave of crackling dark magic ripples out from around him. Summoning holy magic to my hands, I once again shield my quintet.

Everett, freeze his legs.

Before Everett can even register my words, Amadeus has already used magic to fling my elemental aside. He slams into one of the arena walls, swearing through the bond.

Shit. Since this has turned into a fight, Amadeus has a high chance of seeing our next move. His foresight isn’t perfect, but I grimace when Silas’s next powerful spell is countered perfectly with a wave of Amadeus’s skeletal hand.

We need to jumble the future again. Don’t communicate or strategize. Just attack .

My quintet understands immediately. Soon, each of us is throwing everything we can at Amadeus from all angles. Baelfire crawls closer to snap at Amadeus, who sees the attack coming and repels Baelfire with a spell just as Silas hurls more magical attacks. I swing my scythe, dodge a lethal spell Amadeus flings my way, and roll under one of Everett’s spikes of ice as he rejoins the fight.

He’s starting to struggle with keeping up. Our chaotic strategy is working?—

And then Crypt launches out of the Nether, shoving the shadow heart directly into Amadeus’s skeletal chest.

Amadeus’s whiteless eyes widen as he grips Crypt by the neck. The Nightmare Prince drops back into the Nether to escape the Entity’s clutches, but Amadeus is already reaching into his own chest, trying to get the heart back out.

We all launch forward, trying to stop him from pulling his new weakness back out. As if in slow motion, I see the moment Amadeus’s attention snaps to Everett, instead. His skeletal, powerful hand plunges forward, and?—

He rips Everett’s heart out.

The elemental collapses immediately, twitching.

“No!” I scream, both aloud and through the bond.

Vaguely, I hear Silas shouting a spell, but it doesn’t register as blind fury and unparalleled horror overwhelm me. Holy magic burns through me with this rush of rage, and suddenly I’m slamming into Amadeus, sweeping his legs out from under him with my scythe until we both crash to the ground. He’s summoning dark magic to his hands, about to do something terrible to me.

But I move faster.

Withdrawing Pierce, I jam it deeply into Amadeus’s now-occupied chest until my fingertips nearly sink into his crepe-paper-like, unnatural flesh.

The Entity’s hoarse scream cuts through the air like the most beautiful hymn I’ve ever heard.

I want more. I want him to suffer the way he made me suffer.

Cuttrina has already morphed back into knife form in my other hand, and I stab that into his chest, too. Over and over. I’m so overwhelmed by fury and rage that it takes me a moment to realize that Amadeus is…crying.

The gleam of moisture is difficult to make out in the dim flicker of green light around us, but it trickles over his colorless temples as he wheezes.

“D—daughter….daughter…”

“I am not your motherfucking daughter,” I snarl, my pulse pumping in my ears as my heart squeezes painfully.

Amadeus’s breathing shudders as his ink-line blood pools on the arena floor below us. Somewhere nearby, I hear a fiend shriek at the sight of the dead Entity. Others in this battle begin to notice and react to his demise, but I pay it no attention as Silas quickly takes Everett’s heart from Amadeus’s limp hand and rushes to Everett’s motionless side. My necromancer flips him over and begins chanting.

I can’t breathe. Whatever Silas is doing, it has to work. It has to work.

Amadeus’s black eyes roll to look at me. “I…I feel. I feel,” he gasps.

One of his skeletal hands grips my arm, and revulsion sweeps through me, but I’m arrested by something on his face.

It’s wonder. Horror. Fear.

A dozen other emotions mixed together.

Amadeus is feeling the weight of mortality again for the first time in thousands of years, but unlike me, he can’t stand it. All he can do is weep as he dies beside me.

“G—Galene chose this for me,” he rasps. “This end. If—if it is by my daughter’s hands that she wills me to go to the beyond…l—let it be mercifully. End me. End me, daughter.”

I used to fear this weeping creature, but now?

He’s fucking pitiful. Just a withered, empty husk—a shadow of the prophet he once was.

Still…

With a small sigh, I remove one of my gloves and force one of my fingers to graze Amadeus’s hand, still bloodied from Everett’s heart. Whatever peace I instill in him, his eyes widen, and then they just stay open.

His chest stops rising and falling.

And a moment later, I sense it. New death, like a thick, heavy tide pulling away from this shore.

The moment Amadeus’s spirit separates from his body, the Nether ripples around us. The darkness lifts and clouds part. People are shouting and screaming all over the citadel, shadow fiends shrieking as they run from the new light invading this twilight realm.

But I ignore it all as I quickly move to Everett’s side, sitting beside Silas with my heart pounding in my throat. I haven’t felt the bond snap. That means something, right?

You did it, Baelfire murmurs through the bond.

He’s right. I did it.

Not that it matters if I lose Everett. I did all of this for a future with my quintet. Without him…

Crypt wraps me in a hug from behind, kneeling behind me as we ignore the chaos. Fiends flee all around. Reformists are driving them deeper into the Nether, shouting out orders and checking their motionless comrades for pulses.

I watch as Silas finally places Everett’s heart back into the hole in his chest. Sweat beads on my necromancer’s brow as he whispers more necromantic chants. His nose starts to bleed, but he perseveres.

Everett is still lying too still.

A moment later, Baelfire joins us. He’s naked from shifting back and covered in soot, blood, and dirt, but his brow is furrowed as he, too, watches Silas work.

A sob tries to escape, but I shove it down. Crypt still notices and squeezes me tighter as the few markings remaining on him glow in rapid succession.

I need you to do something for me, I tell only Everett telepathically, clinging to the fact that the bond hasn’t broken for all I’m worth. I need you to stay.

Silas stumbles in his chant, swaying slightly. Baelfire quickly steadies him.

“Si?”

“I can do this,” the fae grits, resuming his spell. “I cast a preservation spell on him the moment after Amadeus removed his heart. That means his life force is strong—I just need to make his heart realize that and beat again.”

I don’t even fucking know what spell he’s using. Healing? Necromancy? All the words blur together as my heart tries to knock free from my chest.

And then finally— fucking finally— Everett gasps, his eyes flying open.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I’m not sure if I’m talking to the universe, the gods, or my quintet as I fling myself onto my elemental, careful not to bump the place where Silas is still healing up his injury. One of Everett’s arms weakly wraps around me, but he’s still wheezing.

“Fuck, that hurt like hell,” he groans before glancing at the rest of my quintet and grimacing. “The lizard’s naked again. Why am I not surprised? Worst sight ever to wake up to.”

I’m so hysterical with everything that just happened that his barb at Baelfire actually earns a laugh from me.

Baelfire exhales in relief before smiling, gesturing at his naked self. “Sure, Professor Popsicle. We all know you only woke back up to get a good look at this.”

Everett gags and then hisses in pain just as Silas finishes sealing up his chest. The scar remains, which doesn’t surprise me—I’m sure my fae is barely hanging on, and scars can be healed later.

“What was that about not trying to be a hero?” Silas scoffs, but his voice is as relieved as I’m feeling.

“He just ripped me heart out like he was picking a fucking apple. Nothing heroic about that,” Everett mutters, slumping back to the bloodied ground in sheer exhaustion.

“At least it distracted that wanker so he didn’t come after our girl again,” Crypt says, patting Everett’s head in a way that makes the elemental glower at him. “Way to take one for the team, Frost. Almost makes me like you.”

Nearly delirious with relief that my quintet is all alive, I tune out of their ribbing to survey our surroundings. The Nether has continued to lighten until it’s almost like the glow of midday in the mortal realm. Dead shadow fiends, monsters, liches, necromancers, Reformists, and ravens litter the ground of the arena as the alluring ambience of death hangs thickly in the air.

Two gleaming golden dragons soar overhead, and when they roar, it sounds triumphant. I can’t put into words the way I know Amadeus’s control is no longer holding this plane of existence captive—I just feel it. The Nether is brightening as the shadow of my would-be father melts away.

And finally, I look at Amadeus’s spirit hovering over his body. It’s distorted and torn, blurred and sad-looking. I can barely even make out the shape of a head, much less his face.

Before I can decide to reap him, I hear Everett choke like he’s dying again. Whirling around in alarm, I quickly find that he’s fine—he’s just freaking out because my mother has appeared again.

The rest of my quintet flinches away as Syntyche’s looming, dark, hooded figure appears as if from nowhere. I guess it’s no surprise she’s come to reap the many ghosts waiting in the Nether, where she couldn’t reap before.

But it is a surprise when Galene also appears.

Galene is wearing the same garb she did when she disguised herself as Pia: dressed head to toe in white, concealing her beautiful face. The only difference is that she’s glowing brightly as she moves toward us across the bloodied arena floor.

All around, Reformists gasp and drop to their knees, telling me these goddesses are visible to everyone.

“Daughter,” Syntyche greets simply.

That one word elicits many more gasps from the Reformists, like not all of them completely believed that I’m this goddess’s “crotch goblin,” as Kenzie would put it.

“Hi.” I gesture at Amadeus’s decrepit, floating ghost. “That one is yours.”

She dips her hooded head. A quiet whistling sound follows her scythe before all at once, that trace of Amadeus is gone. Without another word, she vanishes completely. Maybe she’s not reaping here, then?

My question is answered as Galene reads my mind in real time. I can hear the smile in her voice. “She has returned to await your visit to Paradise, my fearless one.”

I tense, and so do my guys. Crypt pulls me away from Everett to hold me tightly, jaw clenched. Baelfire folds his arms to regard the goddess, not at all embarrassed to be naked as the day he was born.

Not that he needs to be embarrassed, with all those muscles and gorgeousness and a dick like that.

“She’s not going,” Baelfire growls.

“She’s not,” Everett agrees, trying to sound firm but failing because he’s so weak. Silas also looks exhausted from all the magic he’s used, but he looks relieved that Syntyche left.

Galene laughs. “Rest your fears, matches of Maven. She won’t be coming to Paradise the way she did last time. This will be a mere projection of her soul to fulfill the blood oath she made to my queen, but I’m afraid swiftness is of the utmost importance.”

Shit.

Shit.

My blood oath. My mouth runs dry as I stare at the white-cloaked goddess. The battle is still ending, and already I’m being summoned to speak with Arati? What the hell did I agree to pay for this to be the right timing?

My quintet looks sick to their stomachs. Baelfire’s golden gaze moves to me, and he shakes his head.

“Don’t. I don’t like this.”

“I’m with the lizard,” Crypt rasps, burying his face in the side of my neck.

“Your fears are unnecessary,” Galene says soothingly. “I give you my promise that Maven’s soul shall return with the utmost haste. She cannot yet remember why this is so vital, but she will know soon. Come along, my fearless one. Your sworn fate awaits.”

She waves her hand, and just like that, my vision goes white.