Page 155 of Evermore

“I think it’s more fair to point out thatyoufell in love with me, wouldn’t you say? You proved my point to Reverius without even trying.”

The shadows around him shifted, and suddenly they weren’t shadows at all. Figures detached themselves from the darkness, men and women with empty eyes and mechanical movements. The Unmade Guardians. Dozens of them, emerging from alleys and side streets, surrounding the street in a tightening noose. They were not like Archer at all. But then, I supposed they wouldn’t be. When Archer was bound to me and they were bound to a murderous god.

“Did you think I would simply let you continue to exist, knowing what you are? What you’ll do to my power if I allow it?”

I backed up a step. My Remnants surged in response to my fear. “And what exactly am I, Ezra? Because I’m having a hard time keeping up with all the titles being thrown my way lately.”

My heart thundered in my throat. I was outnumbered, outpowered, and I’d wandered too far from Misery’s End for Thorne to hear me if I screamed. He would come. I knew it likeI knew how to breathe. But not if he didn’t know. Not if he was respecting the space I’d asked for.

“The end. Of everything.” He gestured around us. “It’s already happening. Look at what your simple existence has done to the realms. The power is failing, the barriers between worlds are thinning. My brother, blinded by his infatuation, refuses to see it. But I won’t allow the destruction to continue.”

“So this is it?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady as I assessed my options, counting the Unmade, looking for escape routes that didn’t exist. “The final confrontation? You, me, and your army of puppets? They’re cute. Have you named them? That one looks like a Franklin to me.”

His smile thinned. “I see that mouth hasn’t changed. My Guardians are far from puppets. They are the chosen, the ones who understand what’s at stake. And unlike my brother, they aren’t blinded by sentiment.”

The Guardians moved, a synchronized wave of bodies closing in. I could feel the power emanating from them, not magic, not quite, but something else. Something dangerous. As if they were mortal, but only just, their humanity overtaken by Ezra’s will.

“So you’re saying you remember what this mouth can do. Please forget that. Gross. And for the record, I’m not interested in breaking anything.”

“Your interests are irrelevant. It’s your nature. Your destiny.”

A Guardian lunged at me from the right. I pivoted, my blade slicing through the air, but he was faster than I expected. So much faster. He dodged the killing blow, and his fist connected with my ribs, sending me staggering. I felt the crack, the sharp stab of pain, but there was no time to process it as another came at me from the left.

I shoved my Remnants forward, shadows transforming into claws that tore into the Guardian’s chest. But for every one I wounded, two more rushed forward. I was outnumbered,outmatched. They were somethingmore, something twisted by Ezra’s power—faster, stronger, bound to a purpose that would end with my death.

Kill them,Winter hissed, suddenly visible beside me, her bloodied face stark in the moonlight.They are mortal. Kill them all.

You know the power,Sylvie urged, her form materializing on my other side.Use it. Let it consume you.

Fight.

Run.

Bleed.

Fight.

Die.

The voices of my past lives crescendoed in my mind, a cacophony of rage and fear and desperate instruction. I couldn’t separate individual voices anymore, couldn’t tell where Winter ended and Sylvie began. They blurred into a roaring tide of sound that threatened to drown me. But they also pushed me. Forced me to lean into magic.

A Guardian’s blade sliced across my arm, drawing blood. Another hit me from behind, sending me to my knees. My vision blurred, but through it, I saw Ezra watching, that same cold calculation in his eyes that I’d once mistaken for quiet intensity when I’d known him as only a lover.

Power roared through my veins like molten metal, burning away everything that wasn’t rage and pain and the desperate desire to survive. To live, when so many before me had died. My Remnants exploded outward in a wave of pure, undiluted destruction. Golden bricks cracked beneath my feet. Windows shattered. The air splintered as darkness poured from me in endless, violent waves. He wanted a victim. One more notch. One final life. But this one wasn’t his to take. I’d given enough. We each had.

I rose like a vengeful goddess, my body no longer my own but a vessel for the collective fury of a thousand murdered souls. “Is this what you feared?” My voice echoed strangely, as if others spoke with me, through me. “This power? This rage?”

Likely for the first time, uncertainty flickered across Ezra’s perfect face. “You can’t win, Huntress.”

I bared my teeth in a savage smile. “Fucking watch me.”

I thrust my hands forward, channeling the darkness like spears of shadow. They found the throats of the nearest Guardians, constricting, choking. I moved the Remnants like puppets, swinging them as solid, unbreakable iron fists. Like a shower of arrows and a bevy of blades. I blinded those that I could, clawed into others.

Until tendrils of Ezra’s power reached for me. I had no idea what they would do, but I assumed if they got to me, it would feel like being erased. Like dying, but never existing either. Like loneliness and abandonment. I backed away, still aiming for his army. But there were so many, an endless wave of soulless soldiers crashing against the shores of my dwindling strength.

A Guardian broke through the wall of power I’d built around myself, slamming into me with the force of a charging beast. We hit the ground, my head cracking against stone. The world swam. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision as his hands closed around my throat.

Not like this, I thought wildly, thrashing beneath him. Not like this. The world began to narrow, to fade. My lungs burned. Fingers of inhuman strength dug into my skin. My Remnants weakened, slipping from my grasp like water through cupped hands.