Page 72 of Heir of Broken Souls (HOBF #3)

Chapter 72

Knox

T hrough the whirlwind of my steel I see a figure running toward me. It takes me a moment to realize it isn’t one of the hounds but one of my own. Relief is swift as it flies through my entire body, despite the hounds and Phookas running at me in every direction.

Through the haze of steel, black blood, and demonic creatures is Nolan.

Lifting my hands, I bring them both down, and with it flies my shadows.

Powers explodes from me, scattering the hounds and demonic creatures, and I have no shame in letting the sob fly from my throat as I’m reunited with a brother.

Nolan and I smash into each other.

I wrap my arms around him and continue to send wave after wave around us to fend off the demons for as long as this moment can last.

“I thought you were dead!” I finally say.

“Same to you. I haven’t heard from you in days.”

Now I pull back. “Days?”

We were only in the governing city for a few short hours.

“I’ve been waiting for you to reach out with an update,” Nolan pants. “Peter touched down five hours ago and it’s been chaos ever since.”

Time does not seem to be working in our favor, but that is another worry for another day. What does concern me is that Peter decided to finally push his entire army into Aloriah at roughly the same time we entered the sunken governing city. That can’t be a coincidence, despite the time loop that seems to have occurred.

Nolan’s face suddenly drops. “Is everyone all right? Where’s Delilah?”

“She’s behind me sending—” My words stop entirely as I turn behind me to find Delilah, smiling at me coyly and wiggling her fingers.

My eyes narrow at the sight, and then suddenly, she bursts into nothing but black shadows.

My roar stops the movements around me, ceases the fighting, halts the aerial legion above. Shadows ripple out of me in a shockwave, capturing the essence of my pain.

Until the ground shakes violently as a dragon drops from the sky, landing on its legs. Then it rolls and transforms into the small wicked form of a Fae-witch.

“ No! ”

Harlow runs screaming in the other direction with such vigor my heart stops.

Nolan latches his hand around my wrist and pulls me behind him as we use our Fae speed to run after her. All the while, I tug on our bond, grateful to feel Delilah is still very much alive, and yet she won’t open her door to tell me where she is—or maybe she can’t.

A wave of demonic creatures rushes for us all but I keep them back with another burst of my power as I come to a skidding stop beside Harlow. She weeps over…Lenox. That’s Lenox’s body lying on the ground in tatters, torn to shreds. There isn’t a place I can find that isn’t bruised, battered, or mutilated.

Dropping to my knees, my hands shake as I reach out, not knowing where to begin to heal him, not knowing if there is anything to heal.

I can’t believe the words that come out of my mouth. “Is there a pulse?”

Harlow clings to his shoulders, screaming, not hearing a word I say.

Leaning forward, I touch the only patch of skin on his neck that isn’t covered in blood.

My heart stops.

Because his isn’t beating.

Because my best friend’s heart isn’t beating .

My vision swims, the darkness beginning to take what little remains of my soul. Something dies within me, a sacred part snapping in two as the brother I should have fought harder for lies motionless before me, his gaze unseeing.

I want to cry. I want to rage, I want to scream, I want to do something against such a travesty but I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t walk, can’t fight, can’t live?—

Not when Lenox’s chest isn’t moving.

Harlow rips herself away from him as she stands, crying tears of Lenox’s blood. “They took everything from him!” she roars. Her screams silence the ringing of metal around her. “They took his very soul and it still wasn’t enough. They had to take what was left of him!”

She spins back to Lenox. “No, this isn’t happening,” she spits. “I refuse to let this happen!”

Her eyes grow frenzied, her movements manic, and all of a sudden, I witness Harlow transform.

She kneels next to him, picking up one of his blades, and slices her wrist. She doesn’t blink or flinch at the pain. Instead, she smiles as she dips her fingers into the crimson blood pooling along her forearm and moves toward Lenox.

Her lips move a mile a minute, and her fingers swirl as she draws her blood along his tattered body. It mixes with his and the black blood that took his life.

My breath freezes in my lungs as Harlow becomes the very thing she hates the most in this life—a witch.

* * *

“What is she doing?” Axel asks, yet his voice is devoid of emotion. There’s not a single light behind his eyes. Axel is completely checked out, his mind having taken him far from the reality that’s trying to rip his heart out.

“She’s doing what must be done.”

Is that my voice? Is that what I sound like with a part of my soul gone? Gravelly and devoid of hope?

Where is my angel when I need her?

It’s a call into a void—hopeless. She hasn’t answered this whole time. She sends warmth down the bond but that golden door doesn’t open an inch.

Where are you?

My heart yearns to touch her. To feel her pulse beneath her warm skin, to feel her heart beating. I’d do anything to feel it and not Lenox’s cold neck and still chest.

Axel’s eyes narrow. “It can’t be.”

Spinning back to Harlow, I find her hands glowing red, the blood she’s smeared in strange symbols lighting up one by one with every word. Blood runs down her nose but she waves off our touch, ignoring everything but Lenox.

He is her world.

He is her everything.

He is her heart, her soul, her reason to live.

He is her best friend.

She would never admit to that before, would never admit that’s why she’s been so sad the passing weeks when he ignored her, but he is. Lenox is the other half to her soul.

So in turn, she offers up her own in exchange for his heart to beat.

Zephlyn and Aurora land behind me, Elysia’s footsteps thud in the mud as she runs for Axel, clinging to his forearm, trying to shake him from his emotionless stupor. All the while, I stand shell-shocked, wanting to help and yet terrified that I’ll do something wrong.

The only thing I can do is continue to blast my power in all directions, keeping the hounds away as they smell the cooling blood of our loved one.

Elysia cries out at the sight of Harlow as, before our very eyes, she gives herself up for him.

Lenox’s body begins to glow red, from the power thrumming along his skin where Harlow touched him.

Harlow leans back and slices another forearm, slathering both her hands in her blood. She rises on her knees and shoves her palms into his chest and screams in a foreign tongue. In a language that makes goosebumps rise and the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. A language that makes me fearful for what she has to give in return for his life.

“Elysia?” Axel shouts suddenly, drawing my attention to the small blonde Fae he takes by the shoulders and shakes. She’s fallen unconscious.

There’s too much.

There is too much happening. I can’t focus on?—

Elysia gasps, right as Lenox screams in terror and agony. A sob flies from me as I rush forward and bark, “Everyone use your healing powers, now!”

Slapping my hands on my brother’s body, I blast out another wave of shadows to keep the demonic creatures at bay and send every ounce of healing power I can into his body—burnout be damned.

Harlow smiles as she sways.

I don’t have the hands to catch her as she faints, or the extra magic. I can’t let go of Lenox, not as his face twists in pain, his body writhing.

“Nolan!” I call, my fear showing as I teeter on the verge of hysteria. “Nolan!”

He falls beside me, using one hand to heal Lenox and the other to try and shake Harlow awake. All the while, Axel kneels, holding Elysia in his arms. “Gods, not again. Why isn’t she waking?!”

“It’s a vision, Axel!” I snap. “Get it together!”

I can’t help the frustration that leaks into my voice. He’s far too submerged in his trauma to recognize this happens nearly every time she has a large vision, and instead of helping us or making her comfortable, he just freaks out.

Bile rises as I watch every inch of Lenox’s skin grow anew and stitch together. He’s truly being reborn, there’s no two ways about it. There was nothing but shredded muscle, bones, and flapping skin, and now before me is my chosen brother coming back to life.

Harlow doesn’t stir, not even when Lenox begins to call for her.

“What did she sacrifice?” Nolan asks so quietly it makes me pause.

“Let’s just hope it wasn’t a life for a life,” I say solemnly.

Golden light explodes throughout the forest at my back. It shines as bright as a fallen star, glowing between the leaves of trees, the canopies, and the bodies of our fallen as the demons run from the one thing they’re fearful of.

Delilah’s golden power.

“She needs you,” Elysia suddenly announces, pushing herself out of Axel’s arms as she comes to quickly.

My hands are off Lenox before I realize what I’m doing. I rush to move back but Nolan places a hand on my chest and shoves. “We have him, go!”

I look to Lenox, and despite the shock that’s thundering through him, his pain seems to have lessened. He dips his chin, the only go-ahead I need and the only reason I turn away from him.

Elysia wraps her hand around my wrist before I can get too far and stops me. Her eyes grow glazed, and I know better than to interrupt her.

“ For you, child, are the only one who can defeat those who threaten to bring us to our knees.

Spread your wings and you shall find, that your gold shimmers as do I. ”

Elysia stops as suddenly as she started, but her words—the prophecy—leave me in tatters. Even Lenox tries to sit up and Harlow blinks her eyes open, paying attention to what she’s saying. They seem to bring everyone together despite the pain that’s evident on all our faces.

Lenox crawls, his fingernails digging into the bloody soil as he pulls—heaves—himself beside Harlow. Yet she can’t seem to believe that he is breathing, let alone moving.

Pulling my gaze from the reunion, I turn back to Elysia and the prophecy that will change all of our destinies.

Swallowing thickly, I whisper, “What does that mean?”

“You know what it means, Knox.”

“ Spread your wings and you shall find that your gold shimmers as do I. ” My words falter, tapering off as every stark realization since the moment I met my mate comes barreling through my mind.

The nickname that fell upon my tongue the first time I laid eyes upon her.

The color of her wings.

The nature of her personality.

The magnitude of her power.

The ancient feel of her magic.

The way that only she can kill those with dark magic.

The reason why the archangels sent her the prophecy.

Because the prophecy spoke true. She wasn’t born. She was created by the archangels’ hands. Delilah doesn’t have any true parents, because she was forged .

“She’s an angel,” I breathe.

And then I’m running.