Twenty-Two

T he peace could not last forever. It should not have surprised Azreth when the hells came back to haunt him, but it did. He was by the woods with Raiya, watching her practice with the bow he’d given her, when it happened.

The sound of the vythian was instantly recognizable. At first, he thought he must have misidentified it. Vythians were creatures of the hells, and there was no way one could have found its way to the mortal realm.

But then he saw it, and there was no mistaking it: a massive, black-scaled, flying beast with teeth like daggers and fire shooting from its maw.

He had only seen a vythian twice before, and both times, he’d managed to lie low and avoid their notice. This one was rapidly moving closer, toward the camp, toward the peaceful behelgi herd, and toward Raiya.

A group of kin might have been able to take down a vythian—but just him alone? It was impossible.

As the Roamers began to scream and run for their lives, he took Raiya’s hand and ran alongside them. They detoured to find Jai and Madira, and then the four of them rushed out of the camp. When the vythian torched a line of tents beside them, Raiya jolted, leaning into him. They kept running.

“We must get to the city and behind something solid,” he said to her, raising his voice to be heard over the screams and roars.

“And when it sets fire to the town?” she asked.

He didn’t have an answer.

They were only halfway to the city wall when he heard the vythian diving close behind them. It gave a screech so loud that it vibrated his insides against his bones. Raiya covered her ears as its massive shadow fell over them. Fire was like iron to mortals. If the flames even came close to her, she’d be hurt.

He jerked her against him, bending close to shield her. The vythian swooped over them without touching them, but the gust generated by its wings was strong enough to make him stumble. The creature circled away, but it would be back.

He pulled her behind a building just outside the town gates. They panted there for a moment, and no one spoke, not even the elf siblings who always seemed to have something to say.

He leaned around the corner of the building to watch the nightmarish scene unfolding. Tents on the far side of the camp were ablaze and fire was creeping through the grass, already spreading. The behelgi herd split up as the animals ran for safety. People were fleeing in disorganized panic, some of them in states of undress, many dragging children or elderly behind them or carrying handfuls of valuable possessions. Only a few had picked up swords, but he couldn’t fault the others—there was no point in trying to fight.

He looked back at Ontag-ul’s walls, his heart sinking into his stomach. The wooden city would burn like dry brush, just like the camp, if the vythian’s fire got to it. People and animals would die by the dozens. There was no place to hide.

He looked down at Raiya. Her eyes were bright with anger, her cheeks ruddy. She looked up at him hopefully, and he realized it was the same way he often looked at her. It was a request for guidance.

The look startled him. He was not used to leading.

The vythian was a foreign danger to them—one they were not equipped to face. Azreth was not equipped for it either, but there was no one else who could fight it.

It would have to be him, or no one.

Channeling magic, he summoned his wings. He felt them sprout from his back, felt the magic filling them out, and then felt the air beneath them as they became solid. He flapped them once, testing them as he stepped out from behind the building.

“Where are you going?” Raiya asked, her tone rising with worry.

Perhaps he should have confessed his love to her then, before it was too late, but he didn’t. Going quickly felt easier than lingering and saying goodbye.

Without looking back, he sprang into the sky and flew toward the vythian. The sounds of the panicked crowd and the crackling flames faded beneath him as he took to the air.

It took him a while to cross the space to the vythian, and for a long few moments, he was flying alone in the quiet. It gave him time to think about how very foolish this was. But he already knew he wouldn’t change his mind.

He didn’t think he could win this fight, but maybe he could at least trouble the vythian enough that it would reconsider its choice of prey, or weaken it enough that the mortals could finish it off.

The vythian was turned away from him, facing the scattered behelgi herd. As it reared back its head for a blast of fire, Azreth folded his wings and dove, accelerating rapidly.

He crashed into the vythian’s neck, knocking both of them sideways. He clung onto it as it flailed, then bit into its neck. The hard scales scraped his teeth like steel on stone, but he crunched through them and reached flesh just before the vythian managed to throw him off.

The vythian’s blood coated his mouth, tasting like acid and rusted metal. He spit out a mouthful, but the acrid taste remained.

He rushed toward the vythian again, this time aiming for the membrane of its wing. The creature roared as he cut through the delicate flesh, but before he could dive at it again, its massive tail whipped toward him and hit him like a rock wall.

He did not remember falling, but suddenly he was on the ground, his entire body ached, and it hurt to breathe—a rib injury, he guessed.

The ground shook in a quick rhythm. Enormous footsteps.

Azreth shoved himself to his feet. Dragging its torn wing, the vythian was galloping toward him, jaws agape, getting far too close too quickly, and suddenly all he could see was a mouth full of teeth as long as his forearm?—

A burst of magic like a bolt of lightning struck the vythian, making it stumble. Azreth stared at it in confusion, then looked toward the city gates. Raiya was standing with her baton beside the building where he’d left her, drawing attention to herself instead of taking cover. He glared at her in warning, and she shot him a glare right back, but to his relief, she hurried back behind the building.

Vythians must have been stubborn creatures, because this one seemed to have no interest in retreating, despite its wounds, and only seemed to have gotten angrier.

At least it was grounded, now. As it turned its attention to Azreth again, he wove another spell.

This time, instead of wings, he made a sword. It was bigger than any weapon he’d ever summoned, longer than he was tall, which felt appropriate for what might be his last battle. It floated above him, and when he moved his hands, the sword moved with him, like an extension of his body.

He backed away as he struck with the sword, swinging and stabbing as he would in a duel. The vythian growled in annoyance as it snapped at the sword with its teeth, all while continuing to slither toward him. The sword barely slowed it down. The magenta blade scraped and clanged against its tough scales, rarely finding a spot weak enough to penetrate, and though Azreth was keeping out of reach of the vythian’s teeth, he was still on the defense, and the spellcasting was quickly draining him.

He was so preoccupied with his swordsmanship that he didn’t spot the telltale glow in the vythian’s mouth until the fire was coming at him. He didn’t have time to do more than flinch, covering his face with his arm, before it engulfed him.

A vortex of unimaginable heat whirled around him, deafening. When he inhaled, fire burned down his throat and into his lungs. He stumbled, pushed back by the force of the flames, and he felt the mortal-made fabric around his shoulders shrivel into ash.

He wondered, for the first time in his life, if there could be a fire so voracious that even a demon would burn.

Eventually the fire slowed, then stopped. The vythian had run out of breath.

Azreth slowly lowered his arm away from his face, trembling. Letting the glamour fade, he looked down at himself. His skin smoked. The enchanted bracelet on his wrist glowed bright red. His boots and sarong were scorched black, but intact. He stood alone in a streak of charred dirt, all the grass and plants around him gone.

As he looked up at the vythian, he allowed himself a moment of foolish pride. He was losing this fight, but he was not finished quite yet.

The vythian lunged. Azreth dove sideways as he brought the sword down, barely evading the vythian’s charge. His body had grown heavy, and the threads of magic that maintained the summoned sword were fraying. As he struck at the vythian again, he stole a glance in the direction of the behelgi herd behind the camp. They were gone, hopefully somewhere safe. The camp was empty. Everyone had evacuated. Hopefully he’d bought the warriors and mages in Ontag-ul enough time to gather weapons and plan some kind of defense. And hopefully Raiya was hidden deep in some cellar, far out of reach of the vythian.

Abruptly, his strength failed. He lost his grip on the spell, and his sword disappeared, leaving him open to attack.

The vythian didn’t hesitate. It darted forward, its long neck stretching as it opened its mouth wide. Azreth ducked, but too slowly.

Jaws closed over him. Teeth sank through his skin, like half a dozen swords at once. He did not even have the strength to gasp or cry out. The teeth sank deeper.

He was going to be cut in half. What a messy way to die.

The shock ebbed, and for a moment, feeling returned to his limbs. He jabbed a hand toward the vythian’s head. Raking his fingers across its face, he hit upon something soft that tore in his grasp. With a shriek, the vythian released him and backed away, swinging its head in distress. One of its eyes was gone.

Azreth dropped to his knees. Blood gushed from a row of tears along his torso.

“Hey!” someone shouted.

Azreth looked up. So did the vythian. They both turned toward the voice, toward the slight figure that was approaching from the city.

It was Raiya. She was running straight toward the vythian. Azreth’s heart nearly stopped. He paused to wonder whether he was hallucinating, because it looked like she was brandishing a long stick with a jangling sack tied to the end of it.

“That’s right,” she shouted, waving the sack in the air like a war banner. “Leave him alone!”

To Azreth’s horror, it did as she asked. It ran toward her, and—and she ran to meet it. She had gone mad. The vythian raised its head above her. It opened its mouth, ready to strike.

And then, like some kind of avenging eldress warrior queen, Raiya hefted the stick high and thrust it deep into the vythian’s mouth, where it stuck.

The vythian stopped, its neck convulsing. It shook its head, trying to dislodge the stick caught in its throat as Raiya backed away.

Azreth didn’t fully realize what she’d done until the vythian began to retch. Thick, greenish steam poured from its mouth, and its screeches became strange, heavy gurgling sounds, like its insides were melting.

It was iron. She’d force-fed it a sack full of iron.

He’d thought being bitten in half would be a bad way to die, but this was worse. Much worse.

It was mercifully quick. The vythian fell to the ground with an earth-shaking crash, then went still.

Stunned, he looked at Raiya. She looked back.

She had killed a vythian.

She’d remembered its weakness and had used her mortal nature to her advantage. Azreth couldn’t have made an iron weapon to kill it, but she could. Even with all the strength and magic at his disposal, she had still outfought him.

She was incredible. And right now, she was rushing to meet him, tears in her eyes, like he was the most important person in the world.

“Azreth! That was foolish of you to fight that thing alone. Damn you, that was foolish.”

“Are you hurt?” he wheezed.

“No!” she snapped, as if she disapproved of him asking. She fawned over him, nervously hovering her hands here and there as she surveyed his wounds. “You saved everyone. The whole camp. The whole town.”

“The behelgi?”

She made a choked sound. Her emotions were vast and heavy. He couldn’t quite tell if she was laughing or crying. She looked over her shoulder to check the herd. “They’re fine. They’re all fine.”

By the city, there was a crowd watching. Hundreds of mortals were gathered near the gates, staring at him. At a dying demon. A few pointed at him, lifting weapons.

He had been willing to die fighting the vythian, but he did not want to fight the mortals he had begun to feel close to in these past weeks, and he did not want to look into their hateful eyes as he died, now that they’d discovered what he was. He didn’t want to be hated.

He looked at Raiya, suddenly less resigned to death. He didn’t want it this way, not here, not by the hands of the people he’d only wanted to help.

“Help me,” he asked Raiya. He realized it was something he’d never asked anyone before.

A stray tear spilled onto her cheek. She nodded quickly, helping him up.

She helped him run as far as he could—which, it turned out, was only a few dozen strides before he collapsed in the grass again. He was bleeding heavily, and he was dizzy and lightheaded from the loss of blood. Raiya knelt over him and compressed the worst of the wounds with both hands. He winced as pain pounded through him.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

“Yes.” Of course he did. Nearly since the beginning, he had, even if he hadn’t wanted to.

“I’m not going to let any of them harm you. I will die before I let that happen. So worry about keeping still and conserving your strength, not about them.” She looked him in the eyes, her gaze fierce, and she was beautiful. She was a vythian killer—she feared no mortal.

When the first mortals caught up to them, Azreth tensed, but they did not attack. It was a group of Roamers, and they approached warily, and then they healed him.

He looked up at Raiya for reassurance as a Roamer woman wove magic into his injuries. There was an uncomfortable silence as the woman worked and other Roamers stared at him openly—with curiosity, not hatred.

Strangely, that pleasant pain in his heart flared. He had thought Raiya was the only one who could trigger that feeling.

When the vythian had come, he could have picked up Raiya and fled, leaving the others to their fates. He was glad he hadn’t. These people were worth defending. This place, the mortal plane, needed to be protected.

And right now, it needed to be protected from whoever had brought the vythian here from the hells.

Nirlan had summoned Azreth from the hells, so it stood to reason that he could bring other things here, too. Was he vindictive enough to call something as destructive as a vythian to his own homeland?

What would he bring next, if no one stopped him?