Page 36 of Mantle (IMMORTAL FLAME #3)

~Nyx~

Seeing her like this was upsetting.

Hard to reconcile.

But the physical was just the tip of the iceberg.

The pain, grief, and torment radiating off Ariana was basically pulsing at me. And in her current state, she didn’t have her usual shields up that could have muted that intensity.

I was actually grateful for that because it meant I could feel exactly where she was at in order to help, to soothe her.

But first there was this.

The battle we were hurtling headlong into.

A battle I’d been jolted awake for from a spark of Kai’s magic, and the two of them standing over my dorm room bed, Kai in that dark and dangerous headspace and struggling with Ariana being in pain and weakened, and Ariana in war mode in spite of it all.

Her plan was inspired.

I was damned impressed and Kai had been also.

Him more so for the magical complexity of what she’d put together.

Me because it was geared toward saving a victim of circumstance, rather than destroying the threat that Corvin and the Celestial Plane had made Ketheron into.

I tensed, bracing myself as we rematerialized via Kai’s teleportation spell, just a few feet back from the property line of the Unity Council building.

Holy damn.

The building was utterly decimated, Hellfire and dragon flame raging wildly through what was now mostly just ash and wreckage.

Kai having Sylas reach out to the Guardian Movement had worked, and there was now a mammoth force circling the area, a crazy lightshow from dozens of magical wielders firing upon Ketheron.

Actually, firing upon the dome that he’d created around himself and Jaxon and Vorzyr, trapping them inside.

Jaxon went flying as Ketheron batted him away, then shot him with a bolt of his golden fire in quick succession, and Jaxon slammed into the inside of the dome and ricocheted off it with a grunt.

He was already bloodied and injured as it was, and I saw him struggling severely to push back to his knees, let alone his feet.

Vorzyr intercepted a targeted expulsion of dragon fire from Ketheron headed straight for Jaxon, his own roaring forth from his mouth and battling Ketheron’s.

He was in full dragon form, his talons digging into the earth beneath his feet just to maintain his position, even while in his mightiest state.

And through it all, Ketheron was wielding Draco’s sword, Valkrith, its Hellfire shooting through the dome, while the protective nature of the shield still remained intact.

It had Guardian Members dodging out of the way over and over, them forced to give up their position, and even move several feet back while interrupting their magical streams.

Ketheron’s actions were all very strategic.

All very Corvin Morvain.

The one actually causing this and wielding Ketheron’s power and movements like a puppet.

I caught sight of Lucian suddenly in the field using his killer Ancient vamp speed to rush Guardian members out of the line of fire as Ketheron picked up his pace, all while still facing off with Vorzyr.

Ryker wasn’t there, but that was because he was with Warlow, Aegis Watch, and many of Jaxon’s Lupan Stabilization Unit, who’d been specially called in to coordinate a massive strike against the exposed Chimera Circle labs and shut that long-time fucking nightmare down for good.

Lucian blurred past us again, giving a blink-and-you’d-miss-it chin lift to Ariana, then hauling an injured werewolf to safety before she could be impaled by a streak of Hellfire that carved a trench where she’d stood.

I jolted as Jaxon let out a wolf’s battle cry and partially shifted, then ducked and rolled around Ketheron.

In the next split second, he leapt up and grabbed Ketheron’s wrist wielding Valkrith.

His Alpha wolf and Immortal Descendant strength combined still had him straining, and even as he dug his claws into Ketheron’s skin, they didn’t drive deep enough to cause more than a scratch and aggravation.

He held on, muscles bunching in his tank, his arm shaking as he fought to pry that Hellfire death blade from Ketheron’s hand.

And then Ketheron pulled back his dragon fire.

My eyes shot wide and I heard a joint gasp from Kai and Ariana either side of me, as Vorzyr kept his fire breathing going but it didn’t so much as lightly burn Ketheron. His specially made skin just… repelled it.

Ketheron let out a roar of frustration, then dropped the dome all of a sudden, wrenched Jaxon away from him by grasping his face, then sent him hurtling into several Guardians, downing them like dominoes, faster than even Lucian could react to spare them.

It not only knocked out their magic, the brutality of it knocked them out.

“Dad!” Ariana screamed, as Jaxon tried and failed to push up from being sprawled out on his front, choking and bleeding.

As if that wasn’t enough, Ketheron burst forward with the vampiric speed of his Polygenus design, snagged Vorzyr’s snout, driving his talons right through his dragon hide and making him cry out as he drew deep, blood dripping down his striking dragon features.

Then he hauled him up, swung him around, then sent him careening into more Guardians.

He spun Valkrith, and started sweeping arcs of Hellfire throughout the area, first as a deterrent to keep them all back.

But then as some bolts of magic struck him, the insult of it had him moving to direct the Hellfire blasts to those unconscious—to burn them alive where they were sprawled helplessly.

Lucian was fighting to remove as many people as possible, as were some vampire Guardian members who weren’t already downed. But they wouldn’t be able to get them all.

And Vorzyr was one of them. Downed and unmoving now.

“Fuck,” Kai uttered.

With that, we moved in, using my shadow magic to get closer without Ketheron noticing.

We were just a couple of feet out, and I heard Kai begin his incantation to temporarily hold Ketheron in stasis, while Ariana stumbled beside me, her hand on my shoulder.

And then Cassius and Cornelius materialized.

Right in front of Ketheron’s arc of Hellfire, just as he aimed it toward Vorzyr, Jaxon, and the Guardians near them.

White light from Cassius and blazing silver from Cornelius shot up, forming a joint shimmering wall along the length of the battlefield, shielding every single person there.

Ketheron roared again, then employed his gold power with his free hand, that slamming into their wall as well.

“They won’t be able to hold it for long,” Ariana spoke.

It was more of a problem than even that.

We’d been waiting on Cornelius and Cassius to arrive so that Kai could channel one of them to fuel the ancient magic he was going to use to hold Ketheron temporarily at bay, which was crucial to our overall plan.

But now they were indisposed.

I heard a curse from Kai as he realized all too well what that meant.

“I’ll have to do it without them.”

“You could die! Either being unable to hold him long enough before he kills you, or draining yourself entirely to accomplish it!” I cried. “No! No!”

“Channel me,” Ariana offered. Actually, it was more like a command, making it clear that she wouldn’t allow it to happen without that assistance.

“In your current state, I’ll hurt you.” He looked absolutely sick about it.

“It’s all we have. And I’m literally telling you to do it. It’ll be on me, not you.” She reached out and stroked his hair. “Do you hear me, baby?”

Before he could answer, an eruption of vibrant-green magic tore through the area as Ryker Morgan teleported in just behind the wall, beside Cornelius.

They started talking, urgency and arguing rising within an instant, but we couldn’t hear from here.

In the next second, Kai employed an auditory enhancement spell, and then their voices were gravitating toward us.

“I can break the link to you with my defensive magic at the point of penetration with the Wrath of Hades,” Ryker was telling Cornelius. “Trust me.”

“You know that you have my utmost trust. I’m concerned about you . If you can’t get that strike in… what he’ll do to you, Ryker.”

“Conjure the dagger,” Ryker insisted, as he conjured a Bastion Gauntlet himself.

“This is one is tied to your blood marker. But, as I’ve said, I can sever that link.

I’m the only one who can. Fuck, I’m the only one who can wield the Wrath of Hades without death befalling me.

The Bastion Gauntlet creates the illusion that a Celestial is wielding the weapon—which is the only way it can be handled safely.

Once I sever the link to you, the dagger won’t register any Celestial presence, and the ‘life for a life’ curse won’t trigger when it’s used to kill another Celestial. ”

“Impressive solution,” Cassius told him.

Ryker lifted a shoulder, then put on the Bastion Gauntlet.

There was some more resistance from Cornelius before he produced the Wrath of Hades with a burst of his magic.

“It’s here… my grandfather was in possession of that nightmare weapon…” Ariana murmured.

Kai and I exchanged a look.

This was not a good time for her to be finding that out for the first time.

“Ryker!” Lucian called out, rushing over to him. “What are you doing here? What about Chimera Circle?”

A wave of his emotion rolled over me.

He wasn’t just asking out of concern for that operation.

He didn’t want Ryker here.

Given what Ariana had told us, I knew it was because last time Valkrith had been in play, Draco wielding it, Ryker had been burned to almost nothing by it, a horrific trauma that still haunted him to this day.

“My father has stepped in with Calla.”

Ariana cried out to Ryker.

I saw Lucian move to try to reason with him.

Even Cornelius looked unsure.

Cassius noticed us standing here.

He saw Ariana crying out.

But it was too late.

In a blink, Ryker spun the blade in his hand and teleported out.

Then he teleported back in right in front of Ketheron.