Page 33 of Resurrection (Daemons & Lumens #2)

“Brave girl,” Joseph whispered. “You must. Set me free. I will see you in the stars.”

I had no fucking clue what he was saying. My eyes burned with tears, and the room blurred. My father continued to whisper strange words that sounded almost like a prayer. And he kept saying my mother’s name.

The cloaked figures around us started chanting. But I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t kill him.

“Seraphina.” Andras’s voice carried to me over the chants, and I glanced in his direction. “We’re here. Always.”

His words were fierce and wrapped around me like a shroud of strength. But did anyone have the strength to kill their own parent? A parent who raised them and loved them, even when I wasn’t his natural born child?

“Dad.” I sucked in a sob, whispering the word I hadn’t said in almost a decade. “I don’t want to do this.”

Joseph stood straight, seemingly finding the last of his strength to stare into my tear-drenched face. “You must. Only you can set me free and save them all.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. Michaela, she’ll hate me. I’ll hate me.”

Joseph attempted to smile, his lips busted and bloody. “She will understand. Do this for us. For your mother. For Lailah. For me.”

The tears completely blurred my vision now as the chanting grew louder.

A point of no return was coming. My father knelt before me and bowed his head, that strange prayer on his lips.

I had to do this, I couldn’t see a way out.

Not if I was going to save everyone else.

I wiped the tears from my face and brushed my fingers through my father’s dark hair.

“I love you.” I whispered the words and placed the knife at the back of his neck.

Being an assassin meant I had knowledge of the quickest ways to kill my targets.

A knife between the first and second vertebrae would end a human life almost instantly.

I used all my strength to stab my father, hoping he died too quickly to feel it.

His body slumped to the floor, and his blood coated my arms. I screamed in pure rage, my voice going hoarse as I shouted over the chanting fools around the room.

The power within me grew, the weight of it coursing through my body. I glared at the Kings. Laszlo’s smile was disgusting. Samuel even had a hint of glee in his dead eyes. Four cloaked figures appeared beside each of the Princes and quickly sliced their wrists. I cried out but could do nothing.

My men roared in fury, but chained as they were, remained in place.

Their blood dripped to the floor. When the crimson liquid pooled on the tile, it suddenly moved away from their bodies, spiraling until a circle of blood surrounded us and the star of ash.

The blood caught fire, and the ash followed next.

The heat of the flames licked at my flesh.

The chanting of the Kings and their followers grew to a deafening roar as smoke filled the circle and clouded my eyes.

The Princes were shouting, calling my name, but I couldn’t see them between the smoke and flames.

My father’s body caught fire, and I cried as he burned.

A fog built around me, and I choked on the smoke as flames crept up my dress.

I pulled at my chains, but I was stuck here, helpless. How was I meant to survive this?

A voice started to whisper in my mind as I dropped to my knees, unable to stand as the fire engulfed me. I was going to burn. I thought of Lo Rigby and her sister, the first innocent victims on my fiery path of vengeance. It was fitting that fire would be my end.

“Smash the stone, Seraphina!” a voice in my head shouted at me.

I ripped the tenebrite from my wrist and immediately smashed it with the hilt of my mother’s dagger.

The powerful stone burst into a cloud of black smoke that swirled around me like an infernal tornado. The darkness seeped into my nose, my mouth, and my fucking ears. It filled me until I slumped forward and darkness overtook senses.

“ Seraphina.”

Where was I?

“You’re between worlds, my darling girl.”

“Who are you?” I tried to squint into the endless night but couldn’t see a thing.

“Your creator.”

“My what?” I whirled around in the darkness.

A voice chuckled as a dim light edged closer and closer to me. “I am Belfegor. Your father.”

“My father?” My thoughts were a jumbled mess. “Were you in the stone?”

“So clever.” The voice sounded proud, and the light pulsed like a heartbeat. “Yes. I wanted to be here, to see you one last time.”

I remembered vaguely what Morax said about the stone. “Where will you go now? Your soul…”

“I will be at peace, daughter.”

If I had the ability, I would have been crying, slumped on the floor of this deepest darkness. I was losing two fathers in one night. The light grew, a beacon in the dark, beating to a slow and steady rhythm.

“You cannot be broken by these weak creatures, Seraphina. They do not control you. They do not own you. You chose this path. You gave yourself willingly. And they cannot take from you what has been freely given.”

His words were an enigma and clear all at once.

“But I don’t know how to save them all. I keep failing. I’m not the hero.”

The light circled around me, and its warmth was a caress. I leaned into it, needing to feel something.

“No, my darling, you are not.”

I let out a whimper at his words.

“You are a queen. A queen who chooses to kneel when she is needed. And a queen who will rise again when the time comes.”

The light suddenly burst into a million stars, twinkling in the darkness and filling me with hope.

“The time has come, daughter. Rise. This is your resurrection.”