Page 37

37

December 9, 2333

“ W e failed … again.”

Noir did his best to ignore his sister while he stared out the window, into the darkness that made up the realm he despised passionately. “Perhaps we’re not supposed to succeed.”

Azura curled her lip. “Since when are you fatalistic?”

“The word is maudlin, Azura. And I’m tired of all the scheming that comes to naught. Face it. We’re stuck here.” They were always going to be stuck here.

It’d been centuries and everything they had tried had amounted to nothing but disappointment.

He was tired of it all.

Azura curled her lip. “We’re not stuck here. The prophecy promises us a way out.”

“Ambrose will never free us. You know that. Even if he did, Apollymi is going to make sure we never stop suffering.” Noir growled low in his throat. “We should have never sided against her and demanded the life of Kissare or her son.” He couldn’t blame Apollymi for her hatred.

They’d earned it.

Out of sheer ignorance, he’d allowed Azura to talk him into something profoundly stupid. Apollymi had been their greatest ally.

Now, she was their greatest enemy.

And he couldn’t blame her. But then he’d never understood what it meant to love in those days. It had been an inconceivable emotion.

He’d assumed that she would put the death of her Sephiroth and child behind her and move on.

I’m such an idiot.

One stupid momentary decision made out of spite, and he’d screwed up his life. No, his eternity.

Azura continued to glare at him. “We can’t change what we did. We just have to find a way out.”

He rolled his eyes. “How do we do that, my love? Flag down a motorist? Send Apollymi flowers?”

That didn’t please his sister at all. “Cam created her Malachai and raised him … what if we do the same?”

Noir arched a brow at a novel concept. “Pardon?”

“You heard me. What if we send one of our agents out to seduce the Ambrose Malachai?”

It was a nice plan, but there was one serious flaw to it. “Seduction won’t create a Malachai.” They were conceived in violence to do violence and die violently. That had been the curse they’d laid on the entire Malachai line.

And it was why Apollymi hated them so much.

Still, Azura wasn’t to be daunted by something as trivial as reason or common sense.

“We’ll send him a nightmare then … something he’ll attack without knowing it’s real.”

Noir rose from his throne as he considered what she was saying. It was one heck of a plan.

Don’t even get excited. When have any of her plans worked out?

Even so, he wanted out of this hell hole with every fiber of his being. Oh, to be back in the world again …

To be able to come and go. It was all he wanted. All he craved. So, he allowed her fantasy to draw him in. “I’m beginning to follow your logic. Who do you have in mind?”

Azura gave him a wicked smile. “We’ll use someone the Ambrose Malachai won’t see coming. Someone he won’t be able to deny.”

Simi and Shadow walked through Thorn’s castle for the babillionth time. Cobwebs covered everything.

Her heart was broken by the shell of a home that used to be filled with Thorn’s huge personality. Even now, she could picture him in front of his fireplace, making snarky comments. Or the two of them together in the theater room, watching movies where Thorn constantly stated his opinions and picked the movie apart.

What she wouldn’t give to see him there again.

“Where can he be, Shadow? Why can’t we find him?”

Shadow sighed heavily. “I don’t know, Sim. We’ve looked everywhere. There hasn’t been a single sighting of him anywhere in centuries.”

It was as if Thorny had vanished into another realm. Or another time.

“He’s not dead.” She would know if he’d died. She’d feel it. “Where could he be? Where haven’t we looked?”

Shaking his head, Shadow used his powers to return the room to how it’d been when Thorn had lived here. It was clean and shiny again. “I don’t know. But I miss my brother-in-spirit. I’ve searched every realm I could think of and there’s nothing. It’s as if he’d never been born.”

Those words seared her because she couldn’t imagine him not having been a huge part of her life.

Shadow met her worried gaze. “And I’ve tortured everyone I could think of to get information about his location.”

“Even Paimon?” she asked.

“Especially him. He said he has no idea.”

Of course he did. “I don’t believe that evil demon. Do you?”

Shadow snorted. “Not even a little bit, but it doesn’t give us anywhere to look.”

No, it didn’t.

Aching over the loss, Simi went to sit on Thorn’s throne. For some reason, this made her feel closer to him. But not as close as it would if he were here, staring at her in a pique because she’d interrupted his reading.

Thorn was her bestest friend of all time. Had been so for most of her life. He’d always been there for his Simi. She missed him so much.

Closing her eyes, she tried to remember the exact sound of his voice.

Normally, she could duplicate any voice. But it’d been too long since she last heard Thorn’s pleasant accent. Too long since he’d been here to make her laugh.

Where are you, Thorn?

He’d become a ghosty that lived only in her memory.

And her heart.

I won’t forget you, Thorny. Most of all, she would never stop hunting him. Not until they found him and brought him home.

Forneus heard the sound of his power crackling all around. It echoed off the dark walls surrounding him. Gone was any care for anything.

Even his own life.

All he felt now was hunger. Soul deep. A need inside him to bathe in blood. He didn’t care whose blood or even why. It was that part of him that wanted only destruction. The part inherited from both his fathers.

The craving was insatiable. Worse, it had control of him. Nothing else mattered. Only destruction and blood.

Unable to contain that thirst or the surge of his powers as he yielded to the demon that he’d spent centuries burying, he blew the door from his prison cell.

Akantheus Leucious Forneus was back, and he would not be contained.

Not by anyone for any reason. Thorn was gone now. He was the tool Noir had wanted him to be, and he was ready to destroy any- and everyone who came near him.

As soon as he was free of his cell, he saw a demon who shrank back, cowering at his approach. That was mother’s milk to him. He drank the demon’s fear like a fine brandy.

“Where’s Paimon?” he growled.

“I don’t know, my lord.”

Too bad. Thorn ripped him to pieces and smiled at the sound of his dying agony. That was what he needed. The sound of misery to keep him company.

But he was far from finished.

There were more victims waiting for him. Many, many more.

First though, he had one in particular he wanted to beat.

One who’d created him and left him to wallow this state.

Determined to rip apart his father, he headed for Noir’s throne room.

His wings sprang out from his back as he flew into the room where his father was busy plotting with Azura.

Both of them turned toward him with a stern glower.

His father came to his feet “How dare …” His voice trailed off. “Thorn?”

“Forneus,” he growled. “Thorn’s dead.”

Azura and Noir exchanged a confused stare an instant before Forneus rushed his father.

Noir sent a god-bolt at him, but it didn’t do any good. He caught the bolt and sent it straight back at Noir.

“You wanted a weapon … I am one.” And he was done being controlled. Grabbing his father, he threw Noir through a wall.

Azura shrieked as she came at his back.

Forneus caught her, then backhanded her. She fell away from him.

When Noir started toward him, Forneus hit him with another god-bolt. “Don’t,” he growled. “For once, you’re going to do my bidding.”

And he was about to show the gods what a real warrior was capable of.