Page 12 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter eleven

Scarlett

F ire blooms in the sky like a sprouting mushroom, a massive wave of blue, red, and orange reaching for the afterlife. It must be leagues high. The destruction left in its wake will be known for generations.

The blast is blinding to my human eye, but I can watch it through the compression of Zane’s magic in my hollow socket.

The others around me shield themselves from the brightness, so I alone see the rippling wave of magic heading toward us.

It detonates flimsier buildings and cracks those made of stone.

I snap my spindles around the two closest Spiders and toss them behind the nearest sturdy wall, then wrap my arms around Zane and dive off of the road.

We hit the alley with a thud, followed by a heavy whoosh that makes the ground shudder.

My chest aches and the runes on my arms burn with Reina’s power. I’ve absorbed it.

I sit up and look at the road. Our opponents are lying flat, pushed over from the sheer power of the blast. Ashai’s dark magic oozes out of them in wisps and disappears in the blue-glittering air.

We must’ve done it. Her essence couldn’t have survived a direct hit of this power .

Fire simmers in my blood and I tremble from the strength of the magic in me. I’ll need to expel it soon.

“Hurt, my love?” Zane asks.

I shake my head, despite the runes on my arms throbbing angrily.

He gets to his feet, then offers me his hand. “We need to assess the battlefield.”

I nod, accepting his help. The Spiders in the opposite alley shake their heads and blink their eyes.

“On your feet, soldiers. This may not be over,” he says.

“Yes, sir,” they reply, shaking off the blast that I just can’t seem to get over.

Zane holds my arm as the world cants to the side. It’s as if I’m standing on the deck of a ship in the middle of a turbulent storm.

“Fuck is going on?” I ask, my words slurred.

Zane’s scowling face appears before me. I grab onto his shoulders as the spinning intensifies. I’m going to be sick.

You’re going to be sick…

Bile coats the back of my throat.

“Just breathe,” Zane says, his voice sounding a mile away.

I take a deep inhale of dusty air that smells like death.

You’re going to be sick.

Vomit barrels up my esophagus, and I turn away, retching onto the street.

You feel weak.

“What’s happening?” I say, or I think I say.

“She’s inside you. Lily, too.” Alyse’s voice is clear in my mind, as if she’s next to me. Her presence brings stability to my world and I gain my footing.

You’re too weak to fight this .

“She’s attempting to take hold of you.” Alyse is there again, strong and bright, her golden magic pushing through my body. The spinning stops and my ears pop, bringing sound back into focus. “I’ve cordoned her off, for now.”

“Bring her to the palace. There’s something you all need to see.”

Zane nods reflexively, then grabs my chin and turns my face up to his. Concern wrinkles his brow, so I smile to assuage the very worry I feel deep in the pit of my stomach.

“I’m all right, love.”

He cups my cheek and thumbs the skin below my empty socket. He stares into the hole of my missing eye with a snarl that raises the hair on the back of my neck.

His gaze shifts to my eye. “She’s inside you.”

I flash a smirk. “Jealous?”

His jaw flexes.

“Not in a joking mood, I see.”

He scoops me off my feet and I let out a startled yelp as I cling to him.

“I can walk,” I say, making it clear in my tone that I want to walk.

“We’re not walking.”

His spindles grow and flex, lifting us from the ground. He looks back at the pair of Spiders still shaking off the blast.

“We’re headed to the palace to assess the situation. Meet up with your squad at your designated hold point and await instructions.”

“Sir,” they say in unison.

Zane pulls his legs up and crosses them under me, creating a cradle with his whole body. It’s as if I’m breakable—

Or dangerous.

He’s shielding the world from me .

His spindles launch us forward into a swift but elegant skitter. Zane looks ahead, but I can only look at him.

“Do you fear me?” I ask.

His eyes stay locked straight ahead. “I fear for you.”

He fears you.

That’s a lie. You’re a bitch, and that’s a lie.

You’re powerful, much more than him.

“She’s trying to affect my thoughts,” I say.

“I don’t fear you.” Zane looks at me now, a gentleness in his gaze. “I fear what she’ll do to you.”

“Take over my mind, presumably.”

“But will you be gone? I couldn’t…if you were still in there,” he whispers, and I know what he means to say.

He couldn’t kill me if there was hope I was still alive in this vessel with her.

“Don’t worry, Kazimir won’t hesitate.”

Zane’s eyes fill with his magic, their glow highlighting his cheekbones and casting him as a dangerous creature. He looks back at the road, his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Alastair wouldn’t either,” I say.

“He would if it were Liliana.”

“She’s infected, too.”

“And you think he could kill her if it was necessary?” He speaks with venom I know isn’t directed at me but stings all the same.

“No. That’s why you need each other.”

He looks at me with shock and disgust. “We’re not going to be killing each other’s wives.”

I swallow down the fear that this new realization has sparked and steady my voice. “You most certainly will if Ashai attempts to possess me. ”

Zane skids to a stop, grabbing the back of my neck roughly as he kisses me. The fear melts in the warmth of his affection, and I band my arms over his shoulders. He consumes me, pressing harder into the kiss as if he could crawl inside me like the dark goddess has.

He pulls back, panting as he presses his forehead to mine. “There is no power in this world, the nine hells, or even the Overworld, that can take you away from me while I still draw breath.”

The fear swoops back in, but I smile to hide it. “The gods might take that as a challenge.”

“Let them,” he growls, then kisses me again.

I indulge in him for another moment, letting all his strength seep into me. I nip his tongue playfully, and he breaks our kiss, pressing his lips to the hollow of my ear.

“If this were any other time, you would be bare-assed in that alley taking my cock so deep Nol’Ther would be summoned.”

I smile and nip his earlobe. “I look forward to when this time has passed.”

He vaults forward, pushing us back into motion at an ever-faster pace. The closer we get to the palace, the deeper the destruction. Buildings blown apart, stone seared black, and…bodies. Charred things contorted in fear and agony.

We did this.

You murdered your own citizens with indiscriminate recklessness. You are not fit to lead.

Shut up, cunt.

Dread fills the silence as we arrive at the palace.

The bodies here are crystalized in black, shimmering magic. A hundred of them stand vigil like stone guardians around the inner moat. Zane lifts a spindle and touches a statue that was once a man. His magic peels back before it brushes the surface, rejected entirely .

“It’s infused with her, shielded by her,” he says.

“Come to the field by the archive,” Alyse calls us.

We leave the sentries behind and move through the gardens. Gazebos are flattened and trees are upended. The grass is black, and nothing grows. The smell is beyond putrid, and I close off my nose to breathe through my mouth.

We clear the back of the building and see the horror Alyse had warned would be here.

Spiders and queen’s guard stand in concentric rings with their arms upraised, bodies surrendered to the towering statue of Ashai.

The dark goddess is wrapped in the same blackened magic that turned the guards to stone at the front, and despite Lily’s best efforts to slice through it, the shield holds strong.

“She’s consumed their magic to cocoon herself,” Alastair says.

“How long will it last?” Zane asks as he sets me down.

Alastair shakes his head. “Unknown. I’ve never seen this.”

Lily roars as she throws runic casts at the fifteen-foot embodiment of the goddess. The green magic splashes against her legs and fizzles into brilliant sparks.

“We need to consult Cora,” I say. “With her prophetic magic, surely she can help us.”

“It could put the outcome at risk,” Alastair says.

“And if the outcome is our destruction, would she not tell us how to avoid it?” Reina demands.

Jasper squeezes her shoulders. “If the outcome is our destruction and the preservation of Gaien, she might.”

Reina clenches her mouth shut, blue magic simmering in the scars of her arms.

“This must be a dark spell we can counter,” Kazimir says. “Nothing in this world is impenetrable. ”

“Ashai is not of this world,” Alyse says.

Lily screams, clawing at the statue with bestial rage. The black magic shimmers, shearing her claws down until her fingers bleed.

Alastair pumps his wings, makes a single massive leap over the crystalized bodies of the soldiers, and snatches Lily away. “You’re hurting yourself, wife.”

Lily kicks and snarls. “She thinks she can take me! She thinks she owns me! I am me, not you! Not you!”

I look at Alyse. Are you helping her as you are me?

“I am. It appears to be less effective, despite my efforts.”

I cross the singed grass and grab Lily’s arm. “Stop thrashing like a wild animal.”

She bares her sharpened teeth at me, malevolence burning in her green eyes, but she calms.

Zane grabs the back of my neck and whispers against my temple. “Please, don’t.”

I glance at him over my shoulder. “I must. She’s my sister.”

I suck down a deep breath and close my eyes. I’ve never sought out a specific power in something, but I know I can. I can sift through all that is Lily and take away only Ashai.

I touch her face and find the little worm wriggling in her spine. I pull on it, summoning the dark magic to the surface. It slips away down her back. The hunt is on. Lily screams in pain as I give chase, sliding my hand down to her stomach.

I sense a small flicker of something…else. But there’s no time to investigate that—the stupid bitch is trying to bury herself deeper. The magic fights me, but I pull, drawing some of Lily along with it, but I get her. I open my eyes and will the bit of Ashai out into the open.

Perhaps I can cast her out and she’ll dissipate .

When she’s fully ousted, the magic thrashes like Lily had, fighting desperately. I cage my fingers around it, and Alastair pulls Lily away. I slacken my hold, attempting to set the essence free. It darts toward Lily, and I snap Zane’s magic around it, capturing it again.

If I lessen my hold, she’ll just dive back into my sister.

I have to take it into me.

I draw my spindles into my chest. The squirming evil fights my hold as I thrust it into my own gut.

The magic batters my stomach, trying to get back into Lily, but then I sense the darkness in me move to meet the new essence.

It surrenders then, accepting my body as it joins with the other bit of Ashai.

“What have you done?” Zane whispers.

I swallow back bile. “What was necessary.”

Lily pants, wide-eyed as she stares at me. She looks down at her arms, then back to me. “You took her.”

“I have before, in the Dark Room.”

“We must consult Zephrom,” Alastair says.

Kazimir scoffs. “You think the goddess will come on a whim?”

“She’s already waiting for us,” Alyse says. Her eyes lock on mine. “She knows what you’ve done.”

I would do it again.

Her eyes shimmer with gold. “Good.”