Page 55 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)

Chapter fifty-one

Reina

D ust from their impact fills the air. We all hold our breaths. Who will emerge victorious? How had they ascended so quickly? Answers mortals can’t know.

Then I feel her—or rather I feel myself. My magic moves inside her.

I close my eyes, forsaking my vision as I just let myself feel. Her body is a battlefield of its own, full of magic all going to war. She’s converting and consuming the darkness at a terrifying rate, but it’s not all cleansed. It’s not becoming part of her.

It’s overtaking her.

The oily black of Ashai slithers around my fire and chokes the thread of Alyse.

If I don’t do something, it’s going to win out.

Jasper murmurs my name, and I feel his touch on my shoulder like a distant call home.

I can’t return yet. I must help her fight this.

Without Alyse’s power, Scarlett will fall.

The only way to save her is to burn Ashai.

I tap into my connection to the essence inside my sister. Some of it is still part of me, and it senses my command.

Chase and hunt.

Burn the invader.

Wind rushes past me and jerks my attention to my body. Scarlett flies over us on the Wall, held aloft by strings of dark power and pushed by the wind. Zane calls out to her, as does Lily, but she doesn’t respond. She’s so fast. Too fast.

I reach out, trying to command the bit of fire in her to burn brighter, to give her control. Scarlett drops from the sky into the streets of the Underbelly.

“What’s happening to her?” Zane asks.

Alyse sends thoughts and images to us in a way that transcends conversation. All at once everyone knows that Scarlett is battling the insidious desires of Ashai, and that my flames are coursing through her…

Killing her.

She’s too interwoven with the darkness. She believes there is no way to save Scarlett and kill Ashai. The knowledge hits me like a slap to the face. She knew. Scarlett and Alyse both knew that she would die for us.

But did they know that Ashai would continue to rule in her magic, controlling Scarlett’s desires, changing her personality? Did they know she wouldn’t be herself after the fact, and that I would be left to clean up the aftermath?

“I’m sorry, sister.” Alyse’s voice is little comfort, only confirmation.

She knew my role in this, just like Scarlett knew hers.

Well, fuck that.

I’m undoing the threads of fate.

I reach into my hip pouch and remove the special cocktail Adrik created for this battle. There’s a fleeting worry for him and Captain Alejandra, but their deaths will be confirmed and mourned later, if they’re gone .

I snap the cork off and throw my head back, downing the contents of the vial.

The potion burns through my body like flame eats parchment.

Not an ounce of weakness is left in the wake of this powerful concoction.

I clench my fists and flex my arms. They don’t tremble like they used to, and I know I can fly.

“Rei, no!” Jasper yells, but I’m already jumping.

I’ll find her.

I’ll fix this.

Flame shoots from my hands and slows my descent. I position my arms behind me and make my body ramrod straight. I shoot through the air toward where Scarlett fell. People scream below me, fleeing from an evil that’s already penetrated the city.

Scarlett doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she’ll bring about the end if I don’t stop her. I can sense her hunger. Her desire for vengeance and power. Her thirst stokes the yearning within me, too. I want to feast with her on the bones of the gods. I wonder if Alyse feels it too.

“More than you know.”

I put the gnawing appetite out of my mind as I hunt her, following the scent of my fire within her. Blood calls to blood and I sense her moving toward the Nest. I burn over the terra-cotta roofs. The snow melts in my wake and drips through the streets, washing the fearful.

This will soon be over, and they won’t have to fear anymore.

Faster now, I follow into the darkness that consumes her, praying I’m not too late before it consumes us, too.

The Nest comes into view. There’s a blazing hole carved through the rooftop that could only be my power.

I drop into the burning building and call the fire into me as I go, extinguishing the flames.

The stones of the basement have been peeled away like flower petals, as if Lily’s magic was used to push the material that couldn’t be burned.

Down, down, down I plummet until I land beside her in the darkness. Blue ripples off me and lights the walls, silhouetting Scarlett.

“You can’t stop me,” she says, her voice modulated with an otherworldly hum.

“I don’t mean to,” I say. “I just want to save you.”

“Save me,” she says on a laugh. “I don’t need saving.”

She reaches into the black and her fist grasps something.

“You do,” I urge. “Please.”

She pulls, and a neck emerges from wispy darkness, then a face and chest. Zephrom is grasping Scarlett’s hand, kicking her legs furiously as she claws her flesh. Her nails leave red marks on Scarlett’s skin, and I know that those scraps would flay me open.

“The gods ruled us like children with playthings,” Scarlett says, glaring at the struggling Zephrom. “They pull the strings of fate at their whim, drowning our crops, or sending drought. They care not for anything but their entertainment, and our prayers. You would be better without them.”

I push my flames closer, burning the reaching vines of Ashai’s power before they touch me. Scarlett’s black gaze snaps to my face in a challenge, but it softens when she sees me.

“Little Sunbeam, can’t you see I’m trying to give you a future?”

Black veins snake through Zephrom’s face, eating her magic from the inside out. My goddess is dying.

“I’m scared that once you’ve taken Zephrom, you’ll grow sick with hunger. I feel it even now, sister, the desire for more,” I say, placing my hand against my gut where the aspiration for greatness lies. “I want you to keep yourself. ”

“I am myself,” she booms, and the world trembles.

She lifts her chin and gold sparkles in her black eyes.

“My true self.”

Zephrom gasps for air and beats her fist on Scarlett’s elbow to no effect.

The power in her swells. She’s beyond my strength—she always was—but there’s no way down for her except of her own volition.

“Scarlett, please. Don’t become like them.”

“You would call me a monster?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

Her nostrils flare and her gaze darts away from me.

“I’ve behaved like one, it’s true, but when it comes to human lives, suffering, I have always been kinder. I didn’t kill unless it was necessary. I didn’t maim if it could be avoided. I have always been more just than her, ” she growls, bearing down on Zephrom.

And then, something cracks. The foundation of the earth, my skull, Scarlett’s chest. It all splits open and power spills out. Scarlett lurches forward, gasping as she presses her hands to her vomiting heart.

Zephrom disappears in a burst of black. Her presence flees entirely, abandoning the stronghold she’s been cultivating for centuries. The Nest is empty, the urictsa gone…

Scarlett screams as liquid heat pours out of her. I dive forward, reaching for the essence spilling from her chest. It’s like lava, searing me before I can even get close. I want to scoop it up and shove it back inside her, but it’s so hot it feels like my fingers are melting off the bones.

“Zane,” she gasps, color draining from her face. “My Sp…der Lord.”

“I’ll tell him,” I say, touching her arms briefly. She’s so hot, it’s unbearable.

The lava pouring out of her doesn’t stop, swelling in size until the pool is pushing me back. It melts the stones, and every one that disappears into the heat, consumed by the fire of power, becomes more power. As if she’s eating Gaien itself and transforming it.

Ashai will scorch the earth.

Is this what Zephrom meant? Is this what she wanted? Why else would she put herself in such danger? Why allow Scarlett to pull so much power from her before disappearing?

She used us.

“What do I do?” I ask, hitting the ground beside her.

She reaches for the essence, dragging her fingers through the burning stone and pulling it onto her lap. Some of it is absorbed back into her, but it doesn’t stop burning. Her skin glows orange from underneath, the semi-immortal body overburdened by too much arcane power.

Her desperate gaze levels into my eyes. “Run.”

I shake my head. “I have to help you.”

She groans, pulling more of the power into herself.

It’s so hot…

It’s heat.

I thrust my hands over the spilled essence and activate my magic. The agony is white-hot, blindingly numbing, but I can feel it siphoning into me. It’s still not enough. My body is full to bursting in seconds.

I lift my head and scream, releasing a beam of heat to the heavens. I don’t know how long I can be her conduit. I don’t know if I can do enough to spare her. Tears evaporate from my eyes. My throat is seared raw. I can take no more .

I fall back against the wall and see the damage I’ve caused. The building is gone, vaporized from the strength of my attack. I hope it was evacuated when Scarlett fell through the roof…I can’t worry about the Spiders now.

Scarlett is scraping the molten magic into her chest and pressing it to herself as if she can seal the wound. She reaches out, her hands splayed, and pulls the essence back into her.

The pool is growing faster than she can contain it. A whirlwind of blistering hexcraft whips around her in a sphere from her attempts. The magic spills out of her again and again, creating a machine of blazing arcana.

I scoot back toward the stairs that lead to blackened rubble, trying to escape the lava that singes my feet. I yank them back and scramble harder. The torrid wind batters my hair, kicking ashes into my mouth.

Helplessness comes in the form of tears that evaporate straight out of my eyes. I can do nothing to stop this. I can do nothing to save myself, or her.

“Climb if you can. Help is coming.” Alyse’s words feel far away.

I grab at the rubble, my tender fingers bleeding on the charred stone. I haul myself out of the growing pit of fire.

Black moves in my periphery—a spider.

Not any spider, but Iksah.

He throws a white lasso of magic around my outstretched arm and reels me from danger. I look down on Scarlett from the decimated main floor. Teal and purple move across the rooftops to the north, but they’re still too far away to help. What could they do, anyway?

“I can help.” Iksah’s chittering voice fills my head. “I can do this for her. ”

The giant spider leaps into the burning pit. I scream for him to stop, that there’s nothing he can do, but my voice is hoarse and quiet.

With insane speed, the spider leaps from stone to stone, creating a lattice of white silk that glows with power. It’s a net. The heat of Scarlett’s spilled magic batters the spider’s cover, ripping it at the edges until the whole thing collapses.

Iksah’s eyes rotate up to me and he touches the straps of the egg harness across his chest. It’s too late, and he knows it. Even if he left the egg in my care, how would we replicate more of the venom without Scarlett’s blood? We can’t…

They’re both damned.

He leaps into the pit with Scarlett and weaves from ground to wall, wrapping her in a shield thicker than before. Each pass of his silk glows faintly red, then green, blue, and finally gold. It shimmers with the essence of all our powers as it absorbs Scarlett’s.

She roars as the silk tightens, pulling all the spilled magic back into her until she’s cocooned with it. Iksah holds the wrap with all his might and I stare on helplessly.

Zane’s voice snaps me from the sight in the pit. I look over my shoulder to see Adrik landing with Kazimir, followed closely by Jasper in wolf form. Alastair lands with Lily and Alyse under his massive demon arms.

Zane vaults from Jasper’s back and approaches the edge of the pit.

“Scarlett!”

The agony of his scream throws my heart into my throat. I’m crying again, but these tears stay, running down my face and splattering the stones.

“You have to open the doorway,” Alyse says. “I can help open it to a new place. She’ll be able to spread the magic out there. ”

Adrik limps forward, producing the final flask of what we thought was goddess-ending potion from his bag. He looks emaciated, ruined from the inside.

“I can do it,” Zane says, reaching toward him.

Adrik holds out the flask and Zane takes it with an unsteady hand. When the potion is in his grasp, the emotion bleeds from his face, like he’s turned to stone. He scales the walls into the pit with his spindles, but they’re melting with every step he takes.

“Tell me she’ll live,” he yells, holding the beaker over the writhing, silk-wrapped Scarlett.

“I can’t promise that,” Alyse says into our minds.

Zane hesitates, his hand retracting an inch.

“Do it!” Alyse commands, but there’s not enough arcane power left in her to force him.

Scarlett screams and the wall splits. Gelatinous fire eats up the space left in the pit, and Iksah chitters in pain. Zane’s hand trembles.

He can’t do it.

But I can.

I’ll do my duty that Alyse condemned me to without my consent.

Sister killer.

World saver.

I point my finger and narrow a beam of my power. The neck of the flask shatters in Zane’s grip and the potion crashes down on Scarlett and Iksah.

The world holds its breath for the second time.

Sound and time stop. Only light pierces the veil, ripping through the realms at this epicenter of power.

The doorway is as black and abyssal as before, but there are no hellbeasts on the other side.

There is no army waiting to topple out. It’s peaceful there.

Maybe they’ll find peace .

Iksah hugs Scarlett tightly and falls into the doorway out of time and space, taking my sister away forever. It snaps shut like a thunderclap, leaving nothing behind but the ashes of a scarred past…

And us, to rebuild the future.