Page 79 of The Simurgh

‘Badh! Badh, no!’

Somewhere distantly the women were screaming…for their brother…for their father to protect them. Iblis keened like the best of the banshee, struggling against the molten flame that held him pinned, tearing himself wider and wider open as he sought to escape.

‘I’m sorry,’ he rasped. ‘I’m sorry.’

The apology was not for Pitch. Iblis did not even look his way, his focus was solely on the sorcerers, where Macha tried so hard to go to him and Nemain held her back.

The Watcher angel did not use the halo again. He was barely holding onto it at all, consumed by an extraordinary grief. Pitch darted a sliver of flame at the blade as it slipped from the angel’s grasp, sending it far beyond his reach.

The glove at Pitch’s right hand dissolved, releasing him. His wings flared as the sudden drop startled him, and Iblis was released, crumpling like a ruined house of cards.

Pitch’s feet hit the ground, and it was exquisite agony. He was on his knees in an instant, not quite ready for how heavy he felt, back upon his feet. The muscles in his arms spasmed, shocked at being able to move freely once more. Gods, he was a ball of heat and stiffness. And not in any good way at all. He grabbed at Harut’s ashen corpse to steady himself, and the angel fell away to nothing beneath his touch.

‘Mercy.’ Iblis coughed and something dark and viscous spewed from his lips. He crouched on hands and knees, his wings shimmering, and dripping. Their translucent substance like melting ice running from his back. His midriff was a glowing ember, still burning from Pitch’s touch. The pain would be excruciating. ‘Show them mercy, your highness.’

Mercy? Badh had shown no mercy at Gidleigh Park House when he drugged the eclairs, then stood by watching as Pitch was assaulted. And Nemain showed none when she forced Silas underwater at the greensward. Macha knew the Dullahan’s whip would cause the ankou excruciating pain. What of her ash-men, and those captive teratisms that had nearly torn Silas apart when he sought to free them? Had they shown mercy?

And it was hardly just Pitch and Silas who had suffered.

The skriker.

Robin. Major Oak.

Ronin.

Scarlet.

Sybilla.

Pitch shook his head, his wings of flame like wild horses straining to be free. ‘I am not a merciful creature, Iblis. Not in this matter.’

Something broke behind Iblis’s eyes as he made a misguided attempt to stand.

‘You are nothing.’ He spat globules of black. ‘You have failed your master. The Cultivation is gone. And if not this day, it shall be another, soon, when we will have the Watcher King’s halo. It is the Exarch’s legacy. One that will be realised, no matter what you do to me.’

‘I have failed?’ Pitch laughed, and somewhere in that sad huddle of cloak and feathers that were the two sorcerers, Macha giggled, too. Nemain hushed her sister, whispering that it would all be okay. Macha asked what time they would be having cupcakes today, for she did love lemon cupcakes. The sorcerer had lost her mind. ‘You are the one with a furnace for innards.’

‘I know you are a cruel creature,’ Iblis said. ‘But if anything of you has changed as they say, then show it now. Make their ends quick.’

‘Cruelty is you involving them here,’ Pitch replied, when he should have been ending this. Should have still been incandescent with rage, near to mindless without a vestige to keep semblance of control. ‘Choosing a side for them, in a fight they need not have waged.’

Iblis’s laughter was a steel trap closing. ‘What other side was there for them? They’d be in a grave of the Valkyrie’s making if I’d not claimed them. The Order made their lives forfeit when they were still in the womb. I made a haven for them here amongst the UnSeelie.’

For the life of him, Pitch could think of no return, for he knew Sybilla, the Order’s witch hunter, had been tasked with doing exactly that– annihilating all with maleficium.

Nemain wrapped her arms tighter around her sister, begging her to hush as Macha sang a fae lullaby and rocked on her heels.

Not exactly formidable opponents.

Pitch rolled his shoulders. The blood was returned to his extremities, warm and soothing, tempering the lashing molten fury of his flame. Which was fucking infuriating. He owed them no show of mercy.

He focused on all the terrible, unwelcome things that the Morrigan had done to him, to Silas, over these past few months. Let that build up the fire where it had faltered.

The sorcerers could have altered course. They could have chosen to leave him be.

Gods, why had everyone, angel and witch alike, not just let him be?

The miniature infernos built upon his palms. His battered body shook with all the resurfacing rage. And now he had fresh fuel for the fire.