The ungodly weren’t so lucky.
The blizzard was merciless.
My limbs tingled with awareness—I could feel every flake of snow that covered the mountain plateau. It was rapturous. I was free.
I tipped my head back and laughed as the weather raged.
I was the storm.
The power was intoxicating.
I felt like a god.
The temperatures kept plummeting. The infected died from the un-survivable cold, then ungodly ripped from their carcasses. The monsters flailed helplessly as snow piled around them.
Colder. Colder. Colder.
Crack. I slammed my staff down on the rocks.
Just like the claws adorning my hands, the snowbanks covering the plateau turned razor-sharp.
Every snowflake transformed into a serrated blade.
Crack.
Hundreds of ungodly were sawed into pieces.
Instant death.
Horse shrieked into the wind as he flapped his majestic golden-red wings. I tipped my head back and yelled with him.
The blizzard raged.
I needed to test every living person’s soul; I needed to cleanse all the realms of darkness; I was reckoning incarnate; I was here.
Someone yelled something at me, but I couldn’t hear them above the wind.
Turning, I faced the angels who were frozen in place.
I’d start with them.
Almost black flames flickered weakly above the angels’ heads. They weren’t fully corrupt, but they were close. Far away, down the side of the mountain, eight warm bodies were frozen still, and three of the souls were also nearly irredeemable.
A smirk twisted my frozen lips.
I didn’t believe in redeeming the impure. I would execute them to save the pure.
“Stop! You don’t want to hurt them,” Jinx’s voice screamed inside my brain. I smiled because she was wrong.
I did.
Horse flew off my staff and settled onto my shoulder.
Someone bellowed something in my face and shook me, but I barely noticed.
I lifted my staff and—flames slammed against me.
The world burned.
Scarlet fire.
Everywhere.
I staggered back as the numbing cold retreated from my limbs. I slowly came back to awareness. Tiredness hit me like a hammer, and my knees gave out.
Two people caught me.
“You’re okay, sweetheart.” Orion knelt in front of me, and his lyrical voice washed over me like honey. “You did amazing.”
Scorpius knelt beside him. A tattooed eye was wide with worry as it stared at me.
“Good girl,” Luka whispered in my ear, and I realized the twins were holding me upright.
Flames danced around all of us.
The warmth intensified as Malum stepped closer. Fire poured off his hands onto me.
“I conquered,” he said. “I conquered you, my Arabella.”
Malum’s eyes widened. “That’s why you fell asleep each time we practiced. You were never meant to stop me. I was born to stop you. You’re the powerful one. It has always been you.
Scorpius tipped his head back and laughed. “This entire time, she’s been the blizzard—that’s my killer.”
I tried to smile back, but my lips were numb with cold.
Sheer power strummed through my veins.
I was frozen.
“Go to sleep,” Malum whispered, his flames surrounding me in a cocoon of peace. “We’ll take care of you. You did so well.”
Sleepiness dragged my eyes lower and made my limbs heavy.
Horse shifted on my shoulders.
He was also on fire.
He nuzzled his cheek feathers against the side of my face, then pecked like he was giving me kisses. He chirped three times, and it felt like he was saying “I love you.”
I kissed his feathered head gently.
He looked at me with adoration.
Scarlet flames trailed across his feathers, and he disintegrated into ash. The storm carried him away.
I blinked frozen lashes in horror.
A tear froze as it streaked down my cheek.
“A phoenix,” John whispered with wonder.
It hit me.
I understood.
Mother had set me on fire until I was incoherent. The High Court had mutilated my soul and I’d lived a colorless life—but suffering didn’t define my existence.
I didn’t struggle to control my power.
I was power.
Horse and I would rise from the ashes.
We would survive.
I yawned, and in the space between consciousness and sleep, the meaning behind Lyla’s warning, “You must embrace the dragon,” became clear.
It had been me all along.
I was the dragon of the House of Malum.
Part Four
Convalescence
“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”