I couldn’t even leave their presence because bond sickness still strummed through my veins.
The men who were instruments of mass slaughter depended on me because I was the only one who could stop them once they started killing.
The High Court had known all along what I’d have to do in this war.
They’d known my soul was tethered.
They’d known I would never escape.
Because at the end of the day, nothing had changed.
I was still enslaved.
To monsters.
Part Two
Conflagration
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
―Nietzsche
Chapter 8
Aran
WAR
Conflagration （noun）： a large disastrous fire.
DAY 1, HOUR 3
I fantasized about slamming my head into the chalkboard.
Eight hours ago, when we’d returned from our scouting mission to the first ungodly settlement, Jax sent the soldiers back to their barracks to await instructions. The shifters, angels, and our legion piled into the strategy room to plan.
After two useless hours of trying to brainstorm as a group, Jinx, Malum, and I had been elected as the unofficial war strategists.
The planning was better now that the angels weren’t arguing with everyone and Sadie wasn’t giving inane suggestions every five minutes.
It still wasn’t going well.
“We forgot to factor in that we need to move quietly. Erase it and start again,” Jinx said with exasperation.
She sat on the long table in front of the chalkboard with a ferret draped across her shoulders like a scarf. Warren hung limply with his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
He appeared dead, but I knew we weren’t that lucky.
Jinx held out her pointer stick and tapped it on the board demandingly. Pillows were piled up behind her back, and the remaining portion of her leg was wrapped in white gauze.
We were still waiting on an enchanted prosthetic, or even a hover chair. How the High Court had not acquired either by now was beyond me.
Jinx scowled at me like I was an idiot.
I glared back.
If there were a window in the strategy room, I would have chucked myself out of it eight hours ago. There wasn’t. I’d double-checked.
Instead, I gritted my teeth as I erased the battle strategy from the board that we’d spent the past hour working on.
The worst part was that she was right.
Again.
We’d stupidly forgotten that we had to eliminate the ungodly quietly.
The numbers on the board mocked me: seven academy, five shifters, six angels, four assassins, three devils, six leviathans, sixty-nine foot soldiers.
One hundred soldiers total.
It wasn’t a large number.
The best part of it was if anyone died, they couldn’t be replaced, compliments of the dumbass contract signed by the High Court and the sun god.
Loophole-proof.
Depression-inducing.
Mania-fueling.
I was exhausted after trying to consider the strengths of all our fighters, the best way to kill the ungodly, battle formations, and how to secure the perimeter of the palatial settlement.
Jinx pushed her black sunglasses higher up her nose.
The room was dimly lit, but she wore them as a peace offering to show she wouldn’t erase our memories anymore.
My right eye twitched.
I wasn’t mollified.
Jinx could be altering our memories every day and we’d have no clue. Sadie was a big advocate for the glasses, and the shifter legion seemed to think they were sufficient, which made sense—they were all idiots.
Said idiots were currently sitting on the floor in the back of the room playing a card game with Orion and Scorpius to pass the time, as if we were at a social gathering and not preparing for war.
The demons were the only people in the room who had the decency to sit slumped over, looking depressed.
Everyone else was smiling and chitchatting.
A headache throbbed harder in my temple, and the eraser in my hand was streaked with ice as cold burned my fingertips.
Lately I was covered in ice, and it seemed to expand out around me.
I shivered as I remembered the blue flames that had trailed off Mother’s fingers when she was feeling emotional.
Was I becoming just like her?
Sweat dripped down my temple, and I wiped it away before it could freeze.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
I focused on the numbers and not the emotions scouring my insides.
An angel laughed loudly, and I jolted.
They lounged in the leather chairs and sipped from china cups like aristocrats suffering ennui. Rina had made a call into her earpiece, and a worker had appeared with a tea cart and finger food.