But the sprites kept their fire concentrated on the machines and their pilots. And as Lidia hit the ground, as the missiles exploded upon contact with the flames, she cast the last of her power upward. To shield the allied forces fighting behind them and the fire sprites now ahead of her from the shrapnel, which melted until it became raining, molten metal.
It hissed where it hit the earth.
Irithys blazed like a blue star, shooting from machine to machine, leaving burning death in her wake. The three other sprites followed suit. Where they shimmered, imperial forces died.
And as the enemy melted at their fingertips … for a moment, just one, Lidia allowed herself to kindle a spark of hope.
* * *
“I’m okay,” Tharion panted, blood leaking from his mouth. “I’m okay.”
“I call bullshit,” Ruhn said, kneeling beside the mer, fumbling through his pack for the vial Lidia had mentioned. The mer would be dead already without the antidote in his veins. But if Ruhn didn’t do something to help Tharion now, he’d surely be dead in a few minutes.
“Get him into a sitting position,” Actaeon was saying to his brother. “Get his head above his chest so the blood doesn’t go out too fast.”
“We have to help her,” Brann said. “She’s out on the battlefield—”
“You guys aren’t going anywhere,” Ruhn said to the boys. He found the clear vial and knocked it back. “Help me get Ketos up. We’ve got two seconds before those shithead guards come back, maybe with Rigelus in tow—”
They didn’t have two seconds.
From the stairwell at the far end of the hall, the two angels who’d held the boys captive emerged. No sign of Rigelus, thank the gods, but right then, whatever was in that potion hit Ruhn’s stomach, his body, and the world tilted, surging, blacking out—
A moment, long enough so that when his vision returned, it was to see the two angels reaching for their guns.
Ruhn exploded.
Starlight, two beams of it straight to their eyes, blinded them. Just as Bryce had done to the Murder Twins. Twin whips of his shadows wrapped around their necks and squeezed.
“What the fuck,” Brann said, but Ruhn barely heard him. There was only power, surging as it never had before. His mind was starkly clear as he willed the shadows to begin slicing through angelic flesh.
Blood spurted. Bone cracked. Two heads rolled to the ground.
“Holy shit,” Brann breathed. Actaeon was gaping at Ruhn.
“The mer,” the kid said, whirling back to where Tharion had passed out again.
“Fuck,” Ruhn spat, and put a hand to Tharion’s chest to staunch the bleeding—
Warm, bright magic answered. Healing magic, rising to the surface as if it had been dormant in his blood.
He had no idea how to use it, how to do anything other than will it with a simple Save him.
In answer, light poured from his hands, and he could feel Tharion’s flesh and bone knitting back together beneath his fingers, mending, healing …
It had been a clean shot through the chest and out the back. And this new healing magic seemed to know what to do, how to close both entry and exit wounds. It couldn’t replace the blood, but if Ketos was no longer leaking … he might survive.
A shudder rocked the palace, and time slowed.
For a heartbeat, Ruhn thought it might be his own power, but no. He’d felt this before. Just a short time ago, when the world had rippled with what he knew, deep in his bones, was the impact of an Asteri dying. Like an Archangel’s death, but worse.
Another Asteri must be going down.
He willed that lovely, bright power to keep healing Ketos, though. To use the stretch of time to buy more of it for the mer, to heal, heal, heal—
It was eternity, and yet it was nothing. Time resumed, so fast that the boys lost their grip on Tharion, but the wound had healed over. Ruhn grunted as he hoisted the unconscious mer over a shoulder and said to the boys, “We gotta get out of here.”
Half of him wanted to dump the twins somewhere safe and race to wherever Lidia was, but his mate had asked him to protect the two most precious people in her world.
He wouldn’t break a gesture of trust so great. Not for anything.
They tore through the palace, its halls eerily empty. People must have gotten the evacuation order and fled. The guards had even left their stations at the doors and the front gates.
Ruhn and the boys made it into the city streets, and Ruhn reached for his phone to dial Flynn, praying the male had the van nearby. Only then did he get a look at the battlefield beyond the city. The cloud of darkness above the glowing lights.