Blood of Two Crowns (Hallowed Fates #2)

Chapter 48

Chapter

Forty-Eight

AZRAEL

I felt nothing as I stared down at the scorched remains of my palace. I hadn’t particularly enjoyed being there. I mean, it is hell, so I did try to avoid coming here. And when you’re as old as time immemorial, you become rather desensitized to things.

Though what I did find upsetting was the sight of an entire league of my people—even if they were mostly demons—rushing towards the portal, desperate to escape this.

To escape me.

That and the fact that Nakoa, Malekai, fucking Rumiel— that male had always been a thistle in my cock—and a few thousand of Nakoa’s soldiers appeared to be staging a coup.

How very droll.

On four wings, I hovered in the air a couple of dozen feet from Nakoa, heaving a longsuffering sigh.

“Mareina’s solution has proven to be more than sufficient so she’ll be staying put, I’m afraid.”

Shouts and cries went up as Nakoa’s army began to drop like flies. Guilt warred with righteous anger.

The sight of the gilded, cerulean drakonati decimating my people to prevent them from getting through the portal had regret piercing through me at what I feared I would have to do. I tugged firmly at the cord connecting his soul to his body in warning as I willed my Nephilim to fold between me and Nakoa and his army. I could feel their collective reluctance to do so, but they were bound to my will. All except Asterion—because he was something else entirely—and Rumiel, who I had given far too much freedom long ago.

Malekai’s drakonati roared as it’s hungry flames attempted to devor my Nephilim. I could feel the magic of those who perished leave me, weakening me as though it were my own magic.

Fuck.

As if returning his call, I hear the very distinct, magic-laced roar of Ataraxus in response behind me. I twisted to find what appeared to be all of his drakonati damning the skies behind me, only moments away.

Akash-fucking-damn-it.

My helplessness was paralyzing. If I killed everyone, I’d, in turn, be killing myself. Indecision and anger burned through me as I watched what remained of Nakoa’s army slaughter my people in an effort to prevent my demons from breaching the portal and wreaking havoc in their realm. With each of their deaths, my power weakened further.

Nakoa had already somehow worked his way through so many of my Nephilim that within moments, he was only feet away from me. Drenched in blood, vengeance and fury burning in the twin black pools of his eyes as they locked with mine. Instinct had me reaching for the cord binding soul to body.

Within that split second, I attempted to sever it, blinding pain shot through me. The face of a dark male with silver eyes flashed within my mind as I tried to recover, and I summoned another onslaught of my nephilim as Nakoa leapt towards me, sword raised to relieve my body of its head.

With a few hundred nephilim pummelling Nakoa across the battlefield, I launched myself into the air, eyes scanning.

Get to Mareina.

I swivelled to find Mareina cutting her way through my nephilim at a speed my eyes could barely follow—but still remained well out of reach of Ataraxus, Nakoa, or Malekai. While she wouldn’t have any memory of the latter two, I had no doubt she would follow them through the portal the moment she had the chance.

My breath caught a fraction of a moment later when my eyes snagged on the dark crimson shadow fighting in the opposite direction to guard her back.

She connected with her arcanum.

I was thoroughly dismayed at the sight. What could possibly be worse than one bloodthirsty and insatiable Goddess of Death?

Two of them.

Akash-fucking-damn-it-all-to-hell.

I could feel my own arcanum, Cerebus, howling to be set free, but I didn’t dare set her free to meet Mareina’s wrath. Cerebus was the only love I had left in my life.

I soared towards her just as Ataraxus’ deafening roar pierced my ears. A preface to his flames engulfing me and being roasted like a bird on fucking spit.

Rude.

My rage was silenced by the hungry flames attempting to devour me as my wings propelled me forward.

I visualized his life’s thread and willed my hellfire to consume it. Ataraxus’ flames ceased, but I’m stunned to discover the tensile resilience of his life force. Or perhaps the weakening of my own. Ataraxus’s wings gave out, and as I weaved away, he swiped out with his talons, scoring my back and wings. Again, I willed his life’s cord to be severed as a rage tore from my throat at the blinding pain.

Crashing into the hazardous ruin of my palace, the battle behind us was now nothing more than a distant roar of violent death.

The ground shuddered beneath the collision of Ataraxus’ body as I was skewered on a rogue metal rod sticking out of the detritus of my palace.

I gasped for breath that wouldn’t come as blood spilled from my lips. My wings pounded at the air behind me, gradually inching me off the rod. My wings gave a final pound against the air, and I collapsed in a heap on a broken slab of marble.

The eyes of one of Persephone’s fractured statues watched me as I laid there while my wounds healed. I could hear her voice inside my mind, admonishing me. My wounds couldn’t heal fast enough, if for that reason alone.

I finally crawled to standing and made my way towards Ataraxus’ motionless form, waiting for the sensation of his life force to dissipate, taking a part of me with it, but I realized there were too many cumulative lives and the magic of my people dying in droves to discern his. At the sight of his body gradually shifting back to its fae form, caused by the dissipating of his magic, I was satisfied enough to leave.

Such a fucking pity…

Now to find Mareina and end this.

As I returned to the skies, my eyes passed over the battlefield. The sight before me had dread sinking like an anvil in my gut. Thousands of dead drakonati, nephilim, demons, humans, fae, and the like were strewn across my land as far as my eyes could see.

This has to stop.

More than just seeing , I could feel my people dying as though Akash herself had put a fucking syphon on my power.

How were they all dying so fast? I’ll be dead before they are at this rate.

A cloud of red caught my eyes as Mareina’s magic devoured nephilim as it passed over them.

It was then I could no longer deny it was a mistake bringing her here.

Now the solution was no longer keeping her but killing her.

Persephone and Mors will never forgive you, the insidious voice of my conscience whispered.

They already want nothing to do with me, so what difference does it make?

The guilt already twisting in my gut was answer enough.

As if the mere thought summoned her Akash- forsaken soulbound , magic boasting the force of Odinson’s Hammer, slammed me to the ground. Nakoa’s magic gripped my lungs with an iron fist, and my blood vessels felt set to burst. Resisting the pain and power of his magic against the waning of my own sent me to my knees.

I folded away just before the blade of his sword could remove my head. Landing in the mud formed solely by spilled blood in the dusty soil of my land, I gulped breaths of air. Relief washed over me when I managed to sever the life threads of the soldiers nearest to me with ease. At the sensation of my ever-waning magic, I willed my sword, Thanapheros, into my hand—forged in hellfire and imbued with my death magic. Even a superficial wound would be lethal.

A tall, dark, slender male appeared, only a dozen feet away. Silvery power curled from him in waves as he passed his hand over the leagues of demons, humans, and other beings desperate to reach the portal. His silver gaze snapped to mine, and I felt his magic like an axe brought down upon the immortal tether connecting my soul to my body, causing me to stumble.

His words felt like the tolling of a death knell inside my mind.

“Only in death will you find freedom, Azrael.”

The recognition of truth, an all too familiar and unwelcome sensation, pinched tight inside my chest as the male folded in front of me. Searing pain pierced my side, and I looked down in both shock and relief to see the male had merely plunged a dagger into my abdomen. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“If you think that tiny little blade is enough to kill me?—

The male withdrew the blade, and it was then I noticed a dark, viscous substance dripping from the hilt. A substance other than my blood.

My lips parted in recognition as the chill of fear seeped through me.

The male’s face splits in a terrifying grin.

“Mortsbane.”

Intuition told me it was no coincidence at all that mortsbane was precisely what I’d dosed Mareina and Asterion with when I’d given them their dose of the River Obvilion.

The connection to my power was burning away like a strand of hair set above a flame. The male folded away just as I attempted to impale him with Thanapheros. Before I’m cut off from my magic entirely, victory swells in my chest as I conjure his life’s thread and sever it.

My eyes frantically searched for his dead body as the ground rushed towards me, and I fell face-first.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

My heart thundered in my chest as I waited for some soldier to notice me and finally end the stinking refuse of my life.

Instead, they battled on around me.

I’m just another corpse on the ground, I realized.

Like the answer to a prayer, Nephilim blood splattered my face just before a large winged body hit the ground beside me. Fresh blood pumped out of a gaping wound in the female’s chest, empty gaze tilted heavenward. A puddle formed beneath her, gradually growing so large that it reached my face. I began to lick it up, knowing it would hasten my recovery.

In under a few minutes, I’d regained enough of my facilities to stand. I attempted to fold away but my magic was still well out of reach.

Thank fuck for you, I inwardly murmured to Thanapheros as I rescued it from the bloody mud and passed my gaze over the nephilim, demons, humans, orcs, lykos, humans, and fae. All lying dead and in indistinguishable piles.

Panic gripped me as I saw Mareina soar through the air towards Malekai’s drakonati, guarding the portal as he charred what remained of the demons who hadn’t yet managed to escape while several more buried daggers in his body to climb him.

Gripping my sword, I leapt, wings pounding and Thanapheros poised to strike as I dove towards her like an eagle, its prey. She was too distracted battling those on the ground to notice my descent from on high.

Relief and victory swelled in my breast as I closed in—her death so close I could fucking taste it.

I was only feet away as Malekai’s gargantuan beast descended, absorbing my blow. Thanapheros split open his throat and chest with the ease of a ship’s keel through the water.

The drakonati plummeted to the ground, crushing several dozen of my people beneath him. A tremor rumbled through the ground as Mareina’s blood-curdling scream filled my ears. Nakoa’s guttural roar in the nearby distance was barely audible.

Her mate.

I am truly every wretched thing Persephone has ever thought of me.

A spiderweb of gorges split the bloodstained soil as Mareina’s magic burst from her in crimson tendrils that speared through my flesh and bone. Blood gurgled from my throat as I was lifted from the ground. Even so, I could feel the power of my magic and my life force repairing my body. Preventing my death.

My sight waned as my face disintegrated to reveal bone, and still, my magic continued to heal the wounds as quickly as they were made.

I realized then that I wished the healing would stop. For millennia, a part of me had longed for death, but never so desperately as now.

The silver-eyed male’s words returned to me at that moment.

‘Only in death will you find peace, Azrael.’

I couldn’t help but observe in awe as I absently witnessed the survivors of battle running to escape the deep fissures splitting the land, stretching beyond the horizon; many of them disappearing within the gorges and falling into what took me a moment to realize was an open sky leading elsewhere.

Portal s.

But how?

My eyes caught on the sight of Marenia’s arcanum glowing in the center of her chest, just above where the rhyton I’d put there had been. Realization washes over me as I recognized the sensation of my lifeforce bleeding out of me, into her.

She’s syphoning my power and shredding the barriers between realms with my power.