“Fuck,” Mori said under her breath.

Ava was dying, and her inner demon would take over at any moment. Aurora, she had called her—that hellish part of every angel of death that no one could control.

“I can feel her winning.” Ava winced with pain, her brows furrowing as she fought something none of them could see, and she whimpered. “Please. Please end this. I beg you.”

“I… I can’t…” Mori’s jaw twitched as she stared down at her sister, frozen in disbelief and with no idea of what to do.

“Please,” Ava whispered. Her eyes fluttered closed, as though she was too weak to even look around. “Please.”

Mori fought the dazed chill creeping up her spine and did her best to process not only what she was being asked to do, but also the devastating implication of what Ava had just confessed.

This wasn’t the first time Ava had succumbed to her darker self. By the sound of it, this had been happening more and more, until it had completely taken over.

Speechless, Mori gaped up at Tia—who was already looking at her with the sober expression she had worn so many times before.

That look said everything Mori didn’t want to hear.

This could be you, someday, if you don’t learn self-control.

With a heavy sigh, Tia gently rolled Ava onto her back. Blood spilled from even more gouges carved deep into their sister’s stomach. Two fractured ribs had torn open her skin and ripped clear through her leather armor. Dark blue blood pooled and bubbled from the gashes as Ava wheezed in agony, her lung probably collapsed from whatever had done that to her. A long slice through her gut released a surge of navy ooze that sloshed to the ground like a river breaking free from a dam.

At the gruesome sight, Mori slammed her fist against the stone beneath her to stop the flood of tears that wanted so desperately to break free.

The rock dented under her knuckles, and yet she felt nothing but numb disbelief.

Wordlessly, Tia drew one of the swords from the twin sheaths on her back. The blue light in its enchanted steel hummed at her touch, and she squared her shoulders as her grip tightened on the hilt.

Mori stared helplessly at the blade, hating their long-dead Divine Mother for not protecting them. For unleashing them into a world that despised them and leaving them to rot on their own, to figure out this hellscape for themselves, and to watch their sisters die.

Tia raised her weapon over their fallen sister until its blisteringly sharp tip pressed against Ava’s chest, just above her heart. Too exhausted now to even open her eyes, Ava leaned her sweat-soaked head back against the ground and smiled.

“Goodbye, little sister,” Tia whispered.

“Live on, you three,” Ava replied, almost too quietly to hear.

In the seconds that followed, time slowed. Tia drove her blade downward. At the same moment, a shrill horn cut through the night.

The call of the hunters, come to find the feral angel and finish what the departed had begun.

Distant hoofbeats thundered through the woodland. Men shouted orders. Dogs howled, and the wind stirred the treetops in the frenzy.

At the call of man, Ava’s hand grabbed Tia’s blade. The enchanted steel cut through Ava’s palm, and even though blood oozed through her sliced fingers, the sword didn’t budge.

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“Fuck,” Tia whispered.

In a spellbound instant, Ava’s skin turned dark blue. Brilliant starlight glimmered across her body, and her eyes became a piercing white that cast a spotlight on Tia’s face. The wounds ripped open, gurgling with a fresh wave of gore, as though Ava’s inner demon were pushing out the last of the kind soul that had lingered in their shared body.

And, with the surge of power radiating from their fallen sister, came the overwhelming flood of dread.

Of death.

The sensation, that knowing, churned through Mori's very bones like a hand through fog. It brewed within her, as delighted as it was terrified. Distant, yes, and a bit uncertain, but there all the same.

Death is coming.

It was a gift of the angels, to sense when death was near... and to know when it was gone.

At any moment, someone was going to drown in blood.

“No more,” Ava snarled. Her voice hummed with power, as though the Divine Mother Herself were speaking through her, and her haunting voice echoed down the cave. “I have killed so many of these damned mortals, and yet they still come! How many must I burn? How many must I maim? Do they all wish for death?”

“Ava!” Mori shouted. “Ava, get a hold of—”

“They must!” Ava said, as though no one had spoken at all. “These fools must detest their pathetic mortal lives. They see their weakness. They see their folly. So be it, then. If they seek death, then I will deliver it myself!”

Her voice became a roar, and she wrenched the sword out of Tia’s hands. She threw the majestic blade against the wall. It slammed against the rock with the thunderous screech of iron on stone, and the blue light in its steel fizzled almost entirely out.

Ava screamed, the bone-chilling screech raw and feral. Dark shadows stretched from her back as if summoned from the depths of her soul. They hovered behind her like brewing storm clouds as bursts of red and white light shot through their pitch-black smoke.

In moments, her wounds healed. Her muscles shoved the arrows from the deep holes they’d carved into her skin. Each arrow burned as it fell, nothing but ash by the time it hit the ground, and fire erupted across Ava’s hands.

No, not Ava. Mori knew in her heart that Ava was dead.

This—this was Aurora, and she was here to spill blood. Their fallen sister had gotten her wings, and her hellfire now controlled her. The world would burn. Men would die. And this lost soul would not stop until someone stronger cut her down.

Aurora’s wings solidified into hardened feathers as glistening and sleek as black glass. She stretched them wide and, with a gleeful cackle, her feet lifted from the ground. Her body whizzed past, faster than a falling star.

A wing slammed hard against Mori’s head. The blow launched her backward, and her body slammed hard against the cave wall. Dazed, her head spun. She couldn’t sense Cricket. Though she tried to stand, she blacked out. Her vision came and went, ebbing and flowing like a tide, until the world around her solidified once more.

She had somehow ended up on her hands and knees. Blood dripped from her mouth, staining her teeth and tongue with the charred tang of stale smoke. With a rough cough, she spewed another round of blood into a starlit puddle beneath her.

Delightful.

When the heady fog in her skull finally cleared, she spat out the last bit of blood in her mouth and craned her head toward the exit. The steam that had once filled the cave had now cleared, giving her an unobstructed view of the raging fire that had once been a forest. Silhouettes darted through the flame, nothing but shadows in an inferno. Men shouted in panic and fear. Some screamed. Some prayed. Some begged for their lives, only to have their pleas cut short with a choking gurgle.

And, above them all, a looming figure rose into the bloodstained sky with her wings spread wide.

A gentle little ball of fur shoved its head under Mori’s palm, and she smiled with weak relief as Cricket joined her. Still healing from that brutal blow, she fell backward into the cave wall and held her familiar to her chest.

In the back of her head, the promise she’d made Tia repeated again and again like a familiar song that wouldn’t fade. She tried to shove it away, to think of another option, but she couldn’t play the hopeless optimist anymore.

She had to face the truth, however grim it might’ve been.

You cannot hesitate, Tia had said.

So, she didn’t.

Without a word, she stood. Cricket clung to her shoulder as she pushed herself to her feet and bolted toward the exit with every ounce of her rapidly returning strength. She ran like the hounds of hell, her boots hitting the rock with a rhythmic cadence as she pulled her battleaxe from its holster on her back.

She had failed Ava once already.

Mori would not let it happen again.