CHAPTER 11

The flames raged on.

Mori lost track of how long she knelt on the ground, unmoving, as she listened to the inferno rage.

Minutes, perhaps.

Or years.

Eventually, the white light faded. She finally blinked away the lingering scorch marks on her vision, and the world slowly returned. She stared up at the blackened sky, choked with smoke and thick with fire, as the flames licked at the blackened canopy of a torched woodland.

“Mori.”

The voice was distant, like a whisper drowning in the waves, but familiar nonetheless. It carried a heaviness to it, a sadness almost, that made her think of summer. It conjured thoughts of how much she had once loved the sunlight, all those centuries ago, before she learned to fear the dawn.

That simple word, as strange and foreign as it sounded, reminded her not just of joy, of memory, but of home.

Of something—of someone—important.

Ripples of scalding air shimmered above her skin, roasted to a haze by the sheer power radiating from her body, and that strange voice faded once more into the background.

Fury and hellfire consumed her world yet again.

Raw.

Raging.

Bristling with all of the beauty and pain only fire could inflict.

Unbridled magic surged within her, finally unleashed, and she let it run free. Fresh flames licked her palms. It crackled and chirped with a life of its own, stunning in its majesty, and she paused to study its brilliance. The white-hot flicker coiled and danced around her fingers, slipping in and out of her body, summoned by the sort of power she never thought one being could possess. She drank it in, high on the sheer devastation such a small blast of heat could inflict.

With a flick of her wrist, she cast another ball of fire at the nearest surviving oak. The flame consumed the tree in an instant, swallowing its bark and once-green leaves until it was little more than a charred black husk in the center of a bonfire.

And as it toppled to the ground, she smiled.

Her beloved fires cooked the sky. Plumes of relentless black smoke surged through the forest, swallowing everything in their wake.

“Mori,” the voice said again, more desperately this time.

And again, she was hit with that sense of sadness. Of longing.

Of home.

Two hands grabbed her face. She seethed, furious that anyone would even dare touch a being as grand as her. She summoned fresh flame into her palms as she locked eyes with the fool who had dared tempt the rage of a goddess.

But she couldn’t see much through all the smoke. A hazy silhouette. A wild mess of golden hair. A flash of green, like gemstones floating in the air.

No, not gemstones.

Eyes.

Eyes she could’ve sworn she’d seen before.

“Come back to me,” that warbling voice demanded.

Mori bristled once more at the audacity for anyone to demand anything of her, of a creature that could channel this much raw power, and she growled with anger.

Her voice hit the air like thunder. Even as her hellfire burned across her neck and baked the air, those hands did not let go.

She raised her hand to strike.

To kill this foolish creature.

But as she was about to land the death blow, the smoke finally cleared, and she saw her new opponent’s face.

Tia.

That word—something so simple as her sister’s name—snapped something deep within her. The hellfire in her veins quieted. Ice flooded her chest, soothing the raging tempest in her soul.

As the power faded, a scream brewed in her throat. It didn’t come from her, she realized, but from something primal deep within her, and she screamed with helpless frustration.

No.

No, she couldn’t let this power leave. It was too beautiful. Too pure. Too consuming to ever surrender, even to a distant memory that felt like safety, and home, and everything good in the world.

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“Mori,” Tia said again, and this time her voice was louder.

Closer.

Clearer.

Tia’s eyes widened as her fingertips gently rested against Mori’s burning skin. Smoke coiled from her hands as that simple touch roasted her body, but she didn’t flinch. Her brows furrowed, though Mori couldn’t tell if that was out of pain or concern.

Does it matter? asked the hellfire in Mori’s soul. What good is an angel who doesn’t want her wings?

With the ice slowly seeping through her body, all of it stemming from Tia’s gentle touch, Mori had just enough self-control to pause and wonder.

“Yes,” she whispered in answer. “It matters.”

Something in her soul howled with pain. Her chest constricted, as though crushed in an instant, and she fell to the ground. She gritted her teeth, determined not to let the agony win, but even she couldn’t hold back her scream as her bones snapped and fused into place.

Mori’s forehead pressed into the thick layer of ash coating the ground, and her voice kicked up tornadoes of cinders that spiraled into the smoke she had, only moments earlier, so adored.

She didn't know how long she lay there, screaming like a banshee, nor did she register when the screaming eventually stopped.

For a while, time meant nothing, and she lost herself in the sensation of the dying embers beneath her body. Their heat faded with hers as her power was siphoned from her body, and she sobbed into the ashes staining her face.

She lay there until the fires died and became little more than a red glow along whatever tree trunks had survived the onslaught. Slowly, her vision returned. Bit by bit, the ashen blurs became smears of color, and then shapes, and then trees. A boulder. A stretch of meadowgrass, burned to cinders and blackened to little more than trampled ground.

A figure knelt in front of her—a silhouette with brilliant green eyes. Bloody arms slid around her torso, and someone lifted her until she could sit on her own. Strong hands grabbed her shoulders as she blinked away the last blurs of the scorching fog in her head.

Mori.

That word—that haunting sense of home—it was her name.

She was Morrigan, daughter of the goddess Keres, long-lost mistress of death and dying… and she had almost succumbed to the Divine Mother’s hellfire.

“Fuck,” she whispered under her breath, too weak to even rub her eyes. If not for Tia’s hands on her arms, she’d have fallen back to the ground.

“Are you back?” Tia asked warily.

Too exhausted to reply, Mori simply nodded. She had precious little energy left to stay awake, but she braced herself anyway against the lecture she knew would come at any moment.

Instead, Tia pulled her into a hug so tight that she couldn’t breathe. Her eyebrows shot up her soot-stained face in surprise, and for a moment, she simply sat there in a dazed surrender, unsure of what to do.

Tia pressed her soot-stained face into Mori’s neck. With a shaky breath, the hug only tightened. It was a desperate embrace, laden with the fear that one of them might fade to ash at any moment.

It was drenched with love.

With loss.

With fear.

With a sigh of relief, Mori leaned her head against her sister’s and did her best to return the tight hug, though all she could manage was a weak grip on the back of her sister’s ripped leather armor.

“I thought I’d lost you, murder bunny,” Tia whispered.

Mori’s throat tightened, and she didn’t know what to say. They sat there in bittersweet silence as what remained of the forest popped and fizzled.

But, though they were now alone, there were supposed to be others.

The terrifying realization hit her so hard and fast that she nearly vomited. “Cricket!” she shouted in a frenzied panic. “Cricket! Was he hurt? Where is he? What—”

“He’s still with Lottie.” Tia smiled gently and tucked a loose lock of hair behind Mori’s ear. “He’s fine.”

Relief washed through Mori like a tsunami, so intense that it siphoned off the last of her energy, and she collapsed fully into Tia’s arms. Her sister grunted in surprise, but she held tight and didn’t let her fall.

“Thank you.” Mori had meant to say it loudly, so that her sister could hear the gratitude in her voice, but it came out as more of a mumbled whisper.

“Just rest,” Tia said gently. “You’re safe.”

Her grip tightened even more, however, like they would both fade away at any moment, and Mori suddenly doubted if that was actually true.

The wind howled through the surviving forest and carried away the last of the lingering smoke. With what little energy she had, Mori tilted her head to scan the aftermath, knowing what she would find but hoping nonetheless that she would be wrong.

A pile of ash, roughly the shape and size of a person, rested in the center of the field. As she watched it, the wind slowly lifted ribbons of soot into the air, bit by bit, chunk by chink, until there was nothing at all left of Ava.

“I will never let that happen again,” she whispered to Tia. “I promise.”

“Good.” Tia’s hand cradled the back of her head, and she swallowed hard. “Please.”

Serious.

Somber.

Afraid.

It was weird as hell to see her like this. The Tia she knew never showed vulnerability, much less fear, and she wanted to crack a joke to lighten the mood. Given everything they had just endured, though, nothing came to mind.

“How many of us are left?” she asked. “Do you really know?”

Tia roughly cleared her throat, and she felt her head pivot as she looked off somewhere into the forest. “I was honest before, Mori. I truly think we’re the last three.”

Mori’s eyes shut as she fought the wave of grief that followed, far stronger than she had expected, and her nails dug into the back of Tia’s shirt.

“They did this,” she said, her voice breaking with exhaustion and anger. “The mortals. They hunted Ava until she couldn’t take it anymore. They pushed her over the edge.”

Tia took a deep breath and leaned backward. By now, Mori had thankfully mustered just enough strength to hold herself upright.

“I know,” her sister said. “And they’ll hunt us, too.”

More didn’t answer, but Tia knew her well enough by now to understand what that meant.

Let them come.

When the fools inevitably tracked them, when they stalked the three of them like prey and tried to slit their throats in their sleep, she would be waiting with her battleaxe in hand.

Ready.

Fierce.

Deadly.

And though Tia feared what they could all become, Mori would be utterly unafraid of the hellfire in her soul.