Nothing but one desperate hope.
Priests of Aedh, if you’re out there, if you’re watching and listening, you need to get your asses in here and give me a little help.
The bloody sword came at me. I flung my hands up, imagined a shield, and prayed like hell. Metal hit metal and again the sound rang out like a clarion bell.
She raised the sword and hit the shield again. This time, it cracked. As she raised her sword for a final blow, I twisted and kicked, with all my might, at Malin’s gossamer legs. I didn’t have much strength left, but it was enough to unbalance her. What would have been the death blow skittered off the shield and hit the darkness just to my right.
I scrambled up, clenched my fists, and hit her full in the face. It might not have been a strong blow, let alone a killing one, but damn, it felt good.
She raised a hand as she staggered away, and suddenly there were vines twining up my legs and pinning my arms to my body.
“Now,” she said, as she stalked toward me, her face twisted and ugly with malice. “We end this—”
Enough. The voice was male, and it came from everywhere and yet nowhere. It echoed through the shadows and reverberated through my mind. It held no threat, yet I sensed it could kill without a moment’s hesitation or thought.
And it was a voice I had heard before. It was the remnant I’d spoken to the last time I’d been here in the temple.
“You have no power over me,” Malin snarled. “Begone—”
Her eyes went wide and she froze. The vines that bound me withered away, but without their support I ended up on my ass.
You have caused enough damage to this place, Malin. For that alone, we could end you. His tone was calm, collected, but filled with a sense of regret. We had hoped, until the very end, that you would come to your senses, that the last of the Aedh priests could not possibly want the destruction of all that we hold sacred.
Malin made a muffled retort. Energy radiated off her, but whatever she was trying to do, it had little effect.
But in attempting to destroy the archive of both the temple and the portals, you have shown a malignancy that cannot be tolerated. There was a soft sound, like a sigh of wind. It is with great regret that we are therefore forced to end you.
And just like that, she was gone.
I blinked. “So she’s dead?”
No, because with death comes eventual rebirth. She is scattered, never to re-form, never to know the kiss of the stars or the bliss of being in the presence of the fates.
Wow. Although it wasn’t like the bitch didn’t deserve it. “And the others?”
Even now the reapers finish the last of them. He paused. Your reaper heads this way, but he has no need to fear. We owe you and him a great debt.
“I was just trying to save my world.”
Yet the fate of your world still hangs in the balance.
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed and rose. “Is it safe to recall my sword?”
Yes.
I held out my hand and Amaya thudded back into it. I sheathed her, then said, “What happens now?”
And now we will ask something else of you.
I blinked again. “What?”
That you take a message to she who bears the Aedh’s child.
I frowned. He could only be talking about one Aedh—Lucian, whom I’d once thought of as a friend, and who turned out to be one of the major players in the whole key-theft saga. He was also the man who’d kidnapped and impregnated my best friend—and had tried to do the same to me. Thankfully, I was already carrying Azriel’s child by that time. “What has Ilianna to do with any of this?”
The child she carries is the future of this place. Her daughter must undergo priest training. The fate of those she holds dear will depend on it. And when she dies, she will come here and guard this place.
“One person cannot possibly—”