The Rise of Fortune and Fury (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 5)

Rune sneers through the golden trappings of his cage. “No, but I’d hoped you wouldn’t find out until the ritual was complete. Unfortunately, I saw sweet little Finley all by her lonesome. No one calls me a coward or mocks my pain without suffering for it.”

I tip my head up to Carrick, astonished that this god—this powerful deity—has an ego as fragile as an egg. Simply my words from this afternoon caused him to do this?

Carrick just shakes his head in disbelief, and we turn our attention back to the four gods who stand in judgment of their brethren.

“You were not to interfere,” Onyx condemns in an ominous tone. “You were not to take sides. You did both.”

“So slap my wrist and get it over with,” Rune drawls with a lopsided smile. “No harm has been done. Finley is fine, and she can still participate in thwarting the prophecy.”

“No harm done?” Veda asks, her voice soft with admonishment. “You broke the very foundation of The Council and how we operate. You let your personal feelings betray the trust we had in you, and that cannot be forgiven.”

For the first time, Rune’s expression becomes alarmed. He opens his mouth, probably to mount a more sincere defense, but, in a flash of blinding light that has both Carrick and me jerking backward, the gods disappear.

I glance around, not really expecting to see them anywhere else. I know what Carrick knows. They’ve taken Rune somewhere else to deal with him, in whatever fashion that might be.

“We need to go,” Carrick says, pulling me out of that surreal experience and catapulting me right back to our mission.

Except now, the fear that had frozen me is gone. As I stood on the edge of the field and watched the battle rage, I had succumbed to my doubts.

But something important just happened when the gods stepped in to keep Rune in check. I had thought they were all above the law and truly didn’t care about humanity. They just proved to me, however, that I cannot give up.

In fact, perhaps I need to assume victory will be resounding.

“Let’s go,” I agree, and Carrick and I race back onto the ritual field.

The entire thing with Rune took no more than a few minutes, but, in that time frame, things had changed. It seemed more of our side was dying in bursts of sparkles or puffs of black ash.

More importantly, the dust has settled around the collapsed pedestal and Kymaris gleefully watches as Maddox battles what has to be at least ten Dark Fae. The stone laying against her chest is pulsing in red flashes.

Nimeyah is still glowing, but the blue has turned to white. It’s so bright I can barely make out her form. Kymaris walks through the battlefield, eyes on Nimeyah, who has coalesced all the ritual power into her body.

Kymaris’ eyes shine with malice and victory. When she’s ten feet from Nimeyah, she thrusts her arms toward her angelic sister from long ago and makes a pulling motion.

The light in Nimeyah pulses a few times, then draws inward into her body. It seems to completely disappear until there’s only a thin white glow around Nimeyah’s body. For a moment, the two sisters—one light, one dark, neither good at all—just stare at each other.

Then light shoots out of Nimeyah’s chest, along with an anguished scream that’s wrenched from her. The light flies straight at the Blood Stone and enters it, turning it momentarily white.

It lasts but mere seconds, the transfer of the power from Nimeyah to Kymaris, but when the last bit of glowing magic leaves Nimeyah’s body, she bursts apart in a showering fall of white sparks, which signifies her death.

It’s enough to break Deandra and Pyke apart as they stare at the remnants of their mother floating to the ground. Their expressions are blank, as if they can’t quite understand that Nimeyah’s demise was necessary for Kymaris to complete the ritual.

Then Deandra’s eyes flash red and her lips pull back into a feral sneer as she whirls on her brother. She says something I’m too far away to hear above the din of battle, but she attacks with a speed and vengeance I never imagined was possible.

Relentlessly she beats him back. The only thing he can do is to get his sword up time and time again to prevent her lopping off his head.

Pyke stumbles over a rock, landing hard on his ass, and it’s enough of an advantage that Deandra brings the point of her sword to his chest.

He attempts no magic. Doesn’t even try to knock the sword away. Instead, he twists his neck to look up at his love, Kymaris standing just a few feet away. I can read his lips as he pleas for the help of the woman he sacrificed everything for.