Page 46 of Rage of the Fallen

The phoenix launched from her perch directly at Maci. Fire met fire in an explosion of gold and crimson, two ancient powers colliding in the sacred space.

“Now!” Justice screamed. “While they’re fighting!” He appeared at my side as pieces of the ceiling rained down. “Sawyer, I can get you there, but?—”

“We’ll only have one shot,” I finished. The harp thrummed in agreement, its song rising above the chaos.

“Incoming!” Damon’s warning came as Rage’s darkness surged toward us like a tidal wave of shadow.

“Go!” Brody’s shield spun through the air, cutting a path through the darkness. “We’ll cover you!”

Lisa and Zara’s voices rose in unison, their spell creating a brief corridor of clear air. Justice’s arms wrapped around me, then we were moving with vampire speed, the world blurring around us.

The wall rushed toward us. Justice leaped, using broken pillars as stepping stones, carrying us higher with each bound. Rage’s shadows clawed at our heels while Maci’s fire chased us up the wall. The Wrath sculpture waited in its alcove, its carved face twisted in eternal rage.

We were almost there when Maci’s wing clipped Justice’s shoulder. We spun in the air, and I felt his grip loosen. No time to think, no time to fear. I pushed off from his chest, launching myself toward the sculpture as Justice fell away. His golden healing marks flashed in the chaos.

The harp sang in my hands as I reached for Wrath, my fingers stretching toward the carved face that had waited centuries for this moment. The other six artifacts pulsed with light below, so close to completing their purpose. Rage’s darkness swirled around me, Maci’s fire burned above, and thespace between me and the sculpture seemed to stretch like an eternity.

If I could only reach it…

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

As my fingers brushed Wrath’s cold stone face, the harp’s song reached a crescendo that shook the foundations of Rosslyn Chapel. For one heartbeat, time seemed to freeze. Justice falling below me, Rage’s darkness swirling around us, Maci’s massive form wheeling overhead.

Then, everything exploded into light.

The seven artifacts awakened at once, their power connecting like lightning strikes. Crown to mirror to feather to grass to scales to hourglass to harp—which remained in my hands, its activation completed with a touch—a perfect star of holy fire that turned night to day. Ancient stone seemed to drink in the light as centuries of dormant power surged to life.

That was when I saw it. The Apprentice Pillar began to glow, its carved dragons writhing as if coming to life. The spiraling vines that wrapped the column moved, their stone texture turning fluid like living plants.

“No!” Maci’s voice held real fear for the first time. “No, not the pillar! Not?—”

“Well, that’s definitely gonna mess with the chapel’s tour guide script,” Damon quipped, trying to mask his unease with humor, though I heard the slight shake in his voice. “‘And here,folks, is where we turned a psycho dragon into a lawn ornament.’ Man, I need a drink after this.”

The transformation started at her tail. Where the pillar’s light touched her, scales crystallized into stone, the change creeping up her body like frost claiming a window. My stomach lurched at the sight. This was justice, but watching any creature’s terror as they were turned to stone made me feel sick. Even after everything she’d done, everything she’d tried to do to Justice…

“Stand fast.” Brody’s voice cut through my wavering resolve. I drew from his presence the way I had through countless battles. His next words reminded me why I trusted him to lead us when I couldn’t. “What we’re witnessing isn’t merely an ending. It’s proof that evil, no matter how powerful, can be overcome when we stand together. This is why we fight.”

“Yeah, yeah. Skip the inspirational speech, Captain,” Damon muttered. “Just tell me we’re not gonna end up as stone decorations, too. Because I gotta say, eternal rest as a garden statue? Not really my style.”

Justice’s hand found mine in the chaos as Maci’s wings petrified mid-beat. I squeezed his fingers, grateful for the anchor, as I watched the stone crawl across her wing tissue. I’d just freed him from one kind of prison. Watching another being, even one as evil as Maci, become eternally trapped felt like a cruel echo.

Lisa and Zara clutched each other’s hands, paling as they watched their ancient enemy’s imprisonment. Magic crackled at their fingertips, responding to the pillar’s power.

“Focus, team,” Brody commanded. “We’ve won this battle, but the war isn’t over.”

The stone crawled across Maci’s membrane-thin wing tissue, creating intricate patterns that matched the pillar’s ancient design. Her struggles became jerky, desperate, as more of her body turned rigid and gray.

As the pillar’s power crawled higher up Maci’s form, I started shaking. Not from fear but from the sheer weight of what we were witnessing. What I had set in motion.

“Man, this is like some twisted museum installation,” Damon commented. “Hey, you okay there, sis?”

I wasn’t. Not really. The sound of stone claiming flesh made my teeth ache, and watching Maci’s desperate struggles become jerkier, more rigid—it was like watching someone drown in slow motion. Even after everything she’d done, trying to take Justice, trying to kill us all, this felt final. Permanent in a way that even death wasn’t.

“Remember why we’re here,” Brody insisted. “Remember what she would have done to the world, to all of us.”

“I remember,” I whispered as the stone reached Maci’s neck. Justice’s fingers intertwined with mine, and I drew strength from him, from all of them. My team. My family. The people I’d fought beside, bled beside, would die to protect.

The final moment approached, and Maci’s eyes found mine. Still alive, still terrified. In that last second, before the stone claimed her completely, I saw something I never expected. Understanding. As if she finally recognized what she’d brought upon herself.

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