Page 127 of The Blood Crown

The demon prince grimaced as Karro and Ven brought him crashing down to the ground. Aurelia slipped the blade free from her back, gloves grasping the hilt.

The weight was the same as the blade she’d spent so many hours training with—but the broadsword in her hand felt unwieldy, as if it had a will of its own.

She slashed down—the force of the impact jarring as it sliced into Maloch’s gleaming mahogany skin. Lightning ripped from her hands, white branches of power streaking down the sword’s edge as the demon prince writhed beneath her, restrained between Karro and Ven’s shadows.

Her magick poured into him, swallowed up as it had been when she’d fought Asmodeous.

Maloch raised a mighty arm, fist clenching around Ven’s shadows and tearing through them. He flung Aurelia and the blade across the courtyard, her teeth slamming together as she landed on the cold ground.

She stumbled to her feet, knowing that even a moment’s stillness would be her death—all of their deaths.

Karro fought to keep his shadows tight around Maloch’s legs, but the demon prince ripped free from the bonds. Karro raised his blade, and steel screamed as it crumpled under Maloch's fist.

With a rasp, Ven pulled Flamecleaver free. The ripples of scarlet and bronze across the edge of the black blade coming to life under his hand as he faced down the demon prince.

Shadows wreathed Karro's hands as he gave his brother an imperceptible nod, and the two males attacked Maloch as one.

Unforgiving cold bit into Aurelia's palm as her feet pounded the frozen earth, the heavy weight of the relic at her side.

Ropes of darkness encircled the prince's arm as his massive blade met Ven's, metal ringing through the blood-soaked night. A sickening crunch sounded as the butt of Maloch's scythe met Karro's body—swatting the Wraith to the ground like a fly. The shadows holding him dispersed into the night as Karro lay motionless on the ground. But Ven was unrelenting in his attack, Flamecleaver glowing with scarlet light as he battled the demon.

Aurelia did not hesitate, did not falter as she took the opening. Every minute of Nira's relentless training—beatings—on the Ledge rose to the surface as she lifted the blade again.

And buried it in Maloch's exposed side.

The broadsword scraped against bone with a wet rasp, and power tore through her.

The blade blazed with her magick, the gory scene around them bleached white as lightning poured through her, between her clenched teeth— from her eyes—her ears.

Heat surged, blistering her fingertips and scorching her veins. It had no end and no beginning as it flooded the relic in her hands, ripping through Maloch’s body—his green-black eyes bursting with her magick as she drowned him in its torrent.

The sword began to smoke and char, a black fissure forming in Maloch’s side, like the great crack he’d cleaved into the earth.

The demon prince's eyes slid to hers, the sutures at his mouth tugging up into a cruel smirk as he gripped the blade with a fist black as night.

Steel scraped against bone.

And horror clamped down on her as Maloch slid the bloodied sword from his body, ripping its smoldering remains from her hands—

And plunged it into Ven’s chest.

Chapter 69

Ascream tore from Aurelia's throat, drowned out by the deafening roar in her head.

Ven slumped to the ground beside her, and she caught him, her arm wrapping around his back.

“No—no, no, no,” she whispered, pulling his body into hers as his crimson eyes snagged on her face. Wet seeped through her gear, between her splayed fingers as she held him, but she didn't dare pull her hand away . . . she knew what she would find. She didn't want him to see the terror she felt, but he only gazed up at her, a look of calm passing over his features as she cradled his head.

Her fingers threaded through the strands of his dark hair as she looked down at his face. His eyes were closed, and maybe it was a mercy that she wouldn't have to witness the light leaving them. His shadowskin had torn open revealing the edges of the tattoo inked across his chest. His face—flecked with red and black blood looked . . . peaceful. And as anguish burned through her, she recalled what he'd told her of the goddess they served. That Fate was a respite from this world.

But she hardly believed that. Fate was a cold, cruel mistress.

Metal gleamed as Maloch got to his feet, the black bands inked around his wrists flexing with the corded muscle beneath as his heavy blade drug across the frozen dirt. He walked to where Karro lay unconscious on the ground, lifting his scythe once more.

A flash of white appeared between the demon prince and Karro. And red flame burst from Valea’s hands as she tried to shield the Wraith from Maloch’s fury. But the demon prince hardly seemed to feel the pain as he gripped her wrist, twisting her arm with a crack that had the fierce female whimpering as she stumbled back.

The droning in Aurelia's skull was deafening now as her gaze drifted across the courtyard. Where Valea crawled across Karro’s motionless form. Where the remaining smiths had encircled Embra as she worked to heal the injured, the soft golden-green glow of her magick blotted out by the mass of demons now closing in on them. And she caught a glimpse of Hathos, a grimace etched into his rugged face as he lifted his hammer in one hand and a broadsword in the other before she lost sight of him, too.

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