Page 59 of The Blood Crown

“Very well,” the prince mused.

The demons surrounding them seemed to come back to life once more, answering to their masters’ call as the princes advanced.

“If I give myself up—you can still get the ring to Ravenstone,” Aurelia hissed to Ven, slicing through a drugar that clawed toward them as a dark blot shot across the sky.

He whipped his head toward her, eyes flashing with grim determination as ash rained down around them. “No,” he growled, “I will die before I give you up.” His words hit her with visceral force.

But it wasn’t only him fighting.

Her eyes marked Karro, Valea, Tanis . . . The Wraith who had been as much a brother to her as the one she'd lost. The Nostari princess who had helped them escape Mountveil. The human she'd freed—only to bring intothis. They would die, too.

A hand gripped her arm, ripping through her thoughts. And Karro's eyes blazed fiercely as he said, “We do not fight alone.”

Valea turned at the words, surprise flashing across her expression before her focus returned to the demons surrounding them.

Aurelia looked across the expanse, to where Asmodeous and Maloch drew closer. Drawing on her magick, she tried—she fucking tried to make it surface despite the spell that bound it. But no matter how much she pulled and tugged on that thread, it would not give. They needed a miracle . . .

They needed a weapon.

“Give me the ring!” Aurelia shouted through the din.

Valea’s quicksilver hair whipped across her face, eyes flaring at the order as she seemed to battle herself over giving up her last bargaining chip.

“You can’t!” Karro bellowed, eyes wild with panic as the Captain finally dug her hand into her uniform. But Aurelia hardly heard the warning as Valea pressed the ring into her waiting palm. There was only a moment’s hesitation as the cold metal bit into her skin and she slipped it over her finger.

She pressed back against the ancient presence that coiled in her mind, a wall against the tide of something far worse than Asmodeous or Maloch. The voice remained silent, dormant though she knewhewas there. And something like amused curiosity was feather-light against her thoughts as she called forth her magick, lightning crackling at her fingertips in answer as her power broke through the spell.

Asmodeous grinned.

The heavy weight of the ring pulsed against her hand, and she flooded her mind with her own thoughts, leaving no room for the presence that attempted to slither inside her.

Thunder rumbled overhead, despite the falling snow, the sky churning as her body raged with power. Heat and light and simmering energy hummed under her skin just waiting to be unleashed. The same feeling she’d had when she’d put the ring on once before—that her magick was limitless. Thatshewas limitless.

Hands raised, lightning surged from her fingertips, burning everything standing in her path.

In the distance, a deafening cacophony washed over the forest. The screams and the screeches of the demons rising with their princes. She glanced over her shoulder, and across the expanse, she saw him—the green glow that Maloch cast throughout the pines rippling toward them as he drew closer.

Ven gripped her arm, hauling her behind him as she shook off the numbness spreading through her body and sent out another branch of lightning to blaze a path ahead of them.

“Go!” Karro shouted above the noise, breaking away from the group as Maloch closed in, eyes burning with fury. So close now that Aurelia could make out every gruesome stitch closing his mouth.

She pushed Tanis ahead of her, but Asmodeous was a blur of white as he appeared before the human.

Tanis froze at the sight of the demon prince, and he took a single, unhurried step toward her. He looked down at the woman, taking her slender neck in his hand like a lover might as his depthless eyes fell to her face. And then his mouth split into a malevolent smile.

The snap of her neck echoed through the pines.

Asmodeous held Tanis' limp body before him, his maggot white hand still clamped around her neck. Shimmering rivulets left the woman's dark skin, swirling and spinning through the air. Aurelia watched in horror as her smooth, beautiful heart-shaped face withered and blackened. As if rot and decay had etched years, decades—centuries into her. And the light from the woman's eyes finally dimmed as the glimmering ether left her body and seeped into the demon prince with a final, breathless gasp.

Asmodeous dropped Tanis to the ground, unrecognizable now as he stepped over her lifeless body.

Aurelia stumbled back, lightning flooding down her spine, blistering heat spreading through her arms as it forged itself into a sharply honed weapon at her disposal. White and gold branches split off from her fingers, ripping into Asmodeous’ chest.

He took a halting step forward, arms splayed wide as if to embrace the power that surged from her, drinking down her magick.

The heat was threatening to overtake her—and yet he didn’t flinch as he took another step, and another—into the blinding white that funneled through her and straight into him.

Too much—she was channeling too much power. It was more than she'd ever called forth, and still the demon prince drank it down, unharmed.

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