Page 82 of Blood of Two Crowns

His words felt like the tolling of a death knell inside my mind.

“Only in death will you find freedom, Azrael.”

The recognition of truth, an all too familiar and unwelcome sensation, pinched tight inside my chest as the malefoldedin front of me. Searing pain pierced my side, and I looked down in both shock and relief to see the male had merely plunged a dagger into my abdomen. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“If you think that tiny little blade is enough to kill me?—

The male withdrew the blade, and it was then I noticed a dark, viscous substance dripping from the hilt. A substanceotherthan my blood.

My lips parted in recognition as the chill of fear seeped through me.

The male’s face splits in a terrifying grin.

“Mortsbane.”

Intuition told me it was no coincidence at all that mortsbane was precisely what I’d dosed Mareina and Asterion with when I’d given them their dose of the River Obvilion.

The connection to my power was burning away like a strand of hair set above a flame. The malefoldedaway just as I attempted to impale him withThanapheros.Before I’m cut off from my magic entirely, victory swells in my chest as I conjure his life’s thread and sever it.

My eyes frantically searched for his dead body as the ground rushed towards me, and I fell face-first.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

My heart thundered in my chest as I waited for some soldier to notice me and finally end the stinking refuse of my life.

Instead, they battled on around me.

I’m just another corpse on the ground,I realized.

Like the answer to a prayer, Nephilim blood splattered my face just before a large winged body hit the ground beside me. Fresh blood pumped out of a gaping wound in the female’s chest, empty gaze tilted heavenward. A puddle formed beneath her,gradually growing so large that it reached my face. I began to lick it up, knowing it would hasten my recovery.

In under a few minutes, I’d regained enough of my facilities to stand. I attempted tofoldaway but my magic was still well out of reach.

Thank fuck for you,I inwardly murmured toThanapherosas I rescued it from the bloody mud and passed my gaze over the nephilim, demons, humans, orcs, lykos, humans, and fae. All lying dead and in indistinguishable piles.

Panic gripped me as I saw Mareina soar through the air towards Malekai’s drakonati, guarding the portal as he charred what remained of the demons who hadn’t yet managed to escape while several more buried daggers in his body toclimbhim.

Gripping my sword, I leapt, wings pounding andThanapherospoised to strike as I dove towards her like an eagle, its prey. She was too distracted battling those on the ground to notice my descent from on high.

Relief and victory swelled in my breast as I closed in—her death so close I could fucking taste it.

I was only feet away as Malekai’s gargantuan beast descended, absorbing my blow.Thanapherossplit open his throat and chest with the ease of a ship’s keel through the water.

The drakonati plummeted to the ground, crushing several dozen of my people beneath him. A tremor rumbled through the ground as Mareina’s blood-curdling scream filled my ears. Nakoa’s guttural roar in the nearby distance was barely audible.

Her mate.

I am truly every wretched thing Persephone has ever thought of me.

A spiderweb of gorges split the bloodstained soil as Mareina’s magic burst from her in crimson tendrils that speared through my flesh and bone. Blood gurgled from my throat as I was liftedfrom the ground. Even so, I could feel the power of my magic and my life force repairing my body. Preventing my death.

My sight waned as my face disintegrated to reveal bone, andstill,my magic continued to heal the wounds as quickly as they were made.

I realized then that I wished the healing would stop. For millennia, a part of me had longed for death, but never so desperately as now.

The silver-eyed male’s words returned to me at that moment.

‘Only in death will you find peace, Azrael.’

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