Page 176 of Dawn of Chaos and Fury
And Tessa was. The smile on her face was pure madness as she stared back at Oralia.
“Because I am going to kill you,” Tessa said, the madness seeping into her voice. She was calm. Too calm. Even she knew that. “I’m going to kill you, and I’m going to enjoy every second of it. Then I’m going to leave themessbehind for Dexter to find. Let him clean it up and know that the same fate is waiting for him.”
“They should have let me take your magic when Katya was taken from me. You are such an ungrateful, spoiled cunt?—”
But her words became a garbled scream as Tessa pulled a sword from her power, the same dark blade and runes as her arrows and daggers. Tristyn barely moved out of the way in time as that blade sliced one of Oralia’s wings clean off. It fell to the ground, and Tessa made sure to step on it when she raised her sword and did the same to the other.
Her screams filled the dark night; Tessa’s smile only grew.
Oralia sank to her knees, her back pouring blood.
“How utterlypatheticto be soweak,” Tessa said casually, dragging the tip of her blade on the ground behind her as she circled Oralia.
Tristyn had released her throat, but that strange glowing power of his was still wrapped around it. Nylah still held firm. Between the two of them, something was preventing Oralia from Traveling. The bitch wasn’t going anywhere.
“Shut up!” Oralia snapped, catching herself on her hands as she fell forward. “They kept making me wait to take my power. They kept telling me that something better would come.”
Her words were garbled gasps, and Tessa stopped in front of her once more. Pressing the tip of her blade beneath Oralia’schin, she tipped her face up. Tessa’s head tilted to the side. “You were the back-up plan.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Oralia snarled, blood dripping down her neck where the blade had pierced flesh.
Tessa smiled. “Without any power, you were easily controlled. They needed you powerless so that if things went wrong, if Dexter or Brecken were killed, they still had an option. It was never about finding you the perfect power.”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“And now you will die as powerless as the day you were born. You got to watch everyone else get their gifts and learn to use them, while you were told to save yourself for something special.” Tessa barked a humorless huff of laughter. “I know the feeling. I almost pity you. Too bad I don’t.”
Before Oralia could speak again, Tessa plunged her sword through her chest so thoroughly it protruded out of her back. Then she was dissolving into nothing but golden embers and darkest ashes that were scattering along the beach.
Her wings remained though.
And true to her word, she’d leave them for Dexter to find.
She turned then, rushing back to Brecken and dropping beside him once more. He’d managed to roll onto his side, but gods, his pallor was as grey as his decaying wings.
Wings that were scarcely there anymore.
“No,” she breathed, her hands hovering over her face, his chest, trying to decide what to do. Something inside of her was breaking, the pain searing.
“There’s…nothing…Tess,” he gasped out, reaching for her hand.
His fingers were freezing and bony. Frail in her trembling hand.
“We can take you back,” she said through tears. “We can take you back. Maybe Xan knows…”
But she trailed off as cracked lips tried to tilt up in his mischievous smile.
They never made it.
“I’m…fine,” he rasped, his cheeks sinking in as she watched on.
“Brecken!” she cried, feeling Tristyn come up behind her. Gods, thishurtas if she was feeling his pain, his death. “I’m sorry. I’m so… This isn’t how things were supposed to go!”
His fingers flexed in her hand again. “I’m fine,” he rasped again. “I can face Arius…knowing I was…on the right side.”
She shook her head, smoothing hair back from a damp brow.
Hair that fell out as she brushed it back, and she yanked her hand back.
