Page 95 of River of Flames

What the hell—

Snarling growls and gouts of flame drew my attention, and I looked up.

It was pandemonium.

Luca was there, crouched defensively with a heavy tree branch clutched in his hand. He wore pants, but was still shirtless, and blood streaked down his chest, gleaming red in the firelight. And the fire was everywhere. The woods burned in a twisting inferno that lit the night, sending smoke billowing skyward.

Beside Luca stood—oh God, it was Abigor. He was unmistakable in his own form. Like Lilin, his face was pale and stark with an otherworldly beauty. Huge, glistening wings rose from his back, the oil-slick colors dancing in the firelight. From his head, great spiraling horns curved in an arc, cutting through his tangled black hair. His eyes met mine, red as blood.

"River," he said, "it is good to see you with my own eyes." His lips pulled back in a ferocious smile. "Come. We fight."

Then a roar filled my ears and I turned, my eyes landing for the first time on the vision of death that stepped out of the burning trees. It was as though my heart stopped beating. The breath seized in my lungs.

Olryg towered over the clearing, and if his form was roughly human in shape—two arms, massive torso, legs like tree trunks—that was where the similarities ended. His skin was bone white, and as desiccated as cracked earth. Claws tipped his fingers, hooves met the ground, massive horns curled above a face twisted with hate. Smoke billowed around him, rising from cracks in his skin, as if fire flowed through his very veins. In one hand he held a whip made of fire, trailing flames as it snaked behind him.

“Oh, God,” I whispered. “Oh, please, no.”

The ground shook as he approached, and his face twisted in a monstrous sneer as his gaze swept over our haphazard group. When he spoke, it was the dry rasp of wildfire tearing through a barren field.

"Abigor and Lilin. I knew I had but to wait and you would reveal yourselves once again. So predictable."

His enormous head swiveled, his eyes seeking out the motionless bodies of his hounds littering the clearing. Behind him, his whip skittered in the dirt, flames hissing in its wake.

"You only add to the list of sins you must answer for," he growled. "Stop now. Return with me, and the mortals you fight for may yet be spared. Do not make it worse." The weight of his glowing gaze fell on me, and I clenched my jaw to keep myself from trembling. I could still hear fighting in the distance. Desperation tore at me as I thought of Theo, of Julian. Please be alive.

There was a sharp bark of laughter to my side. "How could it possibly get worse?" Abigor snarled.

A rumble of thunder met my ears: Olryg was laughing. "You wish to find out? Very well. You were given your chance."

And then he lifted one massive arm, the whip curling through the air, and brought it down toward Luca with a deafening crack.

"No!" I shouted, but my words were lost under a scream of pain. It wasn't Luca, though; it was Lilin, materializing out of the shadows to take the blow of the whip, its fiery length curled around her outstretched arm.

A bellowing roar overlapped her scream, and then Abigor was there, pulling her away. Stripes of seared flesh branded her arm where the whip had been. And Olryg pivoted on massive hooves and swung it through the air toward me.

I gasped, stumbling backward and twisting away—and found myself face to face with the snapping jaws of a hellhound. There was nowhere to go. I raised my hands defensively—please help me—and as the jaws began to clamp shut around my arm, tearing at the fabric of my shirt, a searing white light lit the night. There was an unearthly howl of pain, and the hound’s head seemed to evaporate before me, skin and muscle and bone turning to dust and raining harmlessly to the earth. The body dropped in a heap.

Oh God oh God oh God.

Had that been me?

The whip passed by inches from my ear, the heat of it singeing my hair as it passed. I lifted my hand once again to brandish it at the archdemon. Use the ring. But what had I just done? How had I made it work?

There was a bellow of rage as Olryg saw the remains of his minion, and a heavy hoof stamped the earth in front of me, making the ground tremble as his mighty arm swung the whip aloft again. I held my hand up, the rubies of the ring glinting in the firelight, but nothing happened.

No! I braced myself for the impact of the whip.

And then—

There was a blur of movement, and the ground was swept out from under me. I gasped as the world tilted, lithe arms wrapping around my torso as powerful wings buffeted the air around me. Lilin's face was close to mine, her expression fierce as we rose together into the air. "The ring is a holy artifact. It destroys demonic flesh on contact."

The whip snapped beside us and she reversed course, spiraling us through the air. My stomach lurched. Was that what had happened? The ring had touched the hound?

"Drop me on him," I gasped. "Drop me on Olryg, and I can take him down."

Lilin’s face twisted as though she didn't know whether to be irritated or amused. "Foolish girl. You will kill him and then what—survive a two-story fall to the earth? Besides, it will take more than that to defeat an archdemon. You must—"

The whip cracked through the air, cutting off her words as she lurched to one side to avoid it. But with a burst of flame, the tip of the whip caught the edge of her wing, searing through like a blade. A shower of blackened feathers rained through the night sky, and as she twisted, I slipped from her grip, my grasping hands catching at nothing as I plummeted toward the ground.

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