pain, Rielle pushed herself up and grasped blindly for her power. She shoved her palms into the air. Snapping streaks of gold flew across the terrace, then shot off into the night. Her aim was terrible, her thoughts scattered. She couldn’t see, blinded by tears and the pulsing white waves of Corien’s fury. All she could feel was the cold fire of his anger.
And still, unblinking, he watched her.
She tried again, flung her power toward him in desperation. Energy pulsed across the terrace, hot and rippling, as if something huge had fallen from the sky. Corien hissed. His head snapped to the right. When he looked back at Rielle, tiny red pricks of blood spotted his face. A moment later, they were gone.
“Rielle, I’m right here!” Audric crawled toward her. His wounds did not vanish, and his face was raw with terror, and yet still he fought to reach her. “I’m right here. Talk to me. Look at me, please!”
The world was liquid. Rielle was underwater, paddling frantically for the surface. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t find the ground.
Tears streaming down her face, she searched for Eliana.
The girl hadn’t moved. She stood rigid, her expression hard with anger. Light blazed in her palms, ready to be thrown. Ripe with heat, the air trembled around her. But if she struck Corien, would it hurt Rielle? Would he turn on her next and entrap them both?
The glass doors burst open. Their painted suns shattered. A dozen angelic soldiers spilled onto the broad terrace, followed by three beasts, five, eight. One dropped down from the rooftop, skittered forward on the shiny black hooks of its wings. Another, reptilian and clever-eyed, an elemental child on its back, threw lashes of wind from its ash-blackened castings.
“Protect the king!” Evyline roared, drawing her sword. Her arms and neck wore strips of burned flesh. The others hurried to join her—Miren, her army of knives darting like bolts of lightning through the air; Sloane, pulling shadows from every crack and crevice. Silver spirals of churning water flew from Kamayin’s glowing wrists, and Evyline charged, wild-eyed, every blow of her sword like the fall of thunder.
But then Eliana whirled around and launched into the fight. Beside her, the others were nothing, clumsy and unremarkable. Even dizzy with pain, Rielle could not tear her eyes from her daughter. She was lovely in battle, her arms and legs quick as a dancer’s. Her coat whipped around her legs. She was filthy with blood and dust, and yet the hum of her power painted her resplendent, as if she had been born from the strokes of an artist’s gleaming brush. Her hands glowed brightest of all, encased in her castings—two pendants held snug to her palms by slender chains.
More beasts tumbled down from the roof, shrieking stupidly for blood. With a furious sharp cry, Eliana spun to face the nearest one, sent it flying. It crashed through the stone railing and tumbled into the darkness.
Rielle could have watched Eliana for hours. Arcs of light soared through the air, smashed into the angels’ armor, sent them clattering to the ground. But of course they rose again and again, and they would forever until they claimed victory.
Then Rielle felt the air tighten with malice, the drawn breath before a scream. Her stomach dropped for miles.
The angels had deployed their minds at last, their fiercest weapons. The brute force of their thoughts snapped through the air, seeking targets. They would seize these fighting women one by one and throw them to their deaths, or make them jump off the edge of the terrace themselves, command them to turn on each other until nothing was left but ruin. They would save Eliana for last and dismantle her piece by piece. Rielle drew a breath, dizzy with fear.
But then something dove out of the sky. Nearly shadows, nearly bodies, but neither of these things and both of them at once. It was as when Rielle had opened the Gate—flashes of beauty, supple skin that gleamed as if freshly emerged from the sea, brief flashes of armor and cloaks, gowns and coats riotous with color. Streaming pale hair, long dark curls fluttering with ribbons. They were angels, each of their minds carrying echoes of what they had once been. And with no bodies to contain them, their memories spilled freely.
Watching them descend, Rielle struggled to rise, shout a warning. But these angels, bodiless and roaring, dove to fight alongside Eliana, shielded Sloane and Kamayin. They wove through the