daggers’. Magic shot out of us, throwing Illias back. But the shockwave didn’t stop at him. It picked up speed and tore through the battlefield. Every monster it hit burst into tiny light particles, which were then absorbed back into the ground. The shockwave streaked through the sky, dissolving the storm clouds and wild weather the curse had brought with it. The earth quieted, and the sea stilled. Harmony had returned to the Interchange.
“You.” Illias’s voice was a low, angry rumble. “You have ruined everything. Five thousand years of careful planning. Ruined!” His eyes burned with pure hatred. “By children.”
Most people wouldn’t call a two-hundred-year-old angel a child, but I supposed that was a matter of perspective.
Perspective was something Illias was severely lacking. Instead of spending the last five thousand years productively, he’d squandered them on vengeance—and on regaining his powers so he could further his agenda of even more vengeance. He might have been over twenty-five times my age, but he possessed the maturity of a tantruming toddler.
“I will just have to cut my daggers out of you.” Illias pointed his sword at us.
He had to know that without his magic, he was no match for either of us, let alone both of us. But the desperation in his eyes told me he wouldn’t back down. He’d been on this path for far too long to back down now. He swung his sword. Damiel and I lifted ours to counter.
Steel sang through the air, and Illias’s head fell to the ground. His body tumbled down after it.
I looked in surprise at my father, who’d moved between us.
“He sent the hunters to kill your mother.” My father wiped Illias’s blood off his blade. “He killed so many innocent people. An angel protects the innocent and avenges the fallen.” His voice was stone-hard, but his eyes quivered with grief. He was still mourning my mother, hundreds of years later.
“And so the cursed Immortal Illias is dead,” Eva declared. Her voice, magnified by magic, echoed across the whole island.
At her words, the hunters stopped fighting. They slapped the round devices strapped to their upper arms and then disappeared. Now that Illias was dead, it seemed they didn’t have any reason to fight—but every reason to flee.
My father shook out his sword arm, as though he would have liked nothing better than to execute each and every one of them right here and now. I’d never seen such fury, such thirst for vengeance, in my father’s eyes.
“It was you.” My mind was looping his execution of Illias. “You’re the one who killed Holyfire.”
Damiel’s head snapped around to look at my father. He’d told me that he’d gone after Holyfire, but someone had beaten him to the punch.
“Holyfire destroyed my daughter’s life,” my father said. “He broke up her family. He was the reason I didn’t see you for two hundred years, Cadence. The reason Nero had to grow up without his parents. And for what? Holyfire’s ambition!” His voice hissed with disdain. “There is no honor in that. There is no victory in winning not through your own merits, but by pushing others down.” He looked at Damiel. “The Legion of Angels branded you a traitor, Dragonsire, but there was never a more undeserving, disgraceful angel than Eryx Holyfire. He acted with all the worst qualities of man. He couldn’t have made it any easier for me to kill him, even if he had been a traitor to the Legion.”
“I don’t disagree with your sentiment, Silverstar.” His brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing. “But don’t ever again kill the person I swore to kill.”
“Don’t threaten me, Dragonsire,” replied my father, looking rather bored.
I stepped between them. “You both got what you wanted, so let’s just put this fight on hold for the time being. We just barely got through the last battle. And besides, we are all family. So what does it matter which of us killed an enemy of the family?”
“It matters a lot, Princess.” Damiel’s eyes simmered with cold fury—and they were still locked on my father.
My father’s glare was no less explosive. “I resent the notion that he is my family.”
“On that happy note, we’ll just be leaving now,” Asteria said brightly. She blew a kiss to Damiel. “This was fun. We should do it again sometime.”
Only a demon would call it ‘fun’ to be nearly sacrificed by a cursed Immortal outcast.
“We saved your life. And the lives of your soldiers,” Damiel told the Demon Princess. “You owe us.”
She smiled coyly.