It all played out in silence. I couldn’t hear anything anymore. I was so busy putting all my magic into my shield that my senses were shutting down. My legs felt like lead. I could hardly stand.
Something brushed against my arm. I glanced to the side. Tessa was tapping my shoulder. She was speaking to me, but I couldn’t hear a word. I had to read her lips to decipher what she was saying.
Your ears, Leda.
I lifted my fingers to my ears, and they came back coated in blood. No wonder I couldn’t hear.
Fire and debris swirled and spun around me, repelled by my psychic spell. Close to me, the pieces moved slowly, but further out they were whirling around fast, crashing and clashing in explosions of fire and stone.
Nero and the others stood at the doorway to the dungeon, watching us from across the pool of swirling debris. The Dark Force soldiers had fled.
I felt a phantom nudge. It repeated. The third time it brushed against me, I realized it was Nero. It smelled like him. As though a sound could smell like something, but somehow it did. I opened up my mind.
Come to me, Leda, nice and slow, Nero’s voice spoke inside my head.
Panic froze me as I looked across the burning, churning debris field. The columns holding up the room had already shattered. Only my magic was preventing the whole roof from collapsing on us.
The pieces of the stone columns swirled around inside the wreckage. As soon as I moved, the debris would change course. I couldn’t adjust my psychic shield fast enough to keep up with it. The barrage would tear my shield apart, and if it collapsed, so would the room.
Of course, it would all collapse soon anyway. I couldn’t hold it up much longer. We were all going to die. I’d defeated the dark angel, but I hadn’t won.
Nero’s voice cut through my panic. I will help you hold up the ceiling. His voice was calm, reassuring. I won’t let it fall on you. I promise. Just start walking to me.
Swallowing the fear bubbling inside of me, I grabbed my sisters’ hands and began to walk toward the doorway of fire. The marble and concrete chunks shifted, but Nero’s magic was right there to hold them back, even as my own strength faded.
Behind him, the Dark Force had regrouped, their numbers swelling to strike back hard. Calli, Bella, and Damiel went to hold them off, but there were too many enemy soldiers. They wouldn’t be able to hold them off for long.
Don’t worry about them. Focus on coming to me, Nero told me.
I continued to walk slowly, holding tightly to my sisters’ hands. The debris grew wilder, restless. Nero’s magic knocked the pieces of broken rock aside.
Keep walking.
My hearing came back all at once. I heard the crash and smash of debris like rocks on a rooftop, the hiss of fire, the rattle and shake of my barrier. It was a storm of sensory overload. I heard every pebble trying to cut us, every boulder trying to crush us, every wisp of ash trying to suffocate us—like death taunting us from just beyond the veil.
After what felt like an eternity in hell, we finally made it to Nero. He parted the curtain of fire to allow us to escape the dungeon. The flames snapped back in place behind us.
Nero drew me into an embrace. He was here. He’d come all the way to hell for me.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” he hissed harshly into my ear.
“Go to hell?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t by choice, you know,” I said.
He squeezed me tightly to him, but it didn’t hurt. In fact, I wished I could just collapse into his embrace. I knew he would catch me. He always caught me.
But I couldn’t do that. I had an image to maintain, after all.
“I’m never letting you out of my sight again,” he said.
“That might prove difficult given our line of work.”
“I’m not joking, Pandora.”
He kissed me. It was a rough and desperate kiss—one loaded with his fear of my life, his powerlessness, his turmoil, his annoyance at me for running off and getting captured, and his relief at having me back again.
He pulled back and faced the collapsing room. The debris in the dungeon dropped all at once to the ground. Nero’s magic held back the avalanche of marble and concrete. Everything crashed together in wild directions, reforming into thick columns of melded material to hold up the new ceiling that had formed. It was just in time too because if the dungeon had collapsed, our room would have been next.
I just stood there and gaped, shocked at the scale of power he’d used.
Damiel had built a barricade to block off the Dark Force soldiers. He walked over to us, looked at Nero’s columns and ceiling with a critical eye, and declared, “They’re not straight.”
Nero folded his arms across his chest and gave his father a cool look. “Feel free to do it yourself next time, old man.”
Damiel smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of denying you the opportunity to practice. You obviously need it.”
Nero just glared at him.
“You’re contemplating leaving him here in hell,” I said.
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“You can’t do that,” I told him.
“And why is that?”
“First of all, he’s your father.”
Nero snorted.
“And he’s injured,” I added.
Nero gave his father’s minor wounds a cursory glance. “He’ll heal.”
Damiel’s blue eyes twinkled.
“And he came all the way here to help you rescue me,” I said to Nero. “Leaving him behind wouldn’t be honorable.”
Nero’s mouth hardened.
Damiel chuckled. “She’s got you there.”
“Thank you for coming.” I turned toward Calli and Bella. “But how did you get here?”
“I did some research in the forbidden dark magic books Damiel got for me,” Bella explained.
Damiel looked as modest as an angel.
“I found a spell that can create a passage to hell,” Bella continued. “It was very complicated, but finally I managed to make it work.” She actually did look modest.
“A passage that is closing soon.” Damiel pointed out the subtle, near-invisible flicker in the air. It was only a few feet from me, and I hadn’t even noticed it. “Let’s get out of here.”
Calli picked up Gin. Nero picked up me.
When I protested, he leveled a hard, commanding stare at me. “Have you seen what you look like?”
“No, actually. I haven’t had the chance to look in a mirror recently.”
I glanced down at my body. The battle arena hadn’t been kind to it—and my battle with the dark angel had only made things worse. Gashes, deep holes, and cuts marred my skin. Parts of my flesh were missing—burned, torn off, or both. There was blood everywhere. Most of my clothes were missing too. My tattered shorts had once been full-length pants, my jacket was gone, and my tank top was hardly more than a sports bra now. I didn’t even have shoes on anymore.
“I look like a zombie,” I said glumly.
“No, you’re far too pretty to be a zombie,” Nero stated.
There was nothing romantic about the matter-of-fact way he said it, but it still made my heart melt. I leaned my head against his shoulder, just happy to let someone else worry about how we were getting out of here for once.
Damiel lifted Tessa into his arms. A few weeks ago, she’d have blushed and gushed like a silly, angel-obsessed schoolgirl. Now, she simply thanked him for coming. Remembering her past, living through the torture Soulslayer had inflicted on her and Gin, had made her grow up fast. I just hoped the experience hadn’t destroyed who they were.
And what about me? When I’d battled Soulslayer, a monster had come out, taking me over. Had I changed too? Or was I just starting to become who I’d always truly been deep down inside of me?
For me and my sisters, our origins had come knocking, ripping away the bandages that concealed the past, exposing what we truly were. As we escaped hell, I wondered how things could ever be the same.
30
Immortal Destiny