When I opened my eyes again, I stared up at the sky, my breath clouding around my head in the chilly air.
Beyond the dome of blue light, a horde of angels raced away from the earth. Fleeing—from my power. The glow around them seemed to weaken. Clouds began to roll along the horizon. But where was Johnny? He wasn’t among them. Almost as if he’d just fallen from the sky.
It took me a moment to realize that I’d ended up hovering in midair, that my feet hung a meter above the ground.
When I looked down, my heart leapt into my throat.
Adonis lay on the path, his body completely still.
I dropped the stones, falling back to earth. The power of the gems had completely healed my body, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on Adonis.
Fat drops of icy rain began falling from the sky, chilling my skin.
I pressed my hand over his chest, feeling for a heartbeat. For a moment, I felt nothing. Then—a faint pulse, just below his scars.
His pale eyes opened, and I slid my arm under his neck, cradling his head. “Adonis?”
The rain picked up, hammering us harder now.
Adonis met my gaze, his eyes flaming with intensity for just a moment. “You made me want to stay here longer. I need to know the real Ruby. But angels don’t belong on earth.”
My throat had gone dry, heart slamming hard. This didn’t feel right. “What’s happening? Are you going to be okay?”
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly, and his eyes began to close. Even close to death, he looked perfect—a god of beauty.
“The stones will carry me to the underworld.” He spoke in a whisper. “It’s where the horsemen belong. But I want to see you…” His words died out on his tongue.
He’d known.
All this time, he’d known what the stones would do to him—and he’d wanted me to use them anyway.
Sacrifice the few to save the many.
Sadness and a rising panic washed over me.
I’d freed the earth from the scourge of the horsemen, but when I looked at Adonis, grief pressed down on me all the same, suffocating me like heavy dirt. I pressed my hand over his heart again, desperate to feel a beat pulsing beneath my palm.
This time, I felt only the stillness of a grave.
Chapter 35
I tried to calm my panicked thoughts, to think of a solution.
My hand shook on Adonis’s still chest, and I scanned the garden. Aereus lay on the mosaic path—not far from me. His torn wing had stopped pumping blood, and his heart no longer beat.
Dread slammed into my chest like a fist. I’d just killed them all. I’d killed the horsemen, and as insane as it was—I wanted to take it back. At least for this one.
I’d been so focused on Adonis, I hadn’t even noticed that Hazel had landed nearby until I began frantically searching the garden, desperate for some answers. Desperate for a way to undo this.
Hazel’s dragon had flattened half the garden, crushing trees beneath it. Rain battered Hazel as she slid off the creature.
Bursts of white streamed from the castle windows, racing for the sky, and it took me a moment to realize the cherubs were fleeing, soaring for the heavens in a mass exodus. The burst of power from the Old Gods had sent them racing away from us.
I pulled Adonis’s body in close, embracing his head and his chest as though I could revive him with my body heat. A wave of sorrow washed over me.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.
“What happened?” Hazel shouted.
I held him close to my heart. “I don’t know! I used the stones.” I heaved a sob. “They made a shield, just like they were supposed to. They wanted something from me. To be returned home, I think. The Heavenly Host took off, just like they were supposed to.” Sorrow slammed into me. “But it killed the horsemen.”
Hazel stared down at Adonis, her brow furrowed. “I think you’re right.”
His body felt cold as ice in my arms.
The shock was a fist in my throat. “I didn’t know this would happen.”
Deep in my chest, I felt something breaking, and I leaned over Adonis’s body, grasping for the stones again, my hand shaking. He looked still and perfect as a god carved of marble.
Maybe I could fix this; maybe the Old Gods would revive him. The Old Gods provided, right?
I gripped the stones tightly in my hands, holding them over his chest—his scarred heart where he’d stabbed himself again and again, stopping his own seal from breaking. It was only now that I was beginning to understand the fuller picture of him, a man who viewed his role as one of sacrifice.
As I held the Stones of Zahar, light flowed through me—a dazzling summer light that tinged the air with honey. I put my hand on Adonis’s chest, trying to channel the light into him, to stream it right into his heart…
A thin ray of blue light flowed into his ribs, and for just a moment, his back arched. But all I could feel through the stone’s magic was a deep yearning to return home. The light dulled again, and Adonis’s body went still.
Above me, the sound of rhythmic wings beat the air. Tanit and Kur were diving for the earth, rain hammering their bodies.
“What the hell happened?” Tanit shrieked.
Grief wrapped around me. The stones hadn’t revived him—Adonis’s body lay still in my lap, and my mind raced. He’d known, hadn’t he? This had been his plan all along. He’d been talking about a sacrifice—all gods demand sacrifices. Maybe a part of him had wanted out of this endless cycle of euphoria and pain. Reliving the same self-inflicted wounds over and over.
Kur kneeled next to me, placing his hand over Adonis’s heart. Inky magic coiled from his body, winding around Adonis.
I tuned out the driving rain and the wind, tuned out Tanit’s frantic screaming and the painful thoughts hammering at the back of my skull.
I gripped the stones in my hands, closing my eyes. Their power ignited my blood with the pure, buttery light of spring rays filtering through oak leaves, illuminating dust motes in the air with their brilliance. I held Adonis’s head, trying to channel that power into him.
I had to look up at the sky—couldn’t bring myself to look at the ground. Teeth ripping apart an arm, a woman screaming. Whose teeth were they? I couldn’t look at the blood staining the pavement...
The light called to me, the piercing light from above.
“Ruby!” Tanit screamed, ripping me from the vision. Her face wore a haunted, ravaged expression, rain pouring down her features in rivulets. “It’s no use. That’s not doing anything. He didn’t tell us this would happen, but obviously this was his plan. This was his sacrifice. The Great Nightmare is over, and Adonis thought he had to go with it.”
“I know. He said he was going to the underworld or something…” I mumbled. I clutched tighter to the stones. No. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. The good guys were supposed to win in the end, not die in the soil of a torture garden.