CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
ADRIAN’S FACE WAS several degrees past stricken. I had never seen him look so tortured, and his gaze filled with tears.
“No,” he whispered.
“Yes!” Demetrius said delightedly. “Looks like I get my wish to see her dead once after all.”
If my severed limb had been anywhere nearby and I’d had the strength, I would have thrown it at him. I had resigned myself to dying, but I hadn’t wanted it to be like this.
“Let me free,” Adrian said, twisting against his chains. “I won’t let her die alone.”
“She’s not alone. She’s right there,” Demetrius said with an exasperated wave in my direction.
Adrian stopped struggling and he lasered a glare at Demetrius. “Once you’re done here, I am leaving with you and I’ll probably never see her again. You can give me this.”
Demetrius sighed. “From admiringly vicious to depressingly sentimental. Very well, since this will indeed be one of your last moments with her, why not?” Then his gaze narrowed. “I don’t need to remind you that I am now Ivy’s only hope of resurrection, so if you try anything, you will lose her forever. Then, of course, I’ll murder your friend and your gargoyle in ways that will haunt your nightmares for decades to come.”
Brutus was alive? Despite my circumstances being as grim as they could get, the thought cheered me. I had feared the worst after realizing that Demetrius had bounced back so quickly after Brutus’s attack, not to mention the gargoyle’s absence now.
“Understood,” Adrian said coldly. “Now release me.”
Demetrius nodded at his minions. From their expressions, they didn’t want to do this, but since they were standing on the grainy remains of minions who had probably pissed Demetrius off, no one argued. They hurried over and began to unlock and then unwind the chains from around Adrian.
“Now, no more delays. Dip the end of the pilum in the bowl, boy,” Demetrius said to Costa.
Costa got up, giving me an apologetic look. Then his face turned to stone as he took the pilum and brought it over to the table. I knew what Demetrius had said about the power of the ground-up remains of that infamous tree, but I still hoped nothing would happen when the end of that long stick touched the sawdust-like contents in the huge golden bowl.
All the air felt like it was sucked out of the room, and the pilum, which had been a deep shade of brown, turned black as pitch before my next blink. I hadn’t realized how much energy I’d been siphoning from the pilum until everything that was hallowed about it abruptly vanished. My vision narrowed, my body turned to ice and I might have even briefly passed out, because the next thing I knew, I was gathered in Adrian’s arms.
“It’s okay,” he was crooning, and I realized he was rocking me, only because I saw him moving. I couldn’t feel it, nor could I feel his arms around me. I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
“Adrian,” I whispered. I wanted to say more, but I lacked the ability. Had I died and Demetrius had already brought me back? No. That couldn’t be. If he had, I wouldn’t still be paralyzed by weakness from my injuries and blood loss.
“Shh,” he said, kissing me. “You’ll be all right soon.”
Here you go lying to me again, I thought, unable to say it out loud. Nothing would be all right soon, least of all me. Even if I were brought back, that would only mean I’d keep living to miss him every day, plus regret how I’d failed all those people in the realms, plus doomed Adrian to their same fate.
“Now the spearhead,” I heard Demetrius say, unbridled joy in his tone. “Don’t merely dip the end of it in the bowl. Drop the entire spearhead into it.”
No wonder the bowl was so big. That was the only way the spearhead could fit inside. And couldn’t I at least die before witnessing Demetrius’s greatest triumph? Damn that bowl. From my vantage point on the ground, its huge, shiny surface filled much of the space past Adrian’s arm, which my head was currently lolled upon. I’d tell Adrian to move himself or his shadows so that he blocked it, but I didn’t have the strength to speak.
Besides, Move a little to the right would hardly be a good choice for my last words.
Costa picked up the bundle of royal-colored cloths and unwrapped it. With that, I finally saw the ancient relic I’d first tried so hard to find, then tried to convince myself not to find and then finally tried to find again.
It didn’t look like the most sought-after weapon in the world. It looked like an extended metal arrow with a triangle point at the tip. It was wider at its base where the pilum would connect and thus triple its overall length. Of course, Demetrius was waiting to reassemble the weapon until after he’d cursed this part of it, too.
“Is that blood?” Costa said, tilting the spearhead.
My vision was dimming too much to tell, but Demetrius didn’t have a problem seeing it. He let out a derisive sound.
“So the rumors are true—the blood can’t be washed off. Discovering that scared Longinus into abandoning the Roman army after his role in the execution, or so they say.”
I silently willed Costa to throw the spearhead at Demetrius instead of putting it in the bowl. Even if Costa didn’t impale him with it, maybe getting brushed by the spearhead would kill Demetrius. But Costa didn’t, and Adrian didn’t break his word by interfering, either. He only kissed my face again.
“I love you, Ivy,” he whispered.
I love you, too, I thought as Costa went over and held the spearhead over the golden bowl. Then I closed my eyes.
I didn’t want to see Demetrius’s face when the spearhead was dropped into the bowl. I didn’t want to see what the spearhead looked like after the silvery-colored iron had turned black. Or see Demetrius hold up what had once been the world’s most hallowed relic yet was now the world’s most evil. I didn’t—
An explosion went off. My eyes flew open, yet I didn’t see the walls crumbling, the furniture overturning or anything else that would account for the enormity of the shockwave that had just hit me. More confusing, no one else seemed to notice that anything had happened.
Demetrius peered over the edge of the bowl, which hadn’t even shifted despite the concussive force that had blasted into me. “Why is nothing happening?”
“How should I know?” Costa said curtly.
How could they think nothing was happening? If they hadn’t felt that incredible expulsion of power a moment ago, couldn’t they feel its equally thunderous intake now, as if the entire island had suddenly sucked in its breath?
“Bury it completely beneath the grains,” Demetrius ordered Costa. “Do it!”
Costa said something I didn’t catch, but I assume he pushed the spearhead all the way beneath the ground-up remains of the cursed tree, because Demetrius’s frown cleared.
“That should do it,” the demon muttered. “Now, one of—”
Demetrius didn’t get to finish his sentence because the room exploded again. This time, everyone felt it.