Emerald Blaze

The titan fell to his knees.

I dropped my sword.

His magic blinked, pulsed with bright white, and died. He had melded all of his nodes to make this body for me. Unified into one, they were no longer capable of survival. I felt them dying one by one. The last one winked out.

The awe-inspiring body at my feet fell apart. The beautiful, murderous god of the Pit was dead, and I had killed him. The full enormity of it hit me and I screamed my grief and pain into the sky before it tore me apart, because I had murdered something indescribably beautiful and it would never exist again. The magic turned my scream into a song and once the last notes of it died, I had nothing left.

My legs gave out. I crashed onto the roof.

Alessandro would live. Everyone would live.

Behind me a loud hum announced incoming helicopters.

Chapter 17

Alessandro came for me, covered in blood, picked me up, and we jumped off the roof while Bug screamed through his drone. I closed my eyes and clung to him, shell-shocked, my mind reeling. It felt like everything was happening to someone else.

Alessandro loaded me into a helicopter. I held on to him, afraid that he would leave, but he stayed on the seat next to me, his arm around me.

“It’s over,” he murmured. “It’s all over.”

All around us, soldiers moved with purpose, but there was nobody to kill. Alessandro had reaped a bloody harvest. None of Arkan’s people survived.

Linus appeared by the helicopter and studied me, his face concerned.

“Do you know who I am?”

I stared at him, blank. Making words was too hard.

He glanced at Alessandro. “Has she spoken?”

“No.”

Linus turned to me, his face tense. His eyes looked . . . afraid.

“Catalina, say something. Anything at all. It’s very important. Make a sound, but don’t sing. Say a word.”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.

“Just one word. You can do it. Say no. You say no so well. You’ve had a lot of practice.”

I struggled to push words out.

“Come on,” Linus prompted, his voice gentle. “Just one word. Remember, don’t sing.”

“ . . .”

“You can do it.”

Something clicked in my brain. “I told my family that I’m the Deputy.”

Linus exhaled and slumped against the side of the chopper. For a moment he looked old.

“Don’t kill my family.”

“That’s fine. Don’t worry. The Baylors are safe. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that it took so long. I thought you would tell them months ago. It’s unrealistic to expect a Deputy Warden’s family to not know their position.”

It was another one of his tests. Bastard.

I looked at Alessandro. “Please hurt him for me.”

“Good job,” Linus said. “Carry on.”

He went away. I closed my eyes and stuck my face into Alessandro’s shoulder and let the world go.

I had no idea how much time had passed. At some point we were in the air and then I fell asleep again.

I woke up because the helicopter landed on a roof. Alessandro gently sat me upright.

“Where are we?” I asked.

He smiled. “Come on, there is someone who wants to meet you.”

We got out and entered the building. He held my hand and we walked down a hallway, took an elevator down, walked down another hallway . . . I was just walking next to him. I didn’t want to be away from him. I loved him so much, and a part of me still couldn’t believe that the Abyss was dead and that this wasn’t a dream. I needed convincing that I was actually here and not sitting in the bubble of the Abyss’ magic, deep inside his mound.

We stopped at a nurse’s station. Someone put a cap and gown on me. Someone poured sanitizer on my hands and wiped my face with some kind of wipe. It smelled like rubbing alcohol and stung. A nurse told me to follow her. I tried to stay with Alessandro, but she told me he was too bloody. I followed her down the hallway through a door with four guards outside of it.

In a large comfortable room, Nevada sat on the bed. Connor sat next to her in a chair. I saw Mom and Grandma Frida, Arabella and my cousins. Nevada was holding a bundle of blankets. I came closer, and she offered it to me.

“Congratulations. You’re an aunt.”

I looked at my tiny, red-faced nephew, reached out, and touched his little fist.

Everything hit me at once. I wrapped my arms around the baby, sat down on the floor, and cried.

The next morning, I sat in a plush chair in the America Tower, waiting for the start of the special session of the Texas Assembly. Cheryl had somehow escaped the Pit and thrown herself on the mercy of the Texas Houses. She must’ve run the moment Alessandro jumped off the roof, otherwise he would’ve killed her. Instead she ended up at the House of one of her well-respected friends. All of her charitable work and connections bought her a lot of goodwill and she intended to use every drop of it to shield herself from Lander’s vengeance.

She still thought this was about Felix’s murder.

Alessandro sat in a chair next to me. I had brought him in as my guest. He was in his full Count Sagredo persona, beautiful suit, beautiful hair, beautiful smile. You would never know that less than twenty-four hours ago he’d killed sixteen of Arkan’s professional soldiers. I still remembered him smeared with soot and blood. I also remembered waking up next to him this morning. Covered with soot and blood or clean and in my bed, I didn’t care. I would be with him no matter what he did.

Alessandro saw me looking, reached over, took my hand, and squeezed it.

Around us the massive chamber was slowly filling up with Primes in jet-black robes, each wearing a green stole draped over their shoulders. We were in the Upper Chamber, where only the Heads of various Texas Houses could vote. Cheryl had demanded the judgment of her peers and only the Heads of Houses qualified.

Five rows away, in the front, Lander Morton sat in his wheelchair. A dark-haired teenage boy sat on his right and two younger girls, both with the same chocolate-brown hair, sat on his left. Lander had brought Felix’s children to face their father’s murderer.

I had made a report to Lander. It was carefully curated by Linus, but it outlined the version of events with enough accuracy. Cheryl had unleashed an illegal construct into the Pit. When Felix decided to seek outside assistance, she panicked, lured him to the Pit, and killed him. Then the construct ran amok, and when Cheryl realized that discovery was inevitable, she brought her House’s industrial army to kill off all the witnesses.

Linus had raided Cheryl’s workshop. He’d recovered the vial with traces of the Osiris serum in it. That was what remained of Cheryl’s sample. She had used all of it to push the nameless telepath’s mind into becoming the Abyss. She didn’t know how to duplicate the serum and probably decided that bringing in someone else to replicate it was too risky.

As if on cue, Cheryl walked through the door, surrounded by Primes. I recognized a few faces, all old Houses, all respected. She saw Lander and kept walking, looking straight ahead. Her squad shielded her from Lander’s gaze but not from his voice.

“Look, children,” he croaked. “Look at the woman who murdered your father.”

Cheryl crossed the floor and sat down in the front row on the other side.

Alessandro grimaced.

“What?”

“I should’ve killed her.”

“You can’t just murder the saint of Houston without some pomp and circumstance.”

“I realize that. I just dislike leaving things unfinished. It was my last job. A shame to leave it undone.”

That’s right. Lander had hired him to kill his son’s murderer. Wait . . .

“Last job?”

He turned to me. “I told you. I’m not leaving.”

He would stay. He really meant it.

My phone chimed. A call from Bern. Odd. He almost always texted. I put it to my ear.

“Yes?”

“I finally got the footage from a gas station near Christian Ravenscroft’s country club. You said the telekinetic was a Prime. Are you sure?”

“Yes. Why?”

A dark-haired man sat down in the row behind us. Alessandro went still.

I turned my head and glanced at the man. Recognition struck me.

“I’ll call you back.” I hung up.

There was no need to continue. I knew who Bern saw on that recording.

I skimmed his mind.

It made no sense. This man was barely a Significant the last time we met. Now, he was a Prime, a blazing powerful Prime. This was the power I had felt in the Pit.

“Long time no see.” The man grinned at me, his handsome face sharp.

I kept my voice neutral. “Prime Sagredo, let me introduce Xavier Ramirez Secada. He used to be Rogan’s first cousin, once removed.”

“We’ve met,” Alessandro said.

Telekinetic, silos, semi. Xavier was the one who’d knocked Alessandro off that silo, to his near death.

“It’s Prime Secada now. You’re probably wondering how,” Xavier said, a light Spanish accent overlaying his words. “The Osiris serum is a wonderful thing.”

When we raided Diatheke, Arkan’s pet scientist was trying to find a way to augment one’s magic with the serum. Her method warped her subjects. Apparently not all of them.

Xavier leaned his elbows on the backs of our seats and nodded toward Lander and the children. “Here’s the deal. You move, they die.”