Amalia

As we fell, rocks and sand abraded my skin until Magnus somehow managed to turn over. Keeping hold of my hand, he lifted me and pulled me against him while the hundreds of pounds of debris battering us tried to tear us apart.

Then, he folded himself around me so that he took the brunt force of the rubble. He grunted once before riding the rest of the crumbling stairs to the bottom of the crater in silence. The dust and sand filling the air clogged my nose, but other than a rush of wind in my ears, the collapse was strangely hushed.

Our impact with the ground knocked me free of Magnus’s hold, and I bounced away from him on my ass. Biting my lip until I drew blood, I remained quiet as every jarring impact threatened to break my bones.

I’d felt so strong after transitioning into my immortality; now, I felt drained from being in such proximity to the horsemen and their destructive, hate-filled nature. I could feel their depravity oozing from them like blood from a stab wound.

I loathed the way they made me feel and despised that they’d further perverted this once lush and thriving place into something vile.

When I came to a stop, I pushed myself onto my hands and knees and turned to search out Magnus. The cry I’d managed to keep suppressed tore free when I spotted him half hidden beneath a pile of rubble.

Scrambling on my hands and knees, I covered the distance between us with more speed than I’d ever possessed before. Not only did my new immortality fuel me, but so did the strength of our bond.

Magnus’s silver eyes were dazed when his head turned toward me. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but when he saw me, he jerked against the rocks, and his free hand stretched toward me.

“I’m going to get you out,” I vowed.

I seized a hundred-pound rock and lifted it from him as hands fell on my shoulder. Screaming, I threw myself forward to tear free of the grasp. Lifting another stone, I spun and heaved it at whoever grabbed me.

My mother ducked to the side in time to avoid the rock, and when her eyes came back to me, they were wide with hurt. Then, her gaze latched onto my neck, her breath sucked in, and she stepped away from us.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t… I didn’t know it was you, Mohara,” I stammered out an apology before digging into the pile again.

My fingernails splintered and broke away before starting to regrow; more of my blood continuously stained the stones I tossed aside. Able to move a little better, Magnus caught my hand when I reached for another rock.

“Run,” he commanded in a gravelly voice as he stared at something beyond my shoulder.

They were coming for me, but it didn’t matter. I would never leave him at their mercy. I yanked my hand away from him. “No.”

“Amalia, run, now!”

Then more hands landed on me. The sound that came from me was animalistic and unlike anything I’d ever heard before. Kicking and squirming, I did everything I could to break free of the imprisoning hold. Turning, my eyes met Olgon’s, and I went to kick him before someone else gripped my knees and raised them off the ground.

Olgon lifted my shoulders and hefted me above the ground while someone else claimed my feet. Twisting to see who held my knees, I met the sorrow-filled eyes of my father.

“Paupi, put me down, please!” I pleaded.

After a small hesitation, he shook his head.

I thrashed against their restraining hold as they carried me across the pit, away from Magnus. When they set me down, I saw the third jinni, the one who’d held my feet, was Nalki. The closing hole in his chest revealed the start of his reforming heart.

I lunged forward, but my father and Nalki grabbed my arms to restrain me as Olgon strolled a few steps ahead. Half a dozen jinn were forming a circle around Magnus.

“Don’t hurt him!” I cried.

Magnus bellowed and started rocking himself back and forth until he tore himself free of the debris pinning him to the ground. Getting to his hands and knees, he crouched for a minute and leveled the jinn with a look promising destruction.

Then, Magnus sprang to his feet in a movement so fluid I barely saw it. His shoulders hunched as his horns curved out from the sides of his head. He didn’t make another sound as he lowered his head and charged the jinni closest to him.

The jinni braced himself, but before Magnus reached him, three more versions of Magnus emerged from the original and circled the jinni. They were all identical to the original, right down to my bite on him. The jinni spun as he tried to figure out which one was real, and for a second, I was disoriented by the duplicates too, but when I focused on the one slightly to the left, I knew it was Magnus.

Then, Magnus buried his horns in the jinni’s throat and jerked upward. The jinni’s feet came off the ground before Magnus swung his head to the side and severed the jinni’s neck in half. The jinni’s head plopped onto the ground and rolled over.

My stomach twisted, and I tried to lift my hand to cover my mouth, but my father kept it pinned down. Death was the last thing I wanted for the jinn or Magnus, but more blood would spill before we escaped here. If we escaped here.

And that blood would forever stain my hands as I’d brought Magnus here, but the jinn started it when they aligned with the horsemen who they never should have brought here.

Fresh anger surged through me as I recalled the three monsters seated on their mounts close to Absenthees. I didn’t dare take my attention off Magnus to look at them, but I could see their smug expressions from the corner of my eye.

What the jinn did to the Abyss was a travesty, and bringing those things here was a betrayal that cut far deeper than my bringing Magnus here. They were as eager to see jinn blood spilled as they were to see mine or Magnus’s. How the jinn couldn’t see that was beyond me, but the horsemen could not be allowed to remain here.

More images of Magnus sprang up around the pit. They weaved in and out as they circled the jinn until it was impossible to keep them all straight. I tried to remain focused on him, but a few times I lost him in the blur of movement.

Three more jinn fell at his hands while some of the others battled the illusions he created. Those jinn were left gaping at them when, if they hit them, the mirages dematerialized. The horsemen’s twisted pleasure emanated from them as they watched Magnus destroy the jinn even though the jinn were their allies.

“Don’t you see what the horsemen are? Don’t you feel their malice?” I whispered to my father as the corners of Lust’s mouth curved into a smile.

“Don’t you see him killing jinn?” Olgon retorted without turning toward us.

My father’s, troubled sun-colored eyes met mine before he glanced away.

“And you are trying to kill him,” I said to Olgon before turning my attention to Nalki. “He has a right to defend himself, and he let you live when I asked it of him. Does that mean nothing to you?”

I sensed Nalki’s uncertainty, but he wouldn’t look at me as he whispered, “It does,” so low that I barely heard him, but it didn’t matter, there was nothing Nalki could do against so many.

Olgon’s electric blue eyes were filled with hate when he looked at me over his shoulder. “He shouldn’t be here!” he spat.

“And neither should the horsemen or the jinn!” I cried. “I spoke with Rislen; I know the truth! This was a fae land. We took it from them and twisted it into this atrocity!”

When Olgon turned dismissively away, fury blazed through me. I was no longer a child, and when it came to the Abyss, I understood it far better than the other jinn.

“Amalia, you are a sensitive being, but you must understand conquering is the way of all demons. Our ancestors took what they wanted and made it a land for the jinn, that is all,” my father said as my mother walked over to stand next to him.

“Paupi,” I whispered. “That’s not all, and you know it. You must sense this place wasn’t supposed to be like this. You are part fae too, you have to feel the Abyss aching to come alive again.”

He refused to look at me, and I knew pleading with him would get me nowhere. “You feel it, don’t you, Nalki?”

Nalki kept his gaze steadfastly on the battle. Even if they all felt it, they would never admit it. I blinked away the tears of frustration burning my eyes as Magnus destroyed another jinni. There were more than a dozen duplicates of him moving throughout the crater. The illusions couldn’t kill but they provided a good distraction as Magnus made his way toward me.

Three of those mirages circled a jinni who spun as he tried to figure out if any of them were real. Two of the illusions dispersed when Magnus charged through them. The jinni turned toward Magnus as Magnus grasped his head, placed his foot on the jinni’s chest and shoved him back.

The jinni’s body flew across the pit while the head stayed in Magnus’s grasp. Magnus released the head as if it were nothing more than a shoe he removed. Having regrouped enough to remain undistracted by the mirages and to focus on the real Magnus, four jinn jumped onto him.

“No!” I lunged against my restrainers hold on me.

Unprepared for the movement, or the ferocity of it, my father lost his hold, and I jerked Nalki forward three steps before my father snatched me back again.

“NO!” I shouted, nearly wrenching my shoulder from its socket as I struggled to tear free of them.

Two more jinn pounced on Magnus, and the sickening thud of fists hitting flesh filled the clearing. My stomach lurched when Magnus’s legs gave out and he nearly went down. Catching himself before his knees hit the ground, Magnus lurched forward and sank his horns into the belly of a jinni. The woman screamed as Magnus propelled her into a wall, but the other jinn were already tearing him away from her and dragging him down.

“If he dies, I die, Paupi!” I screamed, and my father’s eyes swung back to me. “He’s my Chosen. Don’t let them take him from me!”

Magnus managed to tear the heart from the chest of another jinni before they succeeded in pinning him down. He thrashed against their hold, but they yanked his hands behind his back, and two of them sat on his torso while two more kept his legs restrained.

Magnus’s silver eyes were black with wrath when they met mine. Restricted like that, there was nothing he could do. None of the jinn would fall for his illusions, and cloaking himself would be useless while they held him.

I could not stand here and watch him die. I jerked forward again, but my father and Nalki didn’t budge this time.

“Olgon, do not kill him!” my father shouted as Olgon approached Magnus.

A sneer curved Olgon’s mouth when his gaze swung back to us. “Don’t kill him?”

“He’s Amalia’s Chosen.”

“Please,” I pleaded. “I’ll take him from here, and we’ll never come back.”

“And will you return their lives to them?” Olgon inquired and waved his hand at the six dead jinn littering the ground. I hadn’t realized how much destruction Magnus waged until they succeeded in taking him down.

“You would defend yourself and your Chosen if you had one,” I said. “That’s all he was doing. You shouldn’t have taken me from him.”

“Until you brought him here, he had no reason to defend himself against us. We would not have attacked the Chosen of one of our own.”

“But you did attack his camp, and you are attacking the Chosen of one of his friends! She may be dead already! You have also killed numerous friends of his! What you did to them and what you are continuing to do is wrong, and you know it! You never should have brought the horsemen here, and now you’re allowing those things to cloud your judgment!”

“Things?” Lust purred.

Magnus jerked against the jinn holding him as a cold chill ran down my back. Lust’s emerald eyes glittered with amusement when they swung toward me, but malevolence oozed from her.

“Now, now, I’m sure the child meant no insult,” Pride said. “She’s frightened for her Chosen.”

“You could have helped us to bring the demon down,” Olgon said to Sloth. “Before he killed so many of us.”

Sloth covered his mouth with his hand as he faked a yawn. “Why would I?” he inquired. “I do so much enjoy a good show; the demon provided one for us. I was duly entertained and impressed.”

“I must agree,” Lust murmured. Full-blown rage tore through me when she licked her lips and eyed Magnus like a treat she intended to devour. “And what an attractive, enticing demon he is. I wonder….” Her voice trailed off as she ran a hand over her breasts and turned her attention back to me. “Perhaps we could keep him alive, but you must be made to pay as you did betray your kind and you did call us things. I’ve killed for less, and I could never allow such offenses to go unpunished.”

My heart lodged in my throat when she nudged her horse, and the beautiful beast made its way toward Magnus.

“You both must be punished as this one follows the king.” Lust swung from the back of her horse and landed on the ground. Her step was so light she seemed to float across the rocks as she made her way toward Magnus with her white hair trailing across the ground. “And the show this demon put on and the destruction he wrought is just so… arousing.”