Ve'Rah Daa (The Ephemeral: Book 3)

Chapter 46

Before Death seized me, I swore I could hear my mother's river lullaby over the roar of the demonic ambush. Then a blinding flash colored my eyelids orange, and I braced myself for the fiery pits of hell.

The world shook violently beneath me, and for a brief moment, I wondered if the earth's crust had split open under my knees—if perhaps the underworld wanted my soul so badly, it had opened its jaws to consume me itself. Then a chorus of terrible screams drowned out my favorite symphony, and I feared my peers had met their horrific end.

But as the screeching grew angrier, hoarser, and several octaves deeper, I realized the sounds weren't human at all. It was the demons who were shrieking—shrieking as if something were tearing them limb from limb, heart from breast, soul from flesh.

As their monstrous wails raked against my eardrums, the pain in my bones suddenly faded, and when I found the courage to open my eyes again, the phantom assault dispersed like ash in a windstorm.

Dazed, I watched the light of the portal flinch and sputter like an injured animal, its passengers howling as it died.

Belated understanding struck, and my heart skipped a beat.

Died.

We'd done it. We'd severed the tether—we'd switched off the portal.

Godric had lost.

Fudge, still standing over my body, twisted to look at me one last time, almost like he was staring back at me in joyous disbelief. Then he vanished into thin air with that affectionate, dimpled smile on his face—or so I imagined.

My gaze roamed the battlefield. The Pans, old and new, had collapsed, writhing on the ground like beached sea creatures. Men and women stood around them in wary huddles, watching the dark smoke coil out of their chests and travel in wispy arcs toward the portal.

Leaving.

The demons were making their exit at last—a decade-long blight finally extinguished.

My focus swiveled to the sky beyond, cautiously hopeful, and the sight that greeted me stole the breath in my throat.

The gray haze had already begun to dissipate, the canvas of nothingness finally disintegrating, and a sliver of sunshine carved through the clouds like a divine reaping hook.

I squinted, the corner of my mouth quirking upwards at the saturation.

Is that...a streak of blue?

"Alex!"

My chest loosened, and I turned my gaze south.

Will.

I hoisted myself to my feet, the pain much worse now that I wasn't riding on adrenaline, and I stumbled around the blinking portal toward the edge of the basement. Will clutched at a pillar, barely able to stand, and Valerie halted a few feet behind him, shaking her head at what I assumed to be a pitiful rescue attempt.

I met Will in a sloppy collision, and I clasped his armor to keep him from crashing upon his splint. As his arms enveloped me, he dropped his head to the crook of my neck and cursed repeatedly into my pauldron.

"I'm okay," I whispered, not sure if I was saying it for his benefit or mine.

He squeezed me tightly in response, and I ran my gloved hand through his dusty hair, reeling at the fact that I was still alive to do so.

Valerie smiled at me as if she could read my mind, shrugging off her quiver with a heavy sigh. Meanwhile, a weary Mason slumped onto the stairwell beside Tori, who wrapped his arm around the blond in an oddly intimate manner—a manner that suggested a major development in their relationship since leaving Havenbrooke.