She shouldn’t have underestimated Samael’s preparedness. Even with his war on Earth, he’d been ready for an attack on Asphodel. He was too calculating, too organized, too ready to counter anything they could throw at him. They wouldn’t win this war, not as long as Samael was in control.
She knew what she had to do.
She spun around to the dragon behind her. “Zwi, do you know where Samael might be? Can you take me there?”
The dragon cocked her head, then rumbled in her deep dragon voice. In a flash of black fire, she transformed back into a dragonet and chirped at Piper. Turning, she ran across the courtyard and down another path. Piper sprinted after her, pulling her bloodied short swords from their sheaths.
Zwi led her toward the center of Asphodel. Even though the draconians had intended to focus their attack on the barracks, the battle had spread into the rest of the estate. As she ran, reapers and draconians darted across her path, fighting viciously, seeking the killing stroke. She dodged them, not stopping. Every minute that passed was a chance for Samael to reveal his next surprise and she didn’t think they could survive anything more.
Charging past the raging flames of a building on fire, she put her arm over her nose as the smoke burned her lungs. Her eyes watered, the toxic haze blinding her as she ran through the smoke—straight into a horde of monsters.
The half-dozen beasts stood over seven feet tall with scaly black skin and huge pointed horns like a bull. Their hooved feet clattered on the cobblestones as they jerked around toward Piper, glowing yellow eyes finding her. Terror rushed through her when she recognized them as the same caste as a daemon she’d seen leaving Samael’s office on her first visit to Asphodel.
Zwi shrieked a warning and transformed again. Piper threw herself backward as the nearest beast snatched at her, its stained claws missing her face. She whipped her sword up, slicing across its hand. It snarled, the sound like an infuriated grizzly bear.
As Zwi leaped into a pair of the monsters, Piper swallowed her fear and lunged in. Using her first sword to force the creature’s hand away, she ducked under its arm and jammed her blade into his ribs—except her sword hit its scaly hide and barely scratched it. It roared and swung its arm, clubbing her in the head and knocking her clear off her feet.
She landed hard and rolled upright, only to take a blast of sickly green magic in the chest from one of the beasts. Her dragon scale clothing blunted it but it still hurled her to the ground all over again. She crashed down on her back as Zwi roared furiously. The beast that had blasted her jumped forward, claws reaching for her.
A dark shape dropped out of the cloud of smoke and came down on the beast’s massive shoulders. Seiya ripped her claws through its throat, jumped clear as it collapsed, and unleashed three blades of black dragon fire at another daemon.
Piper surged back up, steeled herself for the coming pain, and called on her magic. It burned through her like acid but she managed to summon a whip of twisting blue and purple power. She flicked her hand, sending it snapping out toward two beasts. They both tried to shield, but with flashes of orange light, her attack sliced right through their barriers and into their bodies. Zwi pounced on the last daemon, her jaws snapping down on the back of his neck.
Seiya whirled toward her, her ponytail swinging out behind her.
“Piper!” Seiya grabbed her arm. Blood ran down her face from a slice across her temple. “Are you okay? That Sahar blast was insane.”
“Fine,” Piper gasped, still catching her breath after the pain of using her magic. She wasn’t really fine, all things considered. Ariose had sliced her up pretty good with his spell and that didn’t even include what the Sahar had done to her. “Where’s your company? Why aren’t you with them?”
“We were separated.” Seiya’s jaw clenched. “That sound started up and we were barely managing to defend ourselves through the pain and they drove us apart so they could pick us off more easily. We lost so many.”
She broke off, hastily regaining her composure. “We need to help Ash. They’re pinning him and Tenryu down with those damn guns.”
“You can go for the guns if you want,” Piper said, “but I’m going for Samael.”
Seiya’s eyes widened. “Is he here?”
They’d all been hoping Samael was on Earth, supervising his war there, but Piper couldn’t believe it.
“This is going too badly for us. He’s here. I know it. I have to find him.”
“Cut the head off the snake,” Seiya said fiercely. “Yes. He’ll be in the main hall.”
Piper straightened out of her pained hunch. “Where’s that? Are you sure?”
“It has its own special wards. With the estate wards compromised, it’s the only place he would be. Let’s go.”
They broke into a fast jog. Zwi ran after them, still in dragon form. Zala flew in out of the darkness and dashed ahead, scouting for danger. Seiya led them into a narrow alley and they picked up the pace, running for the center of Asphodel. In the distance, explosions of magic boomed and the earth shook. Piper glanced back and saw an eerie blue glow on the horizon.
With Zala leading them around any further reaper encounters, they moved fast. The buildings morphed from simple and industrial to elegant, old-world structures of stone and wood, with peaked roofs and curling, decorative eaves. They sprinted through garden courtyards and cut beneath covered wooden boardwalks.
As they ran into a narrow gap between two long structures, Seiya slowed and dropped into a half crouch, creeping toward the opening. Piper followed, the pattering rain and distant—sometimes not so distant—explosions covering the sound of her footsteps, and they stopped together, peering out from their shadowy shelter.
An enormous, elegant building rose at the far end of a cobblestone courtyard. Beneath a steeply sloped roof, massive double doors etched with shining silver designs, at least fifteen feet high and quadruple the width of a regular doorway, dominated the front face. A grand entrance to a throne room, no doubt.
Piper glanced over the building before focusing on the courtyard. Over thirty soldiers—elite knights, judging by the gold bands adorning their right biceps—stood guard, long-handled pikes in their hands.
“The whole thing—building and courtyard—is heavily warded,” Seiya whispered. “The only way in is through that arch.”
At the front of the courtyard was a large wooden arch inlaid with matching silver designs. It looked utterly innocuous, just another decoration, but they couldn’t approach the arch without every reaper seeing them coming. And even if they could get inside the arch, she, Seiya, Zwi, and Zala were no match for thirty elite knights.
“How do we get past them?” Piper whispered hoarsely.
Before Seiya could answer, the reapers in the courtyard stirred to attention. Pikes flashed down in readiness. She and Seiya flinched in unison but none of the reapers were looking at them.
Diving out of the sky at high speeds, two-dozen draconians shot like dark bolts straight through the arch and into the courtyard. They crashed into the waiting wall of reapers with roared battle cries. Black and red magic flashed, and two-dozen dragonets transformed into their dragon forms. They ripped into the reapers.
“That’s Raum!” Seiya gasped, jumping up. “Raum is leading them! Let’s go!”
She ran out of their hiding spot, sprinting for the arch. Piper ran after her, raising her swords as the shaded battle calm swept over her. They charged through the arch and into the bloodbath.
Magic and blades flashed from all sides, with black draconian wings everywhere. Piper dashed in, ducking the stray stroke of a pike and slicing at a reaper as she ran past. Another sprang into her path, flinging a red blast. Ignoring the pain of using magic, she shielded, bursting through the orange flare when her magic hit his, and tackled him with one shoulder, ramming him over. Seiya came in behind her and jabbed her blade into his gut. Zwi in full dragon form followed, snarling with her scales coated in blue and black fire.
The dra
conian girl sprinted past Piper and leaped high, jumping right over two reapers. She landed opposite Piper and they attacked the pair simultaneously. Piper spun in close, parrying a fast stroke. She lunged with her sword but the reaper teleported. The other was too slow and Seiya’s lightning-fast swords found his flesh.
Together, she and Seiya pressed deeper into the courtyard. The fighting grew fiercer as the reapers grouped tightly, preventing the draconians from getting past them to the building. Piper and Seiya came up against a wall of bristling pikes and could go no farther. The doors towered behind the line of reapers, mocking them.
Piper clutched the hilts of her swords. They had to get in there.
With a whirl of wings, Raum landed beside them. He had a heavy sword in one hand, dripping reaper blood. His black eyes swept over the two of them.
“Get ready,” he said.
Piper tensed. He whistled sharply.
All the dragons fighting in the clearing roared. Blue flames erupted over their bodies—Tenryu’s blue fire. Zwi using Tenryu’s power hadn’t surprised her, but the other dragonets too? After a shocked moment, she remembered Ash’s strange influence over the wild dragonets—then the dragons charged into the wall of reapers, flames engulfing their bodies, and she had no more time to think.
With Tenryu’s power flowing over them, the dragons tore through the reapers’ defenses. Raum launched forward, Piper and Seiya on his heels. He sprang over the battling dragons and daemons, wings snapping down. Seiya grabbed Piper and leaped too. They landed hard on the stairs and ran toward the doors. Other draconians flew over the battling reapers and turned on them from behind, pinning them between their blades and the flaming dragons.
Piper didn’t look back, trying not to hear the screams of dying dragons as the Hades daemons fought back. She and Seiya followed Raum up the front steps. He didn’t bother pushing the doors open. Instead, he lifted a hand and blasted them apart. Wood and metal flew inward, scattering across the polished marble floors inside.
The three of them ran through the debris, Zwi on their heels. Beyond the doors, a long hall opened, three stories tall with rows of beautifully carved pillars interspersed along the outer edges. Raum slowed his pace as they came into the hall, their footsteps echoing in the sudden silence.
At the far end, five wide steps led up to a dais backed by blood-red silk drapes. A single large but simple chair sat in total isolation against the gently rippling red. And in that chair, Samael sat. Other reapers surrounded him, but all she could see were those red eyes staring at her. Even with the distance of the room between them, she could feel the crushing weight of his gaze, the cutting pressure of his attention like a hundred blades laid across her skin.
He made a small gesture to his entourage. About half of them teleported, gone in an instant—carrying new orders to his troops? The others faced her, Seiya, and Raum. Six reapers, clad in black, each possessing not one but three gold bands on his right bicep.
Raum strode forward, closing half the distance. When he reached that invisible halfway line, the six bodyguards flowed into motion. They moved like snakes, gliding down the steps and forming a line in front of Samael, red eyes glowing faintly.
In a burst of blue and black flame, Raum’s dragonet, Nili, transformed into his full dragon form. Zala followed suit. Along with Zwi, the two dragons stood behind Seiya, Piper, and Raum, snarling softly.
“Raum and Seiya,” Samael said, his quiet voice filling the cavernous room with power and confidence. “After your great struggle to escape me, I am surprised you would willingly return to die.”
Seiya’s jaw flexed but she didn’t respond. The utter hatred burning in her black eyes was answer enough. Raum’s face was blank, emotionless. Samael’s gaze shifted to Piper. She straightened her spine, pushing back against that indefinable weight that saturated his stare.
“And Piper,” Samael said, “you have proved most elusive lately, but I observed your handiwork with the Sahar earlier.”
She sneered at him but didn’t reply. Just like Seiya and Raum, she wouldn’t take the bait.
“I have been most curious about our last encounter. Your new form is quite lovely, I must say. Ryujin, is it not?”
Again, she refused to answer. The silence between her, Seiya, and Raum was as thick and heavy as the rain falling outside.
Samael rose to his feet, smiling in an almost benevolent way. “I understand. This is not the time for talking.”
He gestured toward his six bodyguards. With red flashes, they teleported.
Her heart skipped a beat. Before she could react, metal blades crashed together on either side of her. She whipped her head around to see Seiya and Raum surrounded, fending off three reapers each. Their dragons leaped to their aid.
Piper stood alone between them as the reapers drove her friends away. Zwi stood behind her, trembling and snarling as her head turned from Seiya to Raum and back. The dragon leaped away, charging in to join Seiya’s battle as the girl stumbled. Piper raised her swords, about to join in too, when Samael rose to his feet.
She froze as he walked down the steps, his eyes locked on hers, pinning her down like chains of arctic ice. He looked casual and elegant in his silver-trimmed military uniform, his short, silvery braid hanging over one shoulder. If not for that soul-shredding stare of his, he would have looked average and forgettable.
His foot touched the last step and he vanished in a flash of red.
Hands grabbed her arms from behind her. The air crackled violently and black closed over her vision. The breath vanished from her lungs as the room disappeared from her senses. A terrible pressure crushed her from every direction at once as he teleported her. Then the world reappeared with a pop.
Her back hit a chair as she was shoved down. Her wrists were slammed into the armrests, jarring her swords out of her grip. Samael’s face filled her vision as he pinned her in place. The unfamiliar room was lined with bookshelves and with a birdcage in the corner—no, wait. She knew this room. It was his office—the room where she’d first cowered under his merciless regard.
Before she could regain her bearings, he shoved her down in the chair behind the desk and his hand closed around her throat. His fingers squeezed, half cutting off her air.
Somewhere below them, magic boomed and a dragon roared. The floor shook.
“Do you hear them?” Samael said softly. “You can save them. You can save Ash and his pet dragon as well.”
Paralysis gripped her, her lungs refusing to expand with air. No. He was lying to manipulate her.
“Surrender, Piper,” he said, his red stare driving her down into the chair, pinning her as surely as his hands. “Surrender the Sahar and promise me your obedience and I will spare them all.”
She dug her ryujin claws into the arms of the chair until pain shot up her fingers.
“No, you won’t,” she choked out. Another blast from below. Was Seiya still fighting? Was Raum holding out against the elite bodyguards?
Samael dug his fingers deeper into her neck, recapturing her attention from the sounds below. Her heart hammered and she swallowed hard, her throat moving against his hand on her neck.
“It doesn’t matter what you offer me,” she whispered. “The Sahar is gone.”
He went still. “Gone?”
“Yes. Gone.” She bared her teeth in a grin. “I destroyed it along with your towers.”
Emotion sparked in his eyes, unidentifiable to her. “You did not,” he said flatly.
“I did. It dissolved into dust. It’s gone forever.”
He stared at her, weighing her words. Rage suddenly burned across his face and magic surged over her skin from his hand on her neck. She grabbed frantically for her magic and pulsed it through her body, burning away his spell as he cast it into her. It took him an instant to realize his spell wasn’t working—just long enough for her to wrench out of his grip and swipe her claws at his throat.
He jerked back. Her claws missed his neck and caught his f
ace, scoring four lines from his jaw up one cheek. Blood spilled over his pale skin.
Fury darkened his eyes to black. The air crackled as he lifted his hands and slashed them down. Desperately, she called up a shield between them.
Power exploded into her at point-blank range. The blast hit her shield and hurled her backward. The wall disintegrated beneath the onslaught of magic and she was flung through the new opening, crashing to the floor amidst the debris. She rolled over and scrambled up, pulling a long dagger from the sheath on her thigh as she took in the new room in one glance—an elegant parlor with little clusters of stylish, old-world chairs and sofas, the long outer wall lined with windows and heavy, embroidered drapery.
Samael stood on the other side of the demolished office wall, half obscured by dust. Then he vanished. She did an about-face, dagger whipping through the air. He appeared behind her, already casting. He blasted her weapon out of her hand and another flick of his fingers shot a red blade of magic for her chest.
The debris littering the floor saved her life. As she jerked back, she tripped over a chunk of wood and fell backward. His red blade missed her chest and seared across the top of her shoulder, burning right through her ryujin clothing. Only the scales on her shoulder saved her arm.
She landed painfully on her back. Rolling over, she leaped to her feet, hands extended to her sides and fingers curled—claws ready to strike. Exhaling fast, she launched herself at him.
He vanished. As she spun, magic blasted into her back, knocking her onto her knees. She jumped up and twisted, but he’d vanished again. A flash of red in her peripheral vision. A second blast hit her in the side, hurling her off her feet and into a cluster of furniture. She flipped painfully over the back of a sofa and onto a coffee table that collapsed under her. She staggered back up.
He stood by the shattered wall, one hand in his pocket. He bounced a crackling orb of magic in his other hand, tossing it up and down like a tennis ball. Desperate, she yanked out another dagger and flung it at him. He cast a shield and the weapon ricocheted off, clattering to the floor.