A soft, tinkling laugh overcame the sounds of battle, halting every-one and everything in the hall. Transfixed, I watched the rest of the marble slip away like a snake shedding its skin. And there they were, the three of them hovering above the makeshift battlefield. And oh, my gods, they were savagely beautiful.
The gods had unleashed the furies.
Their diaphanous white gowns stood in sharp contrast to the surrounding blood and gore. Pale, blonde, and perfect, the three cast their all-white eyes toward the carnage before them. They moved through the still air on pale, transparent wings, delicate-looking and soundless. The furies were lesser goddesses, but their presence took over the hall.
I’d never seen a god before, let alone three of them, but they appeared the way I’d imagined them: compelling, and beautiful. Frightening. I even took a step toward them, barely realizing that Seth had done so, too. Neither of us could help it. They were gods—freaking gods appearing before us. None of the other halfs or pures moved, seeming too stunned to do much of anything.
Around the room, the daimons backed off from their opponents, all their attention fixed on the furies as they sniffed the air. Some started to whine, others growled. It was the aether flowing through the gods, I realized. If Seth and I were steak, then the furies had to be the most succulent cuts of filet mignon.
One of the daimons, a half-blood, let out a low howl and charged forward.
The furie in the middle lowered to the floor, sinking her bare feet into blood and glass. Thick blonde curls floated around her head as her noiseless wings fluttered around her. A pearly glow radiated from her skin as she tipped her head to the side and smiled. The daimon lunged at her, but she simply raised one hand and froze it mid-attack.
Her smile was innocent, child-like, and yet held a barbed edge to it that was cruel. She reached back with her other arm and slammed her hand clean through the daimon’s chest. She shot straight up in the air, bringing the frantic daimon with her. Floating above us, she ripped the daimon in two.
I gasped. “Holy…”
“Shit,” Seth finished.
In an instant the furies shifted, shedding their beautiful bodies. Their skin and wings turned gray and milky, their hair darkening and thinning into stringy black ropes that snapped at the air around them. Snakes, not ropes, I realized. Their hair was freaking snakes!
The middle one screamed, bringing several pures to their knees. I backed up, knocking into Seth. He wrapped an arm around my waist, hauling me against him. One of the furies swooped, snatching up a daimon and launching it through the air. Another arced down, grabbed a Sentinel with her clawed feet, and sliced him apart as he screamed. The third landed near a crop of daimons, one strand of her snake hair zipping out and right through the eye of a Guard as she eviscerated a daimon pure.
It didn’t matter who stood in their paths—the furies were destroying everyone.
I caught sight of Leon ducking under a gray wing and pulling Aiden out of reach of one of the furies. An expression of awe and horror marked Aiden’s features as he swung a blade into a nearby daimon that wasn’t even paying attention to him.
A furie swept the ceiling, her all-white eyes glowing much like Seth’s did when he was pissed. A second later, the furie swung toward us, shrieking shrilly. It stared straight at us, arms extended and claws sharpened into fine points.
Seth grabbed my free hand. “Come on!”
I let him pull me back. “But what about Aiden and Leon?”
“They don’t have a furie gunning for their asses. Now, come on!”
We rushed toward the reception hall. The Guards still held their ground at the doors, protecting the pures. Looking back, my heart dropped; the furie was coming after us.
“Seth!”
“I know, Alex, I—” Seth stopped as we rounded the corner.
I slapped into his back. Peering over his shoulder, horror twisted my insides. The hall was choked with daimons. Half-blood servants littered the floor, necks broken or ripped open. As medicated as they were, they’d been utterly defenseless against the daimons. Guards struggled with the flood, trying to hold them back.
The furie screamed, dipping down. Seth spun around, knocking me to the floor and throwing his body over mine. By the grace of gods, I didn’t accidentally stab him with the sickle. My heart thundered and fear stuck to my skin as the furie’s wings stirred the air around us. Seth tensed as the furie swooped again, but sensing a god chock full of aether in their presence, the daimons swarmed the furie.
Jumping to his feet, Seth pulled me up and we started back down the hall. We rushed past rooms full of carnage and disaster. In the midst of the chaos, I saw Brown Eyes fighting back daimons along with the younger half he’d spoken with in the dining room this morning. He moved as gracefully as any Sentinel, taking down a daimon with a titanium candelabrum.
Seth and I reached the ballroom just as a sudden burst of panicked and terrified screams whirled the Guards around. As they yanked the door open a stampede of pure-bloods trampled the Guards, pushing and clawing to get away. Then the herd of frightened pures descended on us, tearing my hand from Seth’s. The wave of red and white robes slammed into me from all sides. Trying to stay upright, I screamed, “Seth!”
Bodies rocked into me from every direction, and I was knocked to the floor by one of the Ministers. Sharp pain exploded in my head. I tried getting up, but the hysterical crowd kept pushing me down. Dropping the blade, I curled into a ball and protected my head. Feet were everywhere, stamping down on me, kicking into me. This was how I was going to die—not in battle, not from the plot of some Council member hell-bent on destroying me, but trampled to death by a bunch of pure-bloods. Of all the ways to die.
I was so going to haunt every last one of them.
My side throbbed, and I was pretty sure I had a broken rib. In the mad rush, daimons were running and killing right beside the pures, and I had no idea where those damn furies were. I squeezed my eyes shut, whimpering as each sandal-covered foot dug into me. Seconds after I didn’t think I could take anymore, the crowd thinned enough for me to lower my hands and grab the blade.