The Sweetest Burn (Broken Destiny #2)

“Ivy!” my sister screamed. I sloshed around, seeing her and Costa much farther ahead. The force of the water had swept them and several minions into the mine, but Adrian and Vritra were still in this chamber, and I was horrified by what I saw.

Vritra’s hands were wrapped around Adrian’s neck. Adrian was trying to pry the demon’s hands free, but his eyelids were fluttering and he looked to be fading.

“You tore my throat out once,” the demon hissed. “It’s time I repaid you for that.”

I lunged toward them, desperation allowing me to cut through the water with more power than I should have had. Then, because I had nothing else to use and Adrian’s eyes were closing with a terrifying finality, I looped the sling around Vritra’s head, planted my feet in his back and pulled with all of my might.

I fell backward into the water so suddenly that I was sure I’d failed. Then something bobbed against my chest, and I stared down at Vritra’s decapitated head. His mouth was still moving in curses as his skin blackened and caved inward, then his head disappeared and ashes filled the water around me.

I swam over to Adrian. Ashes blackened his throat from Vritra’s hands, but that was quickly washed away in the swirling water. It had risen until I could no longer feel the ground, and the ceiling was only a few feet away.

“Adrian!” I said, shaking him. His eyes fluttered and he smiled, but his veins were starting to turn black as the poison worked its way through his body.

I pulled him with me as I swam, keeping his head above the water. The only place left to go was the mine shaft where the staff was located. From the little I remembered of it, it went back a long way, so it might buy us time before the water reached the ceiling and drowned us all. Plus, once I crossed through the doorway, I wouldn’t be thinking about anything except finding the staff.

Maybe that was a good thing, I grimly decided as I swam toward the mine shaft. The only way any of us would survive was if these waters suddenly, miraculously receded, and there was only one item in the world that could cause them to do that. It might kill me to use it, but if I didn’t, we were all dead anyway, and if I was going down, I’d rather go down fighting.

I tightened my grip on Adrian and pushed us toward the doorway to the mine. Right before we crossed it, the entire cavern filled with light.

Zach appeared in the center of the water. Light radiated from the sword in his hand, growing in brightness, until the blade shone like a lightning bolt. He used it with ruthless accuracy, hacking into every minion that the rushing river swept his way. Ashes blackened the water and screams echoed in the mine as the minions tried to fight the current to swim away. They couldn’t. Faster than my eye could follow, Zach hacked them to pieces, somehow not hindered at all by the chest-deep water.

“Ivy, hurry,” Zach ordered me. “They’re right behind you.”

Who? I turned, and then gasped. At least a dozen more demons were crashing through the water in the chamber just beyond this one. From the shouts that echoed behind them, more were on the way. Piotr had blown the elevator to bits, ensuring we couldn’t escape, but a four-hundred-foot drop was probably a fun free-fall for demons that had been waiting centuries or more to claim this staff for themselves. Or kill me, depending on their preference.

“Go!” Zach urged me. “I will hold them off.” Then his teeth flashed in a smile that was nearly dazzling. “It seems I don’t have more important things to do than act as your doorman.”

I would have been stunned by the joke, let alone the smile, but there wasn’t time. I pushed Adrian past Zach through the mine entryway, watching the Archon snatch him up with one hand while slicing a minion in two with that great, shining sword. He didn’t seem hindered at all by holding Adrian above the water while fighting, so, taking a deep breath, I plunged through the mine entryway myself.





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

AS SOON AS I passed the warding symbols that had muted my link to the staff, my fear vanished. So did my aches from the multiple items I’d bashed into in the water, let alone the beating I’d taken from the minion who’d tried to drown me. All I could focus on was the staff, and it pulled me forward as if I’d been caught in a tractor beam.

I swam past Jasmine and Costa, not listening to what they said as I went farther into the mine. Something slashed into my leg, an old piece of equipment, perhaps, but not even the pain registered. All I could feel was the staff, and its power sizzled along my nerves from being in its proximity. Closer, it seemed to whisper, urging me forward. Almost there.

A hundred yards ahead, I stopped, facing the wall on my left. It was the same granite-gray color of the rest of the mine, its uneven surface no different than the rest of the rocks around it. Yet when I touched the stone, the power behind it seared my hand, and I would’ve snatched it away at once if I could feel the pain. For the strangest reason, I couldn’t. I was too consumed with freeing the staff from its rocky confines.

I dug around the surface of the rock, knowing that the slab acted as a natural door and my prize was right behind it. My hands and fingers tore and bled from the jagged edges of stone, but that didn’t stop me, either. Neither did the water rising up to my chest as I continued to feel for a good handhold in order to pull the rock away. When I finally reached a spot where my fingers could curl around the stone at both ends, I pulled. The stone gave, but not enough. I increased my efforts, feeling my muscles strain as I heaved and pulled with all of my strength.

The rock slid toward me, and water rushed into the alcove it revealed. I barely noticed the carved stone figure of the old bearded man behind it. My eyes were fixed on the wooden staff in his raised hands. The statue held it in front of itself as if in supplication, and the staff was so long, it extended from the floor to well past the reach of those stone hands.

And the power that vibrated from it made the very air around me crackle with energy.

The slingshot in my arm throbbed, as if recognizing the power that ran through the staff. Without a single concern as to the repercussions, I grabbed it, removing it from the stone hands that were half-curled around it. Using the staff would save everyone. I knew that to my core, unlike the time I found the slingshot and had to keep trying until I mustered up enough faith to wield it.