Chapter 42 The Price of Prophecy
MIREYA'S POV
I wake up choking on angel magic.
The chains around my wrists burn like ice and fire combined. My demon powers slam against invisible walls, trapped inside my own body. I can't feel Azraeth through our bond—just empty silence where his presence should be.
Panic claws up my throat.
"Awake already?" Seraphina's voice cuts through the fog. "Angel-forged chains. They suppress demon magic completely. You're as powerless as a human now."
I force my eyes open. We're in some kind of prison cell—white stone walls covered in glowing symbols. Through a barred window, I see the Celestial Council tower looming against the night sky.
They brought me to angel headquarters.
I'm dead. I'm so completely dead.
"Where's Azraeth?" My voice comes out rough.
"Probably dying in a cave somewhere." Seraphina kneels in front of me, her mortal face twisted with satisfaction. "Without you to complete the bond, his curse will finish him off within days. Maybe hours, considering how much power he wasted rescuing those pathetic demons."
My chest tightens. "You're lying."
"Am I? You felt the bond break. You know what that means." She tilts her head. "But don't worry—you won't live long enough to mourn him. The Council has scheduled your execution for dawn. Public beheading in the city square. They want everyone to see what happens to demon-lovers who dare threaten angel rule."
"The prophecy," I whisper, understanding flooding through me. "They're scared I'll actually fulfill it."
Seraphina's expression darkens. "That prophecy is a fairy tale Morwenna told herself to feel important. You're not going to overthrow anything. You're just a librarian who got in over her head."
But her words ring false. If they truly believed the prophecy was meaningless, they wouldn't be this desperate to kill me.
Which means they think I actually could shatter their "crown of false light."
The thought should terrify me. Instead, something hot and fierce blooms in my chest.
Power. Purpose. The possibility of making every angel who ever hunted demons pay for five hundred years of lies.
"You're smiling," Seraphina says, disturbed. "Why are you smiling?"
"Because I just realized something." I meet her eyes. "You didn't strip my wings like Azraeth did. You didn't take my weapon. You're not standing guard yourself. Which means you're not as confident as you're pretending."
Her hand twitches toward the blade at her hip.
"You're scared," I continue, the pieces falling into place. "Not of me—of what I represent. Five hundred years of lies coming undone. Your precious Council exposed as murderers and frauds. That's why the execution has to be public and quick. Before anyone starts asking questions."
"Enough." Seraphina stands abruptly. "Enjoy your last few hours, witch. Come dawn, prophecy or not, you die."
She leaves, slamming the cell door behind her.
The moment she's gone, I test the chains. They hold firm, burning against my skin. My demon magic is completely locked down—I can't even summon a candle flame.
But Seraphina made a mistake.
She assumed demon magic was all I had.
I close my eyes and reach deeper, past the demon power Azraeth awakened, down to the core of what I was before the bond. Witch magic. The kind my mother tried to suppress with that necklace. The kind that's been sleeping in my blood for twenty-seven years.
It's faint. Weak. But it's there.
I focus on the chains, examining them with senses I didn't know I had. Angel-forged iron designed to block demon power. But witch magic works differently—it's subtler, more like water finding cracks than fire burning through walls.
I pour every ounce of concentration into that tiny spark of witch power, coaxing it to grow. To seep through the cracks in the chains' magic.
Hours pass. My head throbs. Blood drips from my nose.
But slowly, impossibly, I feel the chains' grip loosening.
A sound makes me freeze.
Footsteps in the corridor outside. Multiple sets.
The cell door opens, and my heart stops.
Kieran walks in, flanked by two angel guards.
He looks different. Older. Harder. His eyes have a manic gleam that makes my skin crawl.
"Hello, Mireya," he says pleasantly. "Miss me?"
"What are you doing here?"
"I made a deal with the Celestial Council." He circles me like a predator. "They get to execute you publicly and make an example. I get thirty minutes alone with you first—and permission to extract a sample of your demon-bonded blood before you die."
Horror floods through me. "They'd never agree to that."
"Wouldn't they? I'm the leading expert on demon summoning. They need me to develop better containment magic." His smile is poison. "Besides, what do they care what happens to you before the execution? You'll be dead either way."
The guards leave, locking the door behind them.
Kieran pulls out a knife—the same ritual blade I used to summon Azraeth all those weeks ago.
"I've been studying demon bonds," he says conversationally, testing the blade's edge. "Did you know that if I extract enough of your blood while you're still alive, I can recreate the bonding ritual? Bind the demon's power to myself?"
"Azraeth is dying. You'd be binding yourself to a corpse."
"Not if I work fast enough." He kneels in front of me, blade gleaming. "See, once you're dead, the curse will complete immediately. But if I harvest your blood while you're still breathing, while the bond is technically still active—I become the new anchor point. His power flows to me instead of disappearing."
He presses the blade against my arm.
"This is going to hurt," he says, almost apologetically. "But you've always been good at suffering quietly, haven't you, Mireya?"
The blade cuts deep.
I scream—not from pain, but from rage that burns hotter than any wound. This is it. This is how I die. Not in glorious battle, not fulfilling some prophecy, but butchered by my ex-fiancé in a cell while angels watch.
Blood pools on the floor, and Kieran collects it carefully in a vial.
"Three more cuts should do it," he murmurs. "Then you can bleed out in peace—"
The cell explodes.
Not with fire or magic. With shadows.
Azraeth materializes from darkness itself, his form flickering like a dying flame. He looks half-dead—skin gray, eyes dull, the curse eating him alive from the inside out.
But his rage burns bright enough to light the world on fire.
"Get. Away. From. Her."
Kieran stumbles backward. "How did you—the wards should have—"
"Soul bonds don't care about your wards." Azraeth's voice is gravel and death. "The moment her blood spilled, I felt it. And nothing in this world or the next could stop me from reaching her."
He moves faster than breathing, closing the distance to Kieran in a heartbeat. His hand closes around Kieran's throat, lifting him effortlessly despite his weakened state.
"You've touched her for the last time."
"Wait!" Kieran chokes. "I can help you! I know how to break the curse without—"
Azraeth snaps his neck.
Kieran's body crumples.
Then Azraeth collapses beside me, his strength completely spent.
"Stupid demon," I gasp, trying to reach him despite the chains. "You'll die faster using that much power—"
"Don't care." His hand finds mine. "Not letting you die alone."
Through our reconnected bond, I feel everything—his body shutting down, the curse consuming what little life force remains, his absolute certainty that saving me was worth dying for.
"No," I whisper. "You don't get to make that choice for me—"
The cell door explodes inward again.
But it's not angels this time.
Lilith stands in the doorway, surrounded by a dozen witches. Her smile is sharp and cruel.
"Well, well," she purrs. "The demon king, nearly dead. The prophesied girl, completely helpless. And a fresh corpse full of demon-bonded blood." She steps over Kieran's body. "The Old Gods said I'd find everything I need here. Looks like they were right."
She pulls out a ritual dagger I recognize from ancient texts—a soul-eater blade.
"I'm going to kill you both," she says cheerfully. "Use your combined death to wake the Old Gods completely. And when they reshape this world, I'll rule beside them as their high priestess."
She raises the blade.
And I realize with horrible clarity that we're going to die in this cell, and the Old Gods will wake anyway, and Morwenna's prophecy will die with us, and everything—everything—was for nothing.