Hell's Ascendant (Mantles of Power Book 3) Read online

  “How many of those gems do you even have? It can’t be easy to make them,” Kitania asked, raising an eyebrow at the archangel, who laughed softly in response.

  “I had ten, originally. I have… three left, I think,” Anna said, looking at her belt pouch speculatively. “Your mother will be displeased, likely as not, but what’s the point of having them if they aren’t used?”

  “True, I suppose. How long do you think—” Kitania began asking, only to fall silent as the beacon began glowing more brightly.

  “About that long,” Isalla said helpfully, and Kitania glared in response.

  The first person appeared with a cracking sound almost like thunder, if on a far smaller scale, and Kitania raised an eyebrow slightly, but wasn’t really surprised by the sight of the angel in her mother’s colors. She was a bit more startled as one after another began to appear, not a single demon among them, while the first angel approached and bowed before Anna deeply.

  “Lady Anathiel, Her Majesty instructed me to inform you that one of her agents found the headquarters of the Society of Golden Dawn as well, so it appears that we will have to split our forces. She is going to arrive shortly, accompanied by Alserah and five other deities,” the soldier said, not rising from her bow.

  “Rise, I don’t expect you to stand on formality under these circumstances,” Anna said, frowning slightly. “Splitting our forces… that doesn’t strike me as a good idea under these circumstances. Doubtless the society has at least a few archangels on their side, and it sounded like they wanted to take out the Eagle Citadel badly.”

  “True, but if we know where it is, a group could function as a scouting party, couldn’t they?” Kitania suggested, considering for a moment before adding, a little dryly, “If there are six deities coming along, I’d almost say we should look into it, since I don’t think you’ll miss us.”

  “I’ll always miss you, but you may have a point. We’ll discuss it briefly once everyone has arrived. I wonder what wave Estalia is going to—ah, there she is!” Anna said, her face lighting up with a brilliant smile as Estalia appeared in the midst of the angels, looking as poised as always, though significantly less happy, comparatively.

  That lasted all of a moment, though, as the demon queen smiled at the sight of Anna and Kitania, and Kitania’s breath caught in her throat as the weight of Estalia’s mantle and pleasure struck her, staggering the demoness hard. She almost didn’t notice the appearance of Alserah and several other non-angels behind Estalia, the attraction was so strong.

  “Anna, Kitty! Oh good, you both look fine… not for lack of trying on our daughter’s part, of course, but what else can we expect from her?” Estalia exclaimed, coming toward them at a brisk pace.

  Anna laughed and folded Estalia in a hug, causing a clatter since both of them were armored, and kissed the demon queen briefly before nodding to Kitania, smiling as she teased, “Well, yes, but she’s intact right now, no matter what the day might bring.”

  “Oh? You got yourself injured again, Kitania?” Alserah asked, striding forward in her armor, a wry smile on her face. The elven goddess was in full armor and had her bow in hand as she looked closely at Kitania. “I would’ve thought you were trying to avoid that.”

  “Yes, well, I didn’t have much of a chance to avoid it. An angel buried incineration stones below the road, and all of us were injured to some degree. Besides, this time I didn’t take the worst of it,” Kitania replied, shifting from one foot to the other as she tried to decide how she should react to the goddess’s presence. She mostly felt relief and a little happiness, which surprised her a little.

  “I was the one who nearly died, I’m afraid. If it weren’t for Anathiel’s timely aid, I would have been in need of resurrection, assuming it even worked,” Rose added, pausing before she continued. “Also, Maura and Yain are fine, they’re currently holed up in an inn.”

  “Excellent, though I’m sorry to hear about your close call,” Alserah said, and her gaze grew far more complicated as she turned to face Anna, hesitating for a moment before she bowed her head and spoke humbly, a hand on her chest. “Lady Anathiel, your reputation precedes you, and it’s an honor to meet you at long last. I am Alserah, goddess of the Forest of Sighs.”

  “Ah, so you’re the one who ended up with Kitania for a while! Don’t be overly formal, Alserah, there’s no point to it. As far as I’m concerned, we’re equals at worst,” Anna replied with a grin, glancing at the other deities as she added, “I don’t immediately recognize any of your companions, though I suspect I knew the bearer of at least one of their mantles, but I’m glad to see we have assistance. I think we’re going to need all of it, even if we did manage to convince the leader of the Order of the Eagle in Uthren’s Throne to send reinforcements.”

  “Proper introductions can wait,” another deity said, one with his hair in dreadlocks. “What do we need to do?”

  “Apparently the Society of Golden Dawn is attacking the headquarters of the Order of the Eagle, called the Eagle Citadel. I’m not sure why, but their letter to Rathien indicated it was important and said something about artifacts,” Anna said briskly, straightening as she looked at them. “That’s about twenty miles east of us, and if they’re planning to take out the citadel it’ll take a huge force. I fully expect we could run into a few archangels in the process, along with the bulk of their troops. Fortunately, the Order of the Eagle won’t take that standing down. They’re the masters of magic in the heavens, and I doubt the attackers are going to be able to break in quickly.”

  “We also have the location of their headquarters, or at least a hideout on this continent,” Estalia added, her expression far more focused now as she looked around the group. “I’m not sure of the exact location relative to us, but some of those I brought with should have figured that out by this point.”

  “It’s about sixteen miles to the northeast, Your Majesty,” one of the female angels reported. Behind the deities the angels were organizing themselves into combat units, Kitania noticed, which she definitely approved of. They were all in potent magical armor, which she thought would serve them well in the coming conflict.

  “Thank you, Karakel,” Estalia said, smiling briefly, then continued. “The question is, how do we deal with this?”

  “If we could have one or two of the message stones Anna has, I think we’d be willing to investigate the hideout,” Kitania said, folding her arms in front of her as no less than eight deific gazes came to rest on her. It was intimidating, but she continued as if they weren’t looking at her, or as close as she could manage to it. “If it looks heavily guarded, we can let you know and watch to see if anyone tries to escape. If it isn’t well-guarded, we could try breaking in to see if we can’t sabotage more of their plans.”

  “That… isn’t a bad idea. If they’re careful they wouldn’t be in much danger, and it isn’t as risky as splitting our forces,” the dwarven god said, stroking his chin. Kitania thought he was Gandar, who she’d heard about during her stay in the Forest of Sighs.

  “We don’t have time to debate, not really. Any objections?” Estalia asked, looking around the group of deities, and when there weren’t any raised, she looked at Kitania with a worried smile as she spoke. “Then go for it, Kitty. Just try not to take too many risks, hm? I don’t want to lose you again.”

  “I don’t intend to,” Kitania replied, hesitating before she hugged Estalia. Her mother hugged her tight, and Anna smiled at Kitania over Estalia’s shoulder, though she seemed far more at peace with things than Estalia did.

  “Karakel, take your squad and support them. You know the way, and I don’t want them on their own,” Estalia ordered, breaking off the hug after a long moment.

  “Yes, Your Majesty!” the brunette angel acknowledged with a salute.

  “Sorry for volunteering us,” Kitania said, looking back at the others, and Vinara rolled her eyes while Isalla and Rose laughed.

  “Let me think, we can try to investigate an angelic s
tronghold, probably from a safe distance, or we can get sucked into a massive war zone with angels on both sides who probably wouldn’t mind torching obvious demons… you know, I think I prefer the former,” Vinara said, mock indecision in her voice.

  “While I may not think of it in quite the same way, I don’t mind, either. We’re trying to bring down their organization, not gain personal glory,” Isalla added, looking at Rose in amusement as she said, “Besides, neither Rose nor I are going to be getting any sort of glory, since we left our order.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, though it does make glory rather unlikely, I’ll agree,” Kitania said, taking a step back as she looked at Alserah, hesitating for a moment before she spoke to her. “Do be safe, Alserah? With what’s coming… well, this could be even worse than Rosken.”

  “A distinct possibility, and one that’s run through my mind several times,” Alserah agreed, relaxing ever so slightly as she looked back at Kitania, a hint of a smile on her lips, yet also a bit of some other emotion in her gaze. The goddess’s voice was surprisingly calm as she continued. “There are already more of us with mantles than last time, after all. With any luck, there won’t be as much destruction, but… if we all get through this, I’d like to invite you and your friends to stay in the Forest of Sighs for a time. Isalla commented on wanting to see the country, and I think it’d be good to give you a chance to relax.”

  “I’d like that. I’ll have to talk to the others about it, but I think it would be good to rest without something terrible looming over us,” Kitania said, heat trying to rise in her cheeks, but she fought it down firmly. Instead, she bowed her head slightly and added, “I’ll see you later.”

  She turned away at that point, unwilling to delay any longer and looked at Karakel. The angel had gathered a group of eight other angels, one of whom was in leather armor and carrying a staff. Karakel looked at Kitania and bowed her head, asking, “Are you ready, Lady Kitania?”

  “I am. Is everyone else?” Kitania asked, looking at the others. Each of them nodded in turn, and as they did, Kitania inhaled deeply, then let it out as she murmured, “Then let’s go.”

  “Follow me, if you would. We’ll be traveling swiftly and low to the ground,” Karakel replied, and the woman quickly extended her wings and took flight, her soldiers almost instantly behind her.

  Kitania willed mana into her armor, and as she did so the spectral black wings took form behind her. She left the ground almost effortlessly, while the others followed. Even so, the sound of wings beating the air was louder than she’d expected, and Kitania glanced back.

  Nearly two hundred angels were taking to the air almost as one behind her, and the sight of them in the midnight-blue armor of Estalia sent a shiver down Kitania’s spine. In the lead was Anna, her glowing cloudpiercer almost as radiant as Estalia herself, and beside them were the glittering figures of the deities Alserah had brought with her.

  Kitania desperately hoped that they would be enough.

  Chapter 43

  “Tornado off the fourth tower!” Baradiel snapped, pointing at the location, and one of his magi immediately began casting his spell, even as the commander swallowed a curse.

  The Eagle Citadel was relatively remote, in keeping with the order’s tendency to avoid the limelight, unlike the orders of the Dragon and Phoenix, which usually meant that the scenery outside the citadel was calming and beautiful. That was only normally, however, and today was anything but normal.

  The eight outer towers of the citadel were sparkling with magic, the crystals at the pinnacle of each spire shining as they maintained the glowing purple shield that surrounded the citadel, a shield which looked like a faceted jewel. That was unusual enough, since running the shield at full power normally would drain its mana reserves faster than anyone was comfortable with, let alone Baradiel, but fortunately that wasn’t a concern. Far more important were almost two thousand attacking angels, and Baradiel couldn’t be certain that they didn’t have items to breach wards on them, hence his orders.

  Where he’d pointed the air swirled, then a tornado roared into being, sucking a half-dozen attacking angels into the vortex savagely. One was dashed against the shield, but Baradiel was under no illusions that it would kill any of them. It took a powerful mage to create tornados strong enough or long-lasting enough to kill most angels, and he only had a handful of magi capable of that present. Most of his skilled magi were unfortunately elsewhere.

  A blast of lightning ricocheted off the shield, but Baradiel barely flinched, instead staring at the motley assortment of attackers, more than a little flabbergasted at the sight. Many of them were in relatively drab armor more like those of the common folk, but among them he saw members of all three orders, including members of the Order of the Eagle, but predominantly they were formed of members of the Order of the Dragon. He’d even seen a large woman who he would’ve sworn was in the armor of a smith of Skyforge. The only way to tell their faction for sure was by the yellow sashes that all of the attackers wore, and he didn’t dare let anyone inside. Especially not after the traitors struck earlier.

  Arrows shot outward through the shield at the attackers, and as they did so, Baradiel considered the day unhappily. It had started normally enough, right up until the shockwave had rippled through the ley lines along with what people in the mortal world would consider an earthquake. Then word had arrived about the Holy Council, which caused a large panic throughout the citadel. His magi had begun investigating what the ripples might have been, but they’d only had a couple of hours before his guests arrived… a couple of hours in which Baradiel had dispatched several teams to look into the quake and reinforce security in the capital, something he was deeply regretting now.

  Twenty-three angels had arrived at the gates, carrying large metal devices and babbling something about their research being wrong, and that some ‘Society of Golden Dawn’ was risking everyone’s lives. Baradiel had been skeptical, but even with his somewhat weaker grasp of magic compared to his fellow members of the order he’d been able to see the massive amount of mana in the ten devices. His questions had been interrupted when several members of the garrison had suddenly attacked him and the guests, shocking Baradiel and nearly killing him, while they succeeded in killing five of the guests before the other guards had managed to stop them.

  That had been enough to make Baradiel take the men and women seriously, and those hadn’t been the only traitors so far. He’d had reports of nearly two dozen residents of the citadel trying to aid the attackers, and Baradiel was grimly certain that more were biding their time, which made securing the citadel tricky. Worse, the artificers who’d taken refuge had quickly explained that they couldn’t simply destroy the devices they had, they contained too much mana for that to be safe, so they had to slowly drain them before they could destroy the apocalyptic devices. They were using some of the mana from them to power the shield, which was the only bright spot Baradiel could see about their current situation.

  “Sir, we’ve received a message from Uthren’s Throne!” a soldier exclaimed, rushing up to Baradiel and taking a moment to salute, breathing hard as he did so.

  “What is it?” Baradiel asked, frowning as he saw a group of enemies gathering on a hilltop, including the one who he thought was in Skyforge’s armor. They worried him, but there wasn’t anything he could do at the moment, they were too far away to easily target, and getting rid of the attackers who were close was more important.

  “Heavenly Wing Tagan reports that Anathiel unmasked Rathien of the Order of the Dragon as a traitor, and he was under orders to prevent reinforcements from being sent here. The Heavenly Wing reports that he and the bulk of the military stationed in Uthren’s Throne is moving to our aid as quickly as possible,” the soldier reported, looking far more hopeful than most of the other soldiers had been. “The message ended there, sir!”

  “Good, at least something is going right,” Baradiel growled, his worries easing slightly. “Now we just have
to hold out for a few hours before we get reinforcements. Assuming that these blasted traitors don’t keep showing up, that is. Now back to your post, soldier.”

  “Yes, sir! I’ll get right—” the man began, but at that moment the group spread out again, revealing a long, thin crystal shaft with the Skyforge woman behind it. The sight of a starlance was unmistakable, and Baradiel’s worries spiked, hard.

  “Everyone down!” Baradiel bellowed, grabbing the soldier and dragging him downward as the crystalline shaft glowed like a star.

  The starlance emitted a beam of blazing white light that slammed mercilessly into the citadel’s shield, which went opaque as it tried to block the blast. An instant later the shield around the blast shattered completely and the lance of light ripped through the parapet just to Baradiel’s left, sending a shower of rubble flying as it bored a hole into the side of the citadel itself.

  Beside him the soldier had frozen, staring at the hole just in front of where he’d been standing, several thin cuts on his face from rock chips oozing blood as Baradiel climbed to his feet, swearing all the way. The shield had blocked most of the blast, keeping the lance from penetrating into the citadel’s heart, but an opening large enough for a dozen angels to fly through had been cut through the shield, which was slowly rebuilding itself.

  The attackers weren’t waiting, though, and dozens of angels charged, themselves enveloped in a shield projected by one of their number. Behind them Baradiel could see more angels closing on the starlance, obviously planning to recharge the siege weapon, which did not make him feel better.

  “Repel the attackers! We have reinforcements coming, and the citadel will not fall!” Baradiel exclaimed, unsheathing his sword and raising it high. The other soldiers of his order rose as well, and the melee combatants who’d been biding their time took flight to join Baradiel as he charged toward the breach.