But inside, Mallian is on fire. His fury is a furnace that scorches every part of him. He is shaking with hatred and rage, so much that he wonders whether he will shake himself free from the fairy’s invisible bonds. Wouldn’t that be a blessed irony? The Nephilim whose wings had been ripped away, confronting and defeating the fairy whose wings remained folded and furled. He wonders if she has flown in the past thousand years, or whether she has grown so old that she’s forgotten how to.

He will throw her from the highest cliff to find out. But only when he’s finished with her. That will be her payment for the power she will bring to him—a fall to her death, just as he once fell to this long, frustrating life.

Ascent remains everything to Mallian. His heart might beat weaker than it ever has before, but his purpose is his true life, his real heart, and that is as white-hot as ever. Even hotter. He’s had a long, long time to dwell on the implications of Ascent, lying here with grass dead and rotted beneath him and his subtle movements having scraped and worn his impression into the ground. He is the junction between land and sky, and when he escapes—not if, but when, because he cannot consider any other possibility—he will be the bridge between past and future. The past, a place where the Kin slink through quiet places and hide in shadows. The future, during and after Ascent, when those Kin who choose to stand with him will rise triumphant. Even those who do not side with him will be allowed to persist, and they will thank him for that. He will be their hero and their king.

The human fooled and betrayed him, which is what humans do. He will be dealt with. If Mallian’s anger were an energy, Vince would be a simmering husk in whatever cave or hole he is hiding in right now.

He looks up at the stars and feels them staring back down at him. They see him, and mark him, and none of the other Kin in this place are seen by the stars. They pass their time running and hiding and being eaten, existing rather than living, and they will live and die without making their mark on this world, or the wider world where they all came from.

He shifts his shoulders and feels the damp soil compressing and shifting beneath him. He has made his mark. Until the moment he fades away, or the fairy finally comes to kill him herself, he remains determined to make Ascent work. Every cell in his body strives for that. It’s all he needs and wants. It’s all that is left for him.