Cory whistled as she rocked back and forth atop a black egg. Beside the egg, Raea was lying down, her body covered by a thin film of white silk. After Palan had started his evolution, Raea had paled and collapsed as well. Cory could see through the silk either because it was too thin or her eyes were too sharp. The black scales on Raea’s body were twinkling, becoming more illustrious. But Cory couldn’t see through Palan’s egg, so she chose to sit on it instead. Harpy instincts.

While Cory was busy contemplating whether or not that made her Palan’s surrogate mother, the front doors of the tower burst open. “Help! The capital is under attack!” a young angel wearing pajamas shouted as he ran into the living room. Cory blinked at him, and he froze. “How are you in here!?”

The doors swung open again, and two harpies flew towards the angel. “There he is,” one of the harpies said. “I told you he went this way.”

“Fine. You were right,” the other harpy said and rolled her eyes. While she was distracted, a purple lightning bolt exploded on her face, killing her instantly. Flickers of electricity crackled around the young angel’s hand.

“Hah? He was that strong?” the remaining harpy asked. “Then why was he running?” She bit her lower lip as she halted, readying herself to dodge a lightning strike. She scanned the room, and her eyes lit up when she saw Cory. “Matriarch!”

The young angel whirled around. “You’re the leader?” he asked Cory, narrowing his eyes. “As the youngest son of the Aor family, I—”

A flood of white lightning drowned out his voice and vision. Unfortunately for him, he’d never be able to see anything again. Cory snorted as the charred corpse collapsed onto the ground. Though she wasn’t a very good one, she was still the matriarch of the harpies. Killing her subjects warranted death—only her subjects were allowed to kill each other. Well, not anymore after the harbinger’s orders.

“Matriarch,” the living harpy said and lowered her head. Tears fell from her eyes as she knelt by the dead harpy’s corpse. “Can you bring my sister back to life? We hatched out of the same egg.”

“I can’t do things like that,” Cory said as she hopped off Palan’s egg. “You think I’m like those stupid blockheads?” She waddled over to the harpy sisters and frowned.

“Can, can you convince the centaurs to bring her back to life?”

“I don’t think they’d listen to me,” Cory said and shrugged. She hemmed and hawed as she rubbed her chin. Hadn’t Raea told her a story about a mad scientist using lightning to animate a corpse? White lightning gathered around Cory’s wing, forcing the living harpy to step back. Cory shouted as she smacked the dead harpy’s chest, aiming the lightning towards her heart, “Get up!”

The dead harpy’s body thrashed and struggled as lightning surged through her body. Her wings and legs twitched as the smell of burning hair permeated the room. But maybe that was from the angel’s corpse because the harpy’s black hair was completely fine. In fact, it was turning glossier and lighter until it adopted a shade of silver. Cory withdrew her wing, but the dead harpy continued to twitch. When the corpse stopped spasming, Cory poked it with her foot. “Well,” she said and shrugged. “It was only a story after all.” She flew back onto Palan’s egg and fluffed her leg feathers out before sitting down.

Seconds after she made herself comfortable, the living harpy shouted, “She’s alive! She’s alive! Matriarch, it worked! You’re amazing.”

Cory tilted her head. The dead harpy sat up and rubbed her head with her wings. The tips of her feathers had also turned silver. “Sis, how do you feel?” her sister asked, inspecting her body. “You died, but the matriarch brought you back to life!”

“I feel like I was slapped in the face with a lightning bolt,” the revived harpy said. “Wait. That really happened didn’t it?” She rose to her feet and exhaled through her nose like a bull. “Where’s the angel who shot me!?”

“The matriarch killed him,” her sister said. She glanced at Cory and bobbed her head up and down repeatedly. “Thank you for saving her.”

“It really worked,” Cory said and blinked. “I’m a genius!” She laughed and waved at the two harpy sisters, giving them permission to leave. Cory hummed and sang as she rocked back and forth, “I can do everything those stupid centaurs can do, but better. Harpy’s are superior to those hooved vermin. We have feathers, they don’t. La la la.”

Her gaze landed on the charred angel corpse. Could she bring something like that back to life as well? Of course she could! She was a genius. Cory alighted from Palan’s egg and landed beside the dead angel. White lightning crackled, forming a tiny sphere within the curve formed by her wing. She slammed her wing against the dead angel’s chest. The corpse twitched and spasmed much like the harpy’s had. “I’m amazing,” Cory said and puffed her chest out. Seconds later, the corpse exploded, covering Cory’s front with blood and bits of pink matter. Cory coughed and spat out a bit of bone that had ended up in her mouth. She glanced around. Thankfully, no one was around to witness her failure. She wiped her face with her feathers. “I still have a one hundred percent success rate for reviving people. Definitely.”

She hid the remains of the dead body underneath the carpet and wiped herself off. Now that she thought about it, wasn’t the plan to fire the B.F.G. at the tower once enough angels were gathered? Could Palan and Raea survive that? Probably. Nothing that Pyre tried could break through the evolution eggs and cocoons. Cory nodded and lifted Raea’s silk-wrapped body, cuddled next to Palan’s egg, and placed Raea down on top of herself. Now she’d be fine if any explosions went off. Probably.