Chapter 24
Death
Iwatched from where I’d flattened myself to the treacherous path, the black stone so glossy it reflected the shock on Violence’s face when Cat’s magic burst like a dam and crushed him against the wall.
It was so strong, the air shook above my head, making the dark robe I’d wrapped myself in, hidden within, shake like a tornado had ripped a hole in the side of the mountain.
Pride burned in my chest that Cat was this powerful, this dangerous even newly reborn, but fear sat right alongside it.
Violence was here. He could kill her again, steal her forever this time.
She was stronger as a god, but not invincible.
None of us were. I wish I had the strength to evict him from this mine.
The power I’d had months ago would have suffocated him, but he and Cruelty had done too good a job destabilising the realm.
Weakening me precisely so I wasn’t a threat.
I hated that it had worked. Hated the fucking bones of the bastard.
I pushed what remained of my arms against the ground, checking that no one saw the wisps of devouring fog as I got to my feet and rushed for Cat.
Miz was right there with me, clasping her shoulders, pulling her back into his arms as Violence’s smile dropped to reveal the cold, emotionless expression we were used to.
“Give me the scales, Cat,” he commanded in a voice so devoid of humanity that I watched a shudder travel through Cat’s entire body.
“No,” she replied, but weakly. Shaky.
I moved around her on the narrow path, angling myself in front of her. I was his true target; with me weak, he was free to poach yet more power from the domain. But I had no doubt he’d hurt Cat again to get at me.
“Hand over your hammer if you’re so eager for Cat’s scales,” I challenged, knowing full well he’d never surrender his instrument of death.
“The mine is a strange choice for a day trip,” he remarked, ignoring me as he brushed a speck of stone from the sleeve of his impeccable suit jacket.
His sister had died so recently I could still remember the exact scent of her blood, and he didn’t seem to care one bit.
There was no sign of mourning, no dark circles from sleepless nights.
He was focused, even energised. “What brought you here?”
He was desperate to know, I realised. Tor did too, because he laughed. It was a low, rumbling taunt only Tor could produce.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he purred, a smirk on his face as he stood beside me, a united front.
A different kind of front, I realised when Madde jumped out of a swirl of shadows and attached himself to Violence’s back, both hands around his throat.
He attempted to snap his head off like he’d done to the overseer, but unfortunately Violence was hardier than the stone creature.
“Motherfucker,” Madde hissed, pulling at Violence’s neck over and over. “Sorry, buddy. Should that be sisterfucker?”
Violence’s upper lip curled, and Tor and I exchanged a surprised glance. It was rare to see Violence’s stony facade crack. Maybe he grieved Cruelty after all.
“Jesus,” Pain breathed when Violence grabbed Madde’s ankle and snapped—successfully, unlike Madde’s attempts to rip his head from his neck. “Cat, don’t look.”
“Don’t look at what?” she demanded behind me, sharp and breathy. “Pain. Don’t look at what?”
“Not to worry, my lioness,” Madde said, punching a dagger of honed death magic into Violence’s back and twisting the knife.
“Just a minor dislocation. I’ll relocate it in one second.
Well,” he added, sinking the knife into the back of Violence’s neck as the god fought to unseat him.
“I know where it is. Not relocate in that way. I haven’t lost it. ”
I dove forward, wrapped in the cloak and cowl of my god form, and satisfaction filled my chest when Violence’s attention fixed on me.
He was still wary, despite my weakened state.
I proved that wariness valid when magic flared from me in a dark tempest so severe it flattened his skin against his skull, until he looked monstrous and dead.
It shook his hair until strands tore free, and ripped buttons off his fancy suit.
It was nothing, mere smoke and mirrors, but it put the idea in his head—was I truly weak, or could I still pose a threat?
Tor threw a vicious punch into Violence’s gaunt face, ducking to avoid the answering swing from the bastard’s pale fists.
Unblemished hands, from a man who preferred others to do his dirty work, caught Tor’s next punch in mid-air.
I knew who would win; Violence had the edge in magic, but Tor had callouses from a lifetime of fights and affray.
He was scrappy and fast and, as Violence found out when Tor drove his knee into his dick, then into his nose as the god wavered on his feet, Tor fought dirty.
“Jesus, Madde,” Cat gasped, managing to get around Pain to see what was happening.
“Get back,” I warned her, throwing a shimmer of magic between us. “We can handle this, little bride.”
I cast out a swell of darkness to catch Madde when he was unseated from Violence’s back, his second ankle snapped in the process. Miz’s magic shored up the holes in mine, catching the lunatic before he could break any more bones.
“Is this supposed to hurt?” he groaned, splaying on the floor.
“You’ve got two broken ankles,” Tor remarked, driving a fist into Violence’s ribs. “No shit, it’s meant to hurt.”
“My poor ankles,” Madde cried. “I loved those ankles.”
I caught Misery’s eye and he nodded. The two of us hit Violence from either side, keeping him on the broader landing where we had more space to move.
I pushed my magic to the limit, ignoring the burn as it strained, stretched, and came close to snapping.
Violence was bent over, teeth bared now, fighting as we combined our power to contain him.
It wouldn’t last forever, but if we got him inside a prison of magic, it would at least buy us time to get out of this place.
I didn’t know where else we’d find a coil of iron, but we’d have to figure that out later. We’d long outstayed our welcome in this place. I was just grateful the remaining overseer had paused in the air to watch the fight, his stone head cocked, wings beating slowly.
“Cat, don’t!” Pain warned.
I whirled around on instinct, ready to catch my wife before she could get remotely near to her killer. But it was her magic, not her physical form that crashed past me, as dark and seething as my magic had ever been. The full might of death, alive in my bride. God, I loved her.
Violence hissed when her bubbling cloud of power hit his chest, knocking him to the floor. Victory swelled my chest for a split second. Until Violence kicked out his feet, and both collided with Tor’s legs, knocking his balance from him.
“No!” I roared.
Miz yelled his name.
Cat just screamed, a rattling bellow that made my bones ache. Strength and power distilled into sound. It hit Violence and crushed him to the black floor, but it was too late to halt Tor’s fall.
“The net, the net,” Pain rushed out, grabbing Miz before he could hurl himself over the edge of the path after Tor. “I’ve got a net.”
“Fuck,” Cat exhaled shakily, dragging fingers through her hair, snagging the pink strands on her nails. Sharper than when she’d been alive, as if even her fingernails had become a weapon.
“Echoing the fuck,” Tor called up, thready. “Thanks, Pain.”
“Don’t mention it,” Pain replied, reaching a hand down to help Tor up off the woven magic he’d stretched below the edge of the chasm.
“That’s some forward thinking,” I told Pain, relief making my voice deeper, hoarser.
He shrugged, setting Tor on his feet with Miz’s help. “We’re on the edge of a shit-your-pants-in-terror fall. It seemed obvious someone was going to fall off it.”
“Descriptive,” Madde said where he’d splayed on the floor. “I like it. I don’t like this mine, though. Can we kill Violence, find some iron, and go home now, lioness?”
“Yes,” Cat hissed, power rising from her body, making her hair dance off her shoulders.
She moved like a force of nature, Tor’s fall and near-death awakening something ancient and boundless within her.
I’d seen death magic plenty of times, but never like this.
Although, I’d never known a god named Judgement before.
There were records of one single Judgement existing before, but no one alive—or dead—could remember him.
Which made Cat’s magic, and Cat herself, unknown.
She reached into the darkness and the scales emerged, the rose gold aglow with magic.
I turned away with a hiss, my eyes burning even in god form, and judging by the soft swearing of the others, they looked away just in time to avoid getting their retinas blown out when the purest, oldest form of death magic I’d ever felt exploded from the scales.
The light burned for seconds that turned into minutes, and only when three minutes had passed did the deadly glow fade back into the gloom of the mine.
It was the spirits I saw first, either cowering in their rounded caves on the opposite wall or kneeling, staring. As the spirits at the Wake had knelt.
Queen, they’d called her, and I understood why.
Her power now eclipsed mine. Eclipsed Violence’s, too.
If he was so desperate to name himself king of the gods and assume command of the domain, he’d have to get through Cat.
And he knew it, a fact that sent ice water through my body and forced a shudder.
I was back in my regular form, I realised, and quickly shrouded by body in a fall of shadow, hiding the decay eating at my limbs. I didn’t have the heart to tell anyone, couldn’t bear the heartbreak I’d see in their eyes. Not when we’d miraculously got Cat back.
Now they’d stopped blazing with light, I looked at the scales, hope choking me when I saw one plate had lifted the slightest amount, as if Cat’s outburst evened the balance of life and death. If she could restore balance, if she could save the realm… maybe it would stop my decay.
It was a long shot, but I clung to it. No one else had to know I was fading. Cat would repair the realm. I’d be fine.
“I didn’t kill him,” she said after a long minute, her voice subdued, quiet. “I tried. I wanted to kill him, but the light just banished him from the mine.” Her shoulders slumped, a bitter twist to her mouth as she looked at me, then Tor. “I can’t kill him.”
“Yet,” Pain added, winding an arm around her back and pulling her against him. “You can’t kill him yet. That’s what your list is for, right? Stripping power from Violence so he can’t take over the domain, and you can get your justice by killing him?”
“Yeah.” Cat’s expression brightened, her back straightening. “Yes. We need that coil of iron if we’re going to weaken him.”
“Loving the we in that, beautiful,” Tor said, sneaking closer to kiss her cheek. I watched her eyes track him when he stepped back, so wide and soft, I could have sworn we had the old Cat back.
“But how are we going to convince these grumpy pricks to let us take some iron?” Madde asked from the ground, where Miz now knelt over him, magic wrapping his ankles with splits to help his bones repair straight.
“I don’t think we need to convince them,” Pain said, a smile in his voice that earned him my full attention. “Look.”
He swept a dark tendril of magic across the open drop towards where the three overseers—remarkably healed after Madde’s assault—knelt in a cavern across from us, their heads bowed.
Noticing our attention, the lead overseer leapt into the air, crackling wingbeats carrying him over the gorge towards us, his hands outstretched.
“Iron,” Cat breathed in surprise. “You’re giving us this without a fight?”
“I rescind the words I spoke before I realised your true power, Judgement,” the overseer said, his head still bowed, his tone respectful. “You may take this coil and any others you require.”
“Well, well,” Madde drawled. “Look who’s changed his tune.”
“Madde, don’t ruin it,” Miz sighed, whacking his arm as he finished splinting his ankles. “Unless you want more broken bones.”
“Ugh, no.” Madde dropped his head back against the wall. “I love whole bones. I’m a whole bone-in ham, not a boneless chicken breast.”
“You’re a goddamn lunatic,” Miz snarked.
“Why thank you.” Madde took a sitting bow, then seemed to realise we were all looking at him. “Uh. Continue?”
Cat had already stepped as close to the edge as she dared, Pain right there with her but both of them sickly and pale. The second the overseer handed her the iron, the coil as large as her torso, the strand as wide as a finger bone, she scurried back.
“Thanks,” she said flippantly. “But I don’t forgive the whelp comment, or the rude way you spoke to my husband.”
She turned her back to the overseer with the regal composure of a queen, and didn’t let it drop all the way through the tunnel to the mine’s exit. When she took the list from her pocket, two lines were now struck through.
1. A set of scales for Judgement.
2. A coil of iron to fix the gates.
Which left….
3. A home for lost creatures.