Chapter 33 #2
She turned back to Eryx. His sword was still on the ground several paces away from him. He hadn’t drawn another dagger. He was going to rely on magic, on his still-dripping hands, and for the first time in her life, she’d rely on metal.
In a burst of speed, she abruptly ran straight at Eryx, reached out, and grabbed the amulet off his wet chest. She drew a knife with one hand while she jerked the cord tight with the other. Grunting in surprise, Eryx shoved hard against her upper body, his hands gushing water. She used her grip on the amulet to brace herself and sliced through the medallion’s leather strap with one sharp cut. Just as Eryx pulled back a fist, she sprang away with the amulet.
His brutal punch thumped the air in front of her face. Eryx’s eyes widened in horror as she leaped back another step and produced a sun flare to dry herself instantly. Eryx gaped, and her triumphant smile turned vicious.
“I was raised to terrorize and kill.” She gave him a hard, cold look, even though she knew magic burned from her. “For the first time, I can’t wait to do it.”
Paling, Eryx pivoted away from her and dashed for his sword.
She whirled and ran toward Carver. Reaching him, she shoved the amulet into his hand. “Give this to Dex. Tell him to go slowly—like repairing a fishing net. Thread by thread. No rushing anything, or it’ll hurt her more and could kill him.” If a healer poured too much healing magic into someone too fast, they risked draining their own life force and never getting it back. Carver knew this. He could walk Dex through the process. “The shard will make all the difference.” It had to Eryx.
“You’re sure you don’t need this?” Carver tried to hand the amulet back to her.
“ Dex needs it. Just…keep it away from Eryx.” She gave him a slight push toward the altar.
Nodding, Carver raced toward Dex and Lilika with the amulet. Bellanca advanced on Eryx, shaping a burning sword out of her magic. A flaming blade would serve her better now than a metal one. Eryx might still have water, but it could never rival her fire. Magic built inside her. It poured from her skin, her hair, her eyes. She hoped she petrified him.
A sweat sheened Eryx’s reddened forehead. He struck first and she countered, her fire-forged blade burning his until he backed off, wincing at his heated fingers. Circling to keep her away from him, he kept a wary eye on her as he ripped the hem of his tunic and wrapped it around his hand. With a modicum of protection against the hot metal, he came at her again. Bellanca fought back, dredging up every bit of the training she’d ever received in swordplay and trying to envision what Carver would do and mimic his fluid movements. Every hit, every parry, every twist of her body… She’d seen Carver fight so many times that it somehow came naturally, and she matched Eryx strike for strike long enough for confidence to swell inside her.
She went on the offensive, and he seemed to like it. He bared his teeth, almost a grin, then lunged unexpectedly. She barely blocked his attack, her arm trembling under the weight of his hit. Their swords locked, her blade sizzling. He shoved hard, and Bellanca skidded backward. Eryx drew a shorter blade faster than she could blink and swung at her neck. She narrowly evaded, his blade whistling past her face. Twisting, she dropped low and spun, conjuring a fire whip in her free hand and lashing out at Eryx’s leg. He leaped back with a yelp, his pant leg sliced open and smoldering, the skin underneath burned.
His nostrils flaring, he charged at her again. She cracked the whip, but he sliced through it and chopped off the end. Pressing his small victory, he attacked so hard and fast he broke through her magic and cut her sword in half. She dropped what was left of the burning blade and pushed out an instant blaze. He spun out of the way. She didn’t give him a second to recover and made him leap back and forth like a toad as she stalked him, throwing fire. Eryx flung his knife at her, missing in his haste. Scrambling out of her path, he thrust his bare hand out, clearly thinking it would produce a surge of water. It didn’t, and he shook his hand, ground his teeth, looked at his barely dripping fingers, his eyes wide with shock and disbelief.
“Not so easy without the amulet.” She smirked. Little in life had given her more pleasure than watching Eryx realize his budding magic was nothing yet without the Shard of Olympus.
He sidestepped toward the altar, trying to put the marble slab and the people around it between them. Dex still bent over Lilika as Carver guided him, his gray eyes flicking up to check on her. Bellanca angled herself between them and Eryx, blocking his path and forcing him toward the high wall and away from the altar.
“You’ve done enough damage over there.” Her gaze slipped sideways, and hope suddenly yanked inside her as Lilika’s eyes opened. She didn’t let the flood of relief weaken her, though, and quickly turned back to Eryx, an icy stone of vengeance still lodged in her chest. It would live and die with Hera’s puppet. “Let’s see what damage I can do now.”
Cold washed through her. Her magic stayed hot. She advanced, a focused but nonlethal sun flare forcing Eryx backward toward his murder wall. He tried to escape, and she widened the magic, making it so searingly hot on either side of him that he had no choice but to stay in the center and stumble back against the sandstone barrier.
“See what it feels like to be pushed up against the wall? The harbor behind you? The fall so far?” She pressed more heat against him. “That wide stone walkway around the water the only place you can land? The next high tide just ready to wash you away like you’d never even been?” She exchanged the sun flare for her original fire, weaving burning bars around him that caged him to the wall. Forming the bars was more complicated than conjuring a weapon, but she was motivated and finished fast. The wall was still at his back, and Eryx shrank toward it, trying to escape the heat. He sliced his sword through her flaming bars, but the currents of fire remained intact. She kept pouring magic into them, making sure to maintain a constant, sizzling tide. “Feel it, Eryx. The fear. You deserve to scream in terror before you die.”
His voice panic-rough and heat-dry, he croaked, “You can’t. You swore. I know it was you under that helmet, and you swore to let me live. A binding oath.”
She laughed the cruelest laugh of her life. “I swore to let you live that night. But I shouldn’t have. Cleito might still be alive. Lilika would be happily at the taverna right now. Atlantis would have magic, just as Zeus planned.”
Theophania’s sob drew her attention to the altar again. Bellanca kept her magical focus on Eryx and her fire on maintaining an unbreakable cage, but her gaze swept toward her friends. Theophania wept, shock still blanching her features, but it was a different kind of pale. She shook with relief, tears streaming down her face. Spiro did, too, crying silently beside his wife. Dimitri’s face crumpled as he curled over Lilika, holding her head in his hands.
“You scared me so much.” His voice broke like a wave. Shuddering, he bowed his forehead to hers.
Lilika’s arms slowly lifted, coming around him. “I promised to grow old with you.” Her fingers slid into his hair, holding him close. “I will.”
Smiling at Dex, Carver gripped his friend’s shoulder and squeezed. Pale and wobbly, Dex staggered back from the altar. Then he grinned, so proud, so relieved.
Bellanca turned back to Eryx, her joy immense but still incomplete. “You might think my friend living will make me go easier on you. You’re wrong.”
Eryx glared at her. “If I still had a knife, I’d have planted it in your hide while your back was to me.”
“If you’d still had a knife, I wouldn’t have turned.”
“How?” he growled. “How are you doing this?” He tried slicing his sword through her fire again, burning himself when the metal turned red hot in his hand.
“It’s useless,” she told him. There was no cutting this cage. She kept the magic flowing infinitely, and she had power to spare. “I could let you slowly bake for days.”
The ground suddenly shook ominously somewhere in the heart of the square. Worried, she looked over her shoulder. The tremor kept going, growing, and people started to scream and run. Some fell, and some pushed and shoved their way through the lurching crowd. On the left-hand side of the square, a crack snaked up a huge column and dug into the marble roof of Hera’s temple. Chunks of stone tumbled down and hit the stairs. People scrambled out of the way, pushing into the crowd. Just as the tremor shook Bellanca’s feet, the quake faded, but scared new Magoi had no control over their power. Their magic jumped forth in visceral reaction, magnifying the chaos and danger in the square.
Her stomach dropped as fire roared and rose and burned. Water spit into the air, but it was rarer than fire magic and didn’t do anything to counter the panicked flames. A sudden wind howled, and another quake shook the ground. It wasn’t as long as the first one, but it was more violent and cracked the marble underfoot and rattled the temples all around. The big, twin statues of Apollo and Artemis marking the base of the castle road fell over and shattered, spewing marble chunks toward the crowd. Atlantians screamed and ran, tripping and crawling over one another and injuring themselves on the now jagged ground.
Bellanca watched in horror as pandemonium swelled along with out-of-control magic. She couldn’t let go of Eryx to help. If she took her focus off her fire, she’d lose the cage.
“Carver!” She whipped her head toward the altar but found him already running toward the edge of the crowd. He leaped onto one of the short pillars that usually marked the perimeter around Eryx’s sacrifices and raised his sword.
“Stop! Calm yourselves!” The shiny metal glinted in the sun, drawing attention, as did Carver’s deep, commanding voice. “ You control your magic. It doesn’t control you. Pull it back inside. Gather it deep into you and keep it there.” He half turned and pointed his sword at her. “Look at the control your future queen has. She caged a murderer in fire. She hasn’t burned a single other soul. This is what you can have. Magic. Control. And a queen who fights for you!” He turned back to the crowd, pointing his blade at them now. “Now calm yourselves and spread out.”
Bellanca held her breath. Would it work? She carefully watched the square, and what had just been a jostling mob did slowly calm. A lot of people still forced their way out of the area, but the bursting, burning magic dimmed and no earthquakes rattled the ground. The tension inside her eased. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better.
Carver nodded his approval to the crowd. “Fire mages, go to Zeus’s temple. Get away from other people and from anything that’ll burn.” He glanced at Silas, who still stood near the front of the crowd. “Silas—you’re in charge of them. Lead them there. It’ll be cool and calm.”
Silas raised his sword high and then pointed the tip toward the biggest building on the square. “Fire wielders, to the temple!” he boomed. Several people started moving, some still sparking and flaming. The crowd parted for them, eager to get them out.
“Pav!” Carver shouted, searching for the unit leader and the men who’d come with him. They signaled from the steps of Athena’s temple, and Carver pointed to Pav with his sword. “Earthshakers!” he yelled out over the crowd. “Go with Pavlos to the castle gardens. Get away from all these buildings. Now!”
Pav lifted his sword to signal to Atlantians to follow. “If an ancestor ever had earth magic, or you think you do now—with me!” He bounded down the steps and moved toward the base of the castle road, followed by the men who’d come with him. He kept his blade high, a signal to follow. Only a few people moved, but they raced away, and the crowd hurried them along.
Bellanca’s worry lessened as the magical population in the square thinned. But there were still hundreds of people crowding the area, and underlying the constant din, she heard the injured pleading for help.
She called over to Dex. “Use the amulet to help the wounded. But pace yourself,” she warned. “Little by little. And anything non-life-threatening can wait.”
Hearing her, Carver waved Dex over and showed him to the crowd. “If any family member ever had healing magic, go to Apollo’s temple and find Dexios.” Turning to Dex, he said, “Show them what to do and start healing anyone who’s been hurt or burned.”
“Help the injured to Apollo’s temple!” Bellanca shouted. “All healers—Magoi and Hoi Polloi—go there to see how you can help.” Apollo was the god of healing. Maybe he’d look favorably upon their efforts, and she’d be damned before she thought Magoi healers were the only ones with skills.
Carver turned, and their eyes met. A second later, he leaped off the pillar and plunged into the crowd. He’d help calm Magoi and bring the wounded to the temple. She’d finish off Eryx. It was their unspoken deal.
She turned back to Eryx, violent anticipation thundering through her blood. He strained against her magic, the burns she’d already given him blistering and red and as ugly as his choices in life. Despite the new Magoi in the crowd dispersing, a huge audience still watched them, paying attention to her every word and move.
She had witnesses. She had Eryx right where she wanted him. Too bad she couldn’t kill him twice.
Or maybe she could. She could incinerate the obol he must have somewhere on his body and doom him to the wrong side of the River Styx.
Just as the vengeful thought bloomed in the darkest part of her heart, a huge rumble rolled toward them over the ocean. Frowning, she lifted her gaze and saw the great barrier crash down. Her eyes widened as water rushed into the trough surrounding Atlantis, frothing, roiling, and violent. Panic hit her like a thunderclap, and she took an involuntary step back. The ocean would close over them. It would submerge the island. No one could survive that.
The temple square vibrated again, and she gasped, spreading her legs for balance. But the movement was different this time, gentler, more controlled. The ground didn’t split. It rose .
Her heart raced as the island climbed along with the water. In awe, Bellanca let her cage waver, but Eryx was too fixated on the ocean behind him to notice. She pulled her focus back in and shored up the magic just as the terrifying influx arrived. Water crashed against the outer port, and huge plumes of spray flew over the lower walls and drenched the land protecting the mouth of the harbor. Big, powerful waves pushed through the narrow port entrance, rocking boats and making bells jangle, ropes snap against masts, and wood groan in protest. Water finally slammed into the wall below them, the booms echoing and the waves crashing violently back out. The island moaned a last, heavy sigh and then settled, the turquoise sea still churning around them.
Trembling from shock and excitement, Bellanca couldn’t stop staring at the unbroken horizon. Residual fear still hammered inside her, but the ocean spread out before them, uninhibited by any barrier, and a landmass rose from the water in the far, far distance.
Her heart thumped wildly. Could it be Thalyria?
“Atlantis has risen!” Carver shouted behind her.
The crowd echoed his cry, screaming their fierce and frenzied happiness over and over. The earsplitting rejoicing raised goose bumps on her arms. Her heart thundered. She didn’t turn, but she listened, and satisfaction flooded her just like the ocean had flooded the huge basin around the island. This was everything Atlantians had wanted and needed for generations. Their island—no longer sunken, no longer punished.
Eryx tore his gaze from the horizon and swung back to her, fury contorting his face. “This is my doing. My day.”
She shrugged. “At least you lived to see Atlantis rise again.”
His eyes green with magic, green with envy, he growled, “How are you so powerful?”
“How?” Bellanca flung him a vicious smile. Neither of them had actually lifted the island from its ocean basin, but she’d made it possible, not Eryx. He might’ve forced magic back with his ceremony, but the horizon was for her—for the leader she promised to be and the choices she’d made to get here. “I come from a long line of very powerful Magoi. Kings and queens like nothing you’ve ever known. Terrifying rulers. Terrible people. But you want to know why I’m so powerful?” She laughed, true and harsh. “It’s because I decided to use my magic for something better than making other people miserable. There is such strength in wanting to protect, to help, to do better. I would work a thousand times harder to save someone worthy than to kill an enemy. And I would kill my enemy a thousand times harder, and a thousand times more painfully, to save someone worthy. Or to save a whole people. This is my doing. My day.” She tipped her head toward the Atlantian-filled square behind her. “And this island is mine !” she shouted so that as many people as possible would hear her. “With the help and blessing of Zeus, Punishment is over, and we’re one with the horizon!”
The crowd cheered again, deafening, Zeus’s name pouring from mouths and charging the air with a swell of gratitude. Their noise covered Eryx’s snarl of outrage. He still held his sword in his fabric-wrapped hand and made a last-ditch effort to kill her by throwing it. It was a clumsy effort, and she sun flared his blade into a line of melted metal before dropping the cage and pushing her white-hot magic over him. He reeled back against the wall, his clothing starting to burn. He gasped. His belt caught fire, and he ripped it off. He tore off his tunic. Writhing in agony, he pleaded, “No! Stop! Please!” His pants disintegrated. His boots charred. His skin bubbled and burned all over.
Bellanca moved forward, keeping the heat just right to cook but not kill. “How many women begged for their lives? Did you listen?”
Horror twisted Eryx’s burning features. “I–I surrender. Spare me.” His naked back against the wall, he begged her as she roasted him.
“No. I don’t think I will.” She kept a perfectly even sun flare, watching him disintegrate, her control absolute. This was no rogue spark in her hair, the kind of little eruption that didn’t matter. This was pure heat, intense power, and she’d finally fully mastered it, just like she’d mastered her innate fire years ago. “I’m going to melt you, piece by piece. I’ll leave your eyeballs alone so you can see yourself burn. And I’ll leave your mouth, so you can scream.”
Eryx’s terrified eyes widened. His hair burned. He howled when his skin finally gave way to bone. Pain warped his features. He wailed, folding in on himself, but there was no escaping her wrath or her magic. His body barely resembled a body anymore, charred and oozing. He collapsed, just enough of him left to hear her, to understand.
“You didn’t think it would end this way, did you?” Magic flowed out of her, so easy and powerful, even without the amulet. “You didn’t even see us coming. Where’s your water magic now, Eryx? All dried up? Can’t get it out? Too bad you’re a murdering son of a Cyclops, or I might’ve taught you.”
“You’re a murderer!” he somehow spat back.
“I’m a conqueror.” And enough hate pumped through her heart that she could momentarily set aside the Atlantian soldiers she’d had to kill to get to this very place, right now. Hate for how Eryx had treated Cleito, for what he’d done to Carver, and for all the island women he’d killed and the families he’d thrown into mourning. “Atlantis is free of Punishment. Now, it’ll be free of you.” The crowd spurred her on, shouting for the death of Eryx Atlantis.
With a final push of magic, she combined her sun flare and her fire and ended a king unworthy of this island. His scream scarcely lasted, cut off as skin and muscle burned away and his liquifying body ran like thick red poison down his bones. He lost all form, all sound, all humanity—if he’d ever had any—and Bellanca had barely skimmed the top off her power. She could melt him a thousand times over.
With grim satisfaction, she looked at the oozing heap in the same spot where Eryx had murdered thousands of women over his reign and produced an incineration-hot pulse of magic, charring what remained, including the little obol nestled among his bones. Bloody sludge dried to ash. The thin, parched flakes swirled on her searing air currents, and she blew them over the high wall with a sun-flare blast.
The next high tide would wash them off the stone walkway below, erasing them like they’d never even been.
Now she was done with Eryx.