Chapter 118
Scythe
Lyle and I obediently give chase alongside our regina. Xander flies above us, his glowing eyes locked on Mace Naga’s sprinting form. He has obsidian sewn into his pseudo-military uniform, and while it protects him from order powers, it weighs him down.
He gathers followers as he sprints towards the shadow vortex, perhaps thinking he might find some way to trap us in there.
Soldiers try to protect him, but they are mowed down by felines, or Aurelia, myself, Lyle, or a roaring Xander.
The serpent army’s numbers dwindle now, the road before the school littered with bodies and guns, splattered blood and snake carcasses.
But still, Mace runs the distance, his strides becoming laboured. And we let him.
“It’s over,” Aurelia tells him as he nears Ghoul’s body, breathing hard now. Does he mean to take our fifth mate hostage? Xander won’t let him, landing heavily in front of Ghoul and the vortex, cutting off Mace’s path and battering him with wing beats.
It’s my Aurelia who delivers the blow—my beautiful regina taking her revenge. Dealing justice with her powerful claws, she slashes Mace’s spine, high up between the shoulder blades, precise and final.
Mace drops to the ground with a heavy thump, his body not dead, but paralysed from the diaphragm down.
We gather around him, my regina standing next to me in human form, looking down on the once serpent king. His eyes flick around the group, his breathing ragged. Now he’s as helpless in the same cruel way he made Athena Boneweaver.
“My, my,” Savage chants, running up to meet us. “Whatever has become of the wicked serpent king?”
“It seems your time has come,” I say, taking my regina’s bloody hand in mine. “You have been dethroned. You have failed. And you will pay for your crimes.”
Marduk lands next to us, and in his bloody, dirt-streaked hand is a pair of pliers. I look to my regina for permission. Her lips are pressed together, but she nods. “Do it.”
“I will not beg,” Mace hisses through his teeth.
“No,” I agree. “But you will scream.”
I take the pliers and crouch over him, pushing back his upper lip to reveal the fangs that snapped out in fear. I work on the left one, gripping it between the metal pincers and pulling as slowly as possible.
Mace screams in his throat, his breath heaving while his immobile body takes the pain. It comes out with a pop and rush of blood. Savage holds his hands out, and I give it to him before working on the second.
Behind me, Savage dances about, waving the fang in the air like a trophy, singing, “The serpent king is dying! The serpent king is dying!”
When I toss the second fang to my brother, Savage throws them to the ground, crushing them beneath his feet.
Lyle stalks forward, controlled fury lacing each step.
His big lion’s mouth snatches up Mace’s right hand and gnaws it right off, tossing it into his face where it bounces off into the dirt by his head.
“Never again will you make a blood covenant,” Aurelia says. “Never again will you enslave or hurt or take advantage of an innocent creature. You will die as if you never existed at all.”
“Never again will you sell a daughter for profit,” I say. I look to Aurelia, her eyes shining. “How do you want it done?” Aurelia goes still. Behind Xander, the vortex still spins in its violent dance.
“There are still three debts owing,” a deep, familiar voice sounds from behind us.
We all turn, and Aurelia’s gasp is breathless. Eko the Greenland shark, my mentor, and Athena Boneweaver’s third mate, is walking towards us. There is blood on his pale feet, his long silver hair is windswept, and his eyes are red-rimmed from the light.
He’d walked here, I realise in shock, as if on a pilgrimage.