Chapter 3
THREE
Kaelen
We ran.
It wasn’t the coordinated, tactical retreat of a unit moving through hostile territory. It was a scramble, a chaotic flight driven by the primordial understanding that the thing behind us was bigger, harder, and angrier than we were.
The Colossus didn't have footsteps; it had earthquakes.
Each time its massive, star-metal foot struck the pavement, the impact shuddered up through the soles of my boots and rattled the teeth in my skull.
It was fifty feet of animated, divine alloy, a statue of Ares that Hera had woken from a millennia-long nap with a bad temper.
"Left!" Elias shouted, his voice cutting through the roar of crumbling masonry.
We banked hard into a side street, skidding on marble tiles slick with the strange, oily condensation that was beginning to coat everything in the lower districts.
The air here was thick, smelling of ozone and crushed stone, but under it all was that new, terrifying scent: sulfur and rot.
The scent of the nothingness eating the world.
"It’s gaining on us!" Flynn yelled from the rear guard position.
I glanced back. He was running backward, daggers in hand, a manic grin plastered on his face as if being chased by something the size of a building was the highlight of his week.
"He’s got long legs, Kaelen! We need to break line of sight! "
"I am trying to find a street that isn't in imminent danger of dissolving!" I roared back.
I had Aria’s hand in mine. Her grip was iron-tight, her skin fever-hot against my palm.
Through our bond, I felt her exhaustion like a lead weight in my own chest. She was running on fumes, fueled only by the residual high of the binding and sheer, stubborn will.
Every time she stumbled, I hauled her up, pouring my own strength into her through the golden tether that connected our cores.
Keep moving, fireheart, I projected, wrapping my mind around hers. Do not stop.
I’m not stopping, she shot back, the mental voice breathless but sharp. But we’re running into a dead end.
She was right. The alleyway we were sprinting down was narrowing, flanked by towering silos that looked like grain storages for lightning bolts. And at the end, a massive wall of white stone blocked the path.
"Thane!" I barked. "The wall!"
The Bear Prince surged past me, a juggernaut of muscle and earth magic. "I see it!"
But before Thane could reach the obstruction, the ground between us and the wall changed.
It didn't crack or break. It simply unraveled.
The pristine white marble turned grey, then black, then dissolved into a swirling mist of dark particles.
It was as if the reality of the floor had suddenly decided to stop existing.
From the widening fissure, tendrils of black smoke curled upward, thick and viscous as oil smoke, grasping at the air like blind, seeking fingers.
"Stop!" I yanked Aria back so hard her boots stuttered against the stone.
We skidded to a halt inches from the edge of the disintegration. The tendrils lashed out, snapping like whips. One brushed the hem of Elias’s robe. The silk didn't burn; it vanished, eaten away instantly, leaving not even ash behind.
"The Devourer," Elias whispered, staring into the abyss opening at our feet. "It’s under the city. It’s infiltrating the foundation."
"We’re trapped," Flynn said, his voice losing its humor.
Behind us, the heavy, rhythmic booming stopped. A shadow fell over the alley, blocking out the twin suns.
I turned slowly.
The Colossus stood at the mouth of the alley. It was magnificent and terrifying, a perfection of star-metal wrought into the shape of the War God. Its eyes were burning braziers of white fire. Hera's fire. It raised a fist the size of a siege engine, the metal groaning as the joints articulated.
"Well," Flynn said, spinning his daggers. "It was a good run. I vote we aim for the ankles."
"We can't fight that," Thane rumbled, positioning himself between the giant and Aria. "It is impervious to physical force. I already tried to use gravity on it.”
"Then we use magic," Aria said, stepping up beside me. The golden veins on her neck flared, drawing on the reserves we had poured into her. "We—"
"No," I cut her off, my hand tightening on hers. "You are empty, Aria. If you pull deep enough to hurt that thing, you will burn out your own soul."
The Colossus took a step forward. The walls of the alley shook, dust raining down on us. It raised its fist higher, preparing to turn us into paste.
Then, the ground beneath the giant’s left foot simply gave way.
It wasn't a sinkhole. It was an ambush from the void.
Black smoke erupted from the pavement, not drifting this time, but surging. The tendrils lashed around the Colossus's ankles, thick as tree trunks, solidifying into cables of pure entropy.
The giant stopped, its head tilting down with a grinding noise. It tried to lift its foot.
The star-metal hissed.
Where the black smoke touched the divine alloy, the metal began to pit and corrode instantly. The "impervious" material turned to rust, then to dust, flaking away in the wind.
The Colossus opened its mouth and let out a sound that wasn't a voice, but the screech of tearing steel. It thrashed, bringing its massive stone sword down to sever the tendrils, but the blade passed harmlessly through the smoke.
"The shadows," Elias murmured, his eyes wide. "They hunger for magic. The statue is animated by divine will... it's a food source."
More tendrils burst from the cracks in the buildings flanking the alley.
They swarmed the giant, wrapping around its thighs, its waist, its chest. They weren't fighting it; they were feeding on it.
The white fire in the statue's eyes flickered and dimmed as the void sucked the animating power straight out of the casing.
"The enemy of my enemy," Flynn whispered, awe and horror warring in his scent.
"Is still a nightmare that wants to eat us," I finished grimly.
I watched as the Colossus fell to one knee, its leg dissolving into grey powder beneath the onslaught of the smoke.
It reached out a hand toward us, not to strike, but as if begging for help, before the hand, too, was enveloped by the writhing darkness.
"The way is blocked," Thane said, looking at the dissolving floor in front of us and the dying giant behind us. "We are boxed in."
I scanned the alley, my mind racing through tactical permutations. We couldn't go forward; the floor was gone. We couldn't go back; the Devourer was feasting there too.
My gaze landed on a set of heavy double doors set into the side of one of the buildings. They were made of bronze, green with age and verdigris, carved with reliefs of women playing lyres and flutes.
"There," I pointed with my sword. "That structure. It rests on a different foundation. The Devourer hasn't touched it yet."
"The Hall of Muses," Elias identified it instantly. "A place of archive and quiet. It has been sealed since the Golden Age."
“Then we’ll be the ones to open it.”
We scrambled toward the doors. The black tendrils were spreading, creeping outward from the feasting frenzy on the Colossus, sensing fresh meat. The stone beneath my boots felt spongy, hollow, as if the reality holding it up was thinning.
Thane reached the doors first. He didn't bother with the latch. He slammed his shoulder into the bronze, channeling a burst of earth magic to shatter the locking mechanism. With a groan of protesting metal, the doors swung inward.
"Inside! Now!" I shoved Aria through the opening, Flynn and Elias right on her heels.
I paused at the threshold, looking back. The Colossus was gone. In its place was a swirling vortex of black smoke, pulsing with a satisfied, sickly rhythm. A tendril lashed out toward me, moving with terrifying speed.
I slammed the doors shut.
Thane threw his weight against them, crying out as he forced the locking bars he’d just broken back into place. I placed my hand on the metal, pouring dragon fire into the seams, welding the bronze shut with a line of molten heat.
We stood in the dark, listening.
From the other side came a wet, slithering sound. Something scratched against the metal, a noise like fingernails on a chalkboard. Then, silence.
I exhaled slowly, relieved that we were safe, even if only for a moment. The air in the hall was cool, smelling of dust, beeswax, and the faint, metallic scent of old brass instruments. It was dead silent, a tomb-like quiet that pressed against my ears after the cacophony outside.
"Is everyone accounted for?" I asked, turning away from the glowing weld lines.
"Present," Flynn called out. "And probably traumatized. The usual."
"Aria?" I sought her out immediately.
She was leaning against a marble plinth, clutching the pomegranate seed Hades had given her in one hand and the hilt of his sword in the other. Her chest heaved, her skin pale and clammy in the dim light.
"I'm here," she wheezed. "I'm... okay."
I crossed the distance between us in three strides, holstering my sword. I cupped her face, tilting her head up. Her eyes were wide, the pupils blown, reflecting Flynn's firelight. The bond between us was a chaotic jangle of nerves and adrenaline.
"You are shaking," I murmured, running my thumbs over her cheekbones.
"We almost got eaten by the floor, Kaelen," she said, a hysterical edge to her laugh. "I think shaking is the appropriate physiological response."
"Fair," I conceded. I pulled her into my arms, burying my face in her hair. She smelled of sweat and fear and the lingering ozone of the lightning she had caught earlier. It was the best smell in the world because it meant she was alive.
"So," Flynn said, his voice echoing in the vast space. He raised his hand, illuminating the room. "Welcome to the Hall of Muses. Try not to break anything; the rent deposit is astronomical."