Chapter 28 Adaela #2
My death magic poked its head up at that declaration.
I quietly preened as I took a headcount of the troops around us, and saw that most of the beings with us today were Gods.
We had Ma’at, Medb, Athena, Loki, Ganesha, Mayari, Daedalus, Jiutian Xuannu, and several others.
If there was anything I could say about this incredible group of individuals, it was that they were cunning and strong.
Their ability to strategize, and their strength to protect this world was unrivaled.
These incredible beings had shown the world that they did in fact exist, and they had strong views on what was right and wrong.
They came from different pantheons, but their end goals were the same, and Typhon threatened those goals.
Why was it always the fucking Mycenaeans?
I smiled, reaching my hand out as Vada approached us.
We didn’t have much time, and if Typhon was here, he likely already knew we were readying for a confrontation.
We had people on the ground here who were actively evacuating the people of Turkey from anywhere near this site so they wouldn’t come to any harm, and we’d help with any damage that might occur in the aftermath.
I was a little anxious about the outcome, but I wasn’t as concerned as I should’ve been.
War was like muscle memory for me. Once the battle started, it’d be like I’d never left the battlefield.
The Gods stood to attention, and I did the same, though I couldn’t see past the wall of their shoulders.
I squeezed Vada’s hand and let go, stepping up to the wall of Gods to see what had them on alert.
I squeezed between Mayari and Jiutian Xuannu, and had to lean over on Mayari’s shoulder for a second to keep my knees from buckling.
Walking toward us with Typhon was none fucking other than Sabine—the woman I thought I murdered—my fucking ex.
My fucking mate. She sauntered over with a smirk on her face, and my blood boiled.
I didn’t even think, I started moving toward her with purpose before being pulled back by my shirt collar.
Quick as lightning, my shadows left me, moving toward her.
Sabine waved them off as if they were flies, and I stopped in my tracks, confused how she could do that.
No one had ever been able to stop my shadows before, much like the Sluagh.
They could be destructive if I allowed it.
“Adaela, it’s as if no time has passed. I seem to remember the last time we saw each other, you did something similar. I grow tired of the games,” Sabine taunted.
“Sabine,” was all I seemed to be able to grit out. I wasn’t angry about our history anymore. There was nothing to be angry about. It was in the past. I wanted to know how she survived my death magic. I wanted to know if she’d lied to me about being my mate.
I started to quickly put the puzzle pieces together.
My father, Sabine’s betrayal, how she knew about Pandora’s Box, all of it.
I was right at the center of it all as an obstacle.
My strength, the abuse by my father’s hand, the manipulation of cult-like status to his sycophants, the Great War, and everyone here was all part of this—but I still couldn’t figure out the why behind it.
Vada stepped up behind me, putting her hand on the small of my back in reassurance.
I stood a little taller—what little that did for me.
Sabine cackled with glee. “Oh my gods. You’re finally getting it. It took you long enough. Father, are you seeing this?” she asked Typhon as she patted his massive foot, and I became even more confused. Sabine was a brownie. How did Typhon father her?
“Well played, Sabine. What is the game here?” Ma’at demanded, cutting straight to the point.
She smirked as she scanned the wall of Gods, then the beings behind us, as if she already won. “The game, my dear Ma’at, is the same as it has always been. To give my father the rightful place he should have always had. Granddad made it so, and the Fates have always been on his side.”
Ganesha, riding his mouse, or Mū?akavāhana, moved to take his place by Jiutian Xuannu. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at here. What am I missing?”
I was still stunned silent, trying to connect the dots.
I had some of the picture, but not all of it.
My father knew of Typhon. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have responded the way he had upon our final visit.
I wondered if my trip to Tartarus was to get the blade, or if it had been Pandora’s Box the entire time.
“How did you survive?” I asked quietly, almost to myself, but Sabine heard me as her face transformed with a devilish grin.
“Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
First, my name isn’t fucking Sabine. Your father was a great ally of mine before you were born.
I was the mouthpiece for father when Zeus’s ass tricked him into that damn vessel.
It took almost nothing to convince your father that he was destined for great things.
He was so easily swayed by the possibility of being the reigning leader of all factions.
It was easy, really. He was manipulated into believing that he had the power at his fingertips through you.
Women were beneath him, as you know. He believed that the worlds owed him something for producing something as precious as you.
His dumb ass should have realized that Underhill would never accept a man as its leader,” she spat.
My death magic stirred again, fighting the constraints I had on it, and the hairs on my arms stood up as everyone around me began to react on my behalf. I loved them for it, but this was my fight. “That’s fucking obvious, not-Sabine. Do continue monologuing, though,” I sarcastically rebutted.
“You were the only being who could get past Tartarus’s defenses, you see.
You were quite literally manipulated into becoming who you are today.
What we didn’t anticipate was this little city you call a utopia,” she sneered, and I was getting tired of her fucking attitude. What the fuck had I seen in her?
“Get to the fucking point,” Daedalus shouted, wings flaring behind him as he held the line. If he was also getting frustrated, it was because he wasn’t seeing the connection yet either.
“Who the fuck are you if you’re not Sabine?” I demanded.
She laughed, and then in front of us, she shapeshifted into the last thing I’d have ever expected.
There was no explanation before all our worldviews completely changed.
The impossible happened, and adrenaline coursed through my veins as it took everything in me not to let all of my magic explode from me, like the last time we’d encountered one another.
Standing directly in front of us was the Marung.
The very same Marung we had commissioned to be our mascot of sorts for the Pax.
The Marung who wasn’t supposed to exist, who we all thought was myth in every legend told throughout time.
She stood there, looking just like the statue in the situation room.
I made the connections. The Marung was gifted to us by an anonymous donor.
We had let her stand in the most secure room in the Pax for decades, and not even one of us had ever detected an ounce of power roll off her.
Even now, I couldn’t sense her energy. She just felt inanimate, like wood and stone.
The Marung turned to leer at us, at me, and I tried to take another step forward.
Vada and Mayari held me back. “So, all those leaks over the years have been you. How the fuck did you get past our wards? How did we never see you leave that office on any camera? When did you go to take a piss or eat?” I seethed.
Marung just laughed at the shock on all our faces.
“You all had some stories right, but not all of them. My power is in illusion and duplication. Like your world-building magic, Adaela, I can create scenes that appear as if nothing has changed. I’ve played the long game, and none of you have been the wiser for it. ”
I slowly snuck my shadows out, demanding they stick to areas where shadows already existed as I shrugged the hands of Vada and Mayari off me. “So, you survived my death magic because you weren’t there?”
Marung laughed again. “You’re starting to catch on, you stupid bitch. I’ll let you in on a little secret. No one was there. You didn’t kill anyone. They were all my creations, and I provoked you into it.”
All hell broke loose as my entire worldview completely reshaped itself right in front of me.
The ghosts of my past weren’t real. Well, they were, but they were manufactured by the woman who I thought loved me.
All along, the woman right beside me, who remained and allowed me my autonomy, told me who she was, and I hadn’t believed her.
She took care of me when I was recovering and wouldn’t let me think any less of myself. She loved me through all of it.
Remembering back to when Sabine and I were together, I thought about how in almost every instance when she was with me, she was always encouraging me to commit atrocities.
Almost as if she were gleeful about it, but just manipulative enough that I hadn’t ever caught on until she was out of my life.
I always figured the orders were coming from my father, but I wondered how many of those thoughts came from her having his ear. I’d have time to question this later.
“Daughter, enough taunting. Let’s end this once and for all,” Typhon said, turning his attention on the Gods, but specifically Athena.
“Niece, you can either surrender now or face the destruction of the worlds. This is your only warning. My children have been awaiting my return. They’ve been shifting the puzzle pieces for millennia.
Humans hate each other, and everyone outside of your small town has been itching to rise to the top because of my children,” he chuckled to himself, mirth in his eyes.
“I had wondered, dear uncle. I’ll admit that I hadn’t seen this coming, but I had a feeling that someone was manipulating the worlds around us for power.
It’s why we started the Catervae Pax in the first place—to show that what you believe is power is only a representation of misdirection and greed.
I still believe that the worlds are mostly good, but there are bad actors like yourself whose beliefs in inequality and self-hatred are the glue that holds inequity and scarcity to account.
This world, and the worlds we no longer inhabit, were built to provide.
Fear and parochialism will be the death of us all,” Athena said.
Typhon’s head was higher than the clouds that were quickly enveloping the sky.
Ma’at, along with the other Gods and creatures who could manipulate the weather, worked in tandem against Typhon’s powers.
Portals opened in multiple places around us, bringing in some beings I recognized as Pax members, and others I didn’t recognize, which led me to believe that Typhon and Marung had the same ideas.
War was upon us.