Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
He flipped the blade, catching it by the sharpened metal. He extended the hilt toward me. “You see, Merit, I have a theory. You’re too worried about the soldiers to win the war. Why else would you have come for them?”
“To recruit—”
“Don’t lie.” He cut me off. He extended the sword once more. “If you’re committed to taking down Heaven, then you’ll make tough calls. You’ll do what needs to be done to topple the realms. And these two…well…they’re not exactly valuable in war.”
I kept my mouth shut, though my breathing was coming through my nose in shallow, miserable gasps.
“I guess that’s not entirely true,” he said. “They serve a very useful purpose.”
I didn’t want him to finish his thought.
I wanted to wish him away, for it all to be a bad dream, for Kirby and Ella to stand up and walk out of the house unharmed.
My nausea intensified. I had no hope. No options.
No choices. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ella’s head bob as she began to stir.
Her chest lifted as she pulled air with more intentionality.
“Show me you’re here to win the war, and I’ll fight with you.”
Estrid began to say something, but I’d already beat her with my soft “Or?”
“Or the two of you are another in a long line of obstacles,” he said.
“If you hurt her…” Estrid hissed, and to my shock, she wasn’t talking about Ella. She jutted her chin at me. “All of Hell will be at your door before her heart stops beating.”
“Maybe,” he said. “And if that’s true, they don’t have what it takes to win, either.”
He’d kept Ella and Kirby from the moment they’d arrived. He’d known this was coming. He’d known from the moment I’d walked through his door that he intended to watch me slaughter my friends. Either I made one of them leave in a body bag, or we all exited in pieces.
I looked at the katana’s black hilt. Darker than night. As dark as a…cave.
The cave.
I tried to stifle the jolt that shot through me as I slowly extended my hand.
I moved in slow motion, closing my eyes as my fingers reached for the sword.
Behind closed lids, I stepped into the oil-slick walls of my mind’s cave and screamed for Estrid.
I shouted into the abyss and held my breath, allowing the world beyond to slow like molasses as I waited.
“Marlow!” she gasped, appearing in the cave with teacup-wide eyes. She looked every bit as panicked as I felt. The cave wobbled as my adrenaline made it difficult for me to stay in meditation.
“I think the ward is down,” I said as quickly as I could. “It’s on the arms of the machine. It’s only complete when the machine is in motion. We can get out.”
She took a panicked step toward me. “But—”
“I have the s?lje,” I insisted. I didn’t know how much time meditation bought us, but I knew I couldn’t stretch this out long enough to justify my rationale.
Even in the meditative space, every word came out frantically choked.
“If you grab Kirby, I’ll go for Ella. I need her power to jump, but I still have the broach.
We can get them out. We just have to move quickly. ”
Her pained expression was answer enough.
By the time my fingers wrapped around the hilt, our meditative connection was broken.
I looked up at the titan, seeing only the shadows of someone mildly curious as to how his mundane afternoon might turn out.
I didn’t dare look Estrid in the eye as I turned away from Apep.
Kirby remained fully unconscious, blissfully unaware of the horrors around them, but Ella’s eyes began to move beneath her closed lids.
Her head bobbed again. She’d be conscious soon, and we couldn’t risk her reacting.
“Who will it be?” he asked.
I tightened my grip around the sword and realized there was something peculiar about his question.
He was asking me to choose between a god and a mortal.
I looked down at the sword in my hands, slowly lifting it as if to swing.
I scanned it for any inscription, any indication, any hope that I was holding a god-killer.
Throw it at the guard so Estrid can get free, forked one voice in my brain.
No, you’ll miss. You could hit Estrid, and it could genuinely wound her. She’s not a goddess. You have no training. You can’t do anything. You—I stopped myself from the unhelpful self-flagellation. I’d never be ready. But it was now or never.
I took a step toward Ella as her fingers began to twitch.
“Don’t you dare!” Estrid screamed.
The blue-gray electric glow cast Ella in an eerie light as she stirred. Apep shifted from the far side of the room, matching my movements as he closed the space between the wall and the captives.
I grimaced as I lofted the katana.
Ella’s eyes fluttered open. I was so caught in the moment of surprise that I nearly stumbled. Disoriented, she mumbled, “Marlow?”
The confusion had a ripple effect through the room.
I leaped toward Ella, twisting and flinging the sword as I jumped.
The blade cut through the air with a high ring as it barreled toward Apep.
The shelves, the room, the very house seemed to bend toward me as the world shattered.
The moment I released the sword, the guard cried out, releasing Estrid as he threw himself in front of the god.
I grabbed Ella and screamed for her to jump. A spike of movement, of energy, of noise and chaos and anarchy descended into the room in the moment it took her to fully absorb what was happening.
Out of the corner of my eye, Apep dove for a weapon.
“Jump!” I cried again, shaking her. It was too late for him. Estrid winked out of existence, Kirby tucked in between her arm and the hardened leather of her breastplate. We were going to make it.
The men scrambled for the blade as Ella’s hand locked around my wrist.
Apep cried out, his arm swinging in an arc.
A high, ringing sound cut through the room. A flash of silver pierced the air as we fell backward into darkness.