Chapter 22 #3
It’s become clear that Onyx is no longer herself. It’s hard to tell if she’s even inside the body any longer when the voice doesn’t even sound like her own.
“Kill them all, kill them all,” the person who was once Onyx begins to chant. “KILL THEM ALL.”
“As you wish, my love,” Famine says as she throws sand at Vero. When it hits him, his hand hesitates, but the arrow I shoot straight through his back yanks him back to reality, making Famine furious that I keep fucking up her plans.
Onyx rushes me, and since I’d been fixing my arrow on another cluster of people, I don’t see her until she’s on me, having moved impossibly fast. It allows her to grab me by the throat, rage written across her face.
“Selena, my sweets, that is my brother. He is simply confused, but we’ll show him the right way,” Famine says.
This woman Famine called Selena doesn’t care.
Her hand turns into that same shimmering material while she drives it toward my side, but I call up ice to block her hit.
The ice shatters as the Death magic swirls inside of me, drowning me in uncontrollable magic that bursts out, flinging her off me and right into Vero’s path.
He raises a pole and thrusts it into her chest, pinning her to the ground.
“NO!” Famine screams.
The ground shakes and the dirt beneath me starts to crumble. The trees wither and die, and the buildings begin to collapse. It’s like an earthquake is running through the city, tearing it apart. Vero is thrown back when the pole that he’d driven into Selena slams into him.
“Riley!” Torin yells, and I discover that the shaking ground beneath my feet has opened up into a hole while the world falls apart.
As my footing disappears, I lunge for the edge, barely managing to catch it.
But the dirt immediately starts giving away, and I cling desperately as the ground beneath me is eaten up.
People who’d chosen to stay in an attempt to help are swallowed by the woman’s wrath.
Kit cries and anxiously dances on my shoulder, unsure of what to do. She seems to want to get help but she knows that by doing so, she’ll take my vision from me. I don’t even know what to tell her to do.
Selena has so much power, so much control over everything, and I begin to wonder if she is the goddess who built this world… the goddess who brought life upon it, crops to feed the people, rain to water the crops… before they betrayed her and destroyed her.
Of course her power would be immense here if everything here was built with it. And now she’s decided to destroy all that she’s built.
I can’t see what is happening while I desperately cling to the edge, but I can hear the screams, the pleas.
My feet try to dig into the dirt but every time I find purchase, the ground instantly crumbles.
My fingers strain as I fight to pull myself up but when I try, more ground disappears and I’m left frantically grabbing on to something new to save me.
My hands shake and I realize that I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.
Then the world shudders and everything beneath my hands begins to fall away like the goddess is calling away even the dirt of this world.
I start to drop a second before a hand clamps around my wrist.
“I have you. I have you,” Torin says from where he hangs on the edge. I don’t even have time to comprehend that I’m not falling to my death before I see Selena charge Torin. She drives a sword down at him, fury written across her face.
“NO!” I scream as magic rips through me and the world turns white. Selena shrieks while her hand begins to blacken and she falls back, dropping the sword while she scrambles away from the cavernous hole she’d created as the world shudders again.
Hands wrap around me, squeezing me tight while Torin tucks me into him. “I have you,” he murmurs as I realize we’re falling. I might have saved him from the sword, but I caused what was left of the overhang to collapse, dragging him down with me.
Will Torin die from this height? Have I killed him in my attempt to save him? No… no, he’s a god, he should live… but will I in this state? I wrap Kit up in my arms, uncertain how to fix this mess.
Torin pulls me in close and kisses the top of my head a second before white sand wraps around us, and all of my fear is immediately washed away as we gently land in the bottom of the pit.
He is as shocked as I am while I watch the sand melt back into the crack of the hourglass, but I notice that some grains tumble to the ground.
“I-I was trying to make a Door as we fell, but I have to touch the ground to do it. And… fuck,” Torin whispers. He squeezes me so tightly that I feel like he’s going to crush me.
“Torin, we’re not going to win this fight,” I say.
He stands still for a moment, his expression grave. “No… we’re not. I can feel my power, but it’s so weak… it’s a joke compared to the goddess’s. Hers is built off the fear of her people, and they feel significant fear.”
“But what if we save the people? Will it still count as another world destroyed if we save them, even if the world goes to ruin?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. “But let’s do it.
This is her land. She will be strongest here.
If she wants to destroy her world, she can with ease.
But the people… these people aren’t even the ones who enslaved her.
Those people have been dead for years, but her hatred of humans is too strong to see that, and the hundreds of years they’ve feared her is empowering her. ”
He makes a Door and pushes me toward it, destroying it the instant we’re through. I find that we’re outside the clinic where Mickey is. Torin already has another Door open before I even turn back to him.
“Everyone go through now!” Torin shouts. “Quill!” Quill appears in front of us and Torin throws me onto his back. “I will open as many Doors as we can guard. We cannot let Selena or Famine through. Can you get Vero and direct people to the Door?”
“Yeah.”
“Please be careful,” he says.