Chapter 30 #3
Sigma turns from her and leaps over the crevice before jumping right into the fray. Selena is out of control. She doesn’t care if she drains herself of her magic; as long as she can kill us along the way, she’ll be pleased.
Her power seems endless, while Torin’s power is only starting to return to him and Vero still appears powerless. Then we have Mickey who can raise the undead, but the ground simply swallows them up.
Sigma is steady, waiting for my guidance as I wonder what would happen if we killed Selena. Would we be introduced to a wrath that none of us could deal with? Can the four of us take down a goddess and horseman in our condition? Or would we be better off having a horseman on our side?
I set a hand on Kit to make sure she’s holding on tightly.
Selena rushes Torin and when Quill draws back, he smashes into another blockade she’s created. It throws off Torin’s aim, and the scythe coated in sparking lightning shoots off and nearly hits Vero.
“Who the fuck are you aiming at?” Vero snaps.
I push Sigma closer as I discover that Selena has completely barricaded all of us in… and I know that means she’s planning on ripping the ground away from beneath our feet and leaving us to plummet to our possible deaths.
The gods will likely live, but can Mickey? Can he call upon a flying creature fast enough to save him? And what of me? In my current state where my power ripples out of control… can I stop her?
The ground begins to shake and Torin lunges forward, sensing it. Lightning strikes down from the sky, tearing into Selena, but it’s like she feels no pain while the body she’s in takes the brunt of it. Maybe she doesn’t feel pain because it’s not her body.
The world shudders and Vero shouts, “The ground is going down, get back!”
But it can’t all go down. There has to be a spot that she’ll be standing on.
Torin shatters a section of the wall so we’re not blocked in. “Go through it, quickly.”
Selena cackles. “You’re too late, you’re too late.”
Mickey’s mount stumbles and scrambles when the dirt beneath him starts to collapse. Thankfully, Vero is close and yanks him off his mount that Mickey unsummons before it’s consumed by the ground.
“Riley, what the fuck are you doing?” Torin shouts as Sigma races toward the goddess instead of moving toward the only way out.
“Torin, go!” I yell, but he immediately turns Quill around to rush after me.
“Riley, pull back. We’ll stop her—”
“I’ve got this.” White mist begins to cover the area around Sigma’s hooves while he dashes toward the woman who is smugly watching as the ground continues to cave.
“Riley!”
“Please leave!” I beg. There’s too much distance between us now for Torin to even do anything, but still he fights to reach me, putting his life at risk.
I should have known better.
I should have known that he wouldn’t leave me behind.
With Kit held tightly against me, I throw myself off Sigma, slamming into the goddess who simply laughs when I hit her.
Sigma disappears, much like Quill does when Torin calls him away, and I can’t help but question whether I did that to protect him.
Even though he’s gone, the white mist still swirls around me.
I draw upon the power that had taken over me when I’d faced Aemon in that strange illusion I’d been caught up in… the one that showed me what the inside of the mansion looked like. I think about the way his skin had blackened, how the magic had eaten through him…
And I grab on to her.
So much ground has collapsed that the only spot that’s still safe is the one she stands on… which is where I now stand as well.
Selena waves her hand and a spike shoots up from the ground, ready to pierce through me like it had Famine.
I try to be quick, to pull out some ice to block it, but I can’t seem to latch on to my ice magic when all of my concentration is going into this.
I brace for the assault but when I look down, the spike has been shattered by the lightning Torin has called down. He’s hanging from the claws of a large beast that… very much looks like Toast.
Selena screams and claws at me as the white mist assaults her. Her skin turns black while the mist spreads down her face, like death is eating away at her. And when the body in front of me dies, two small orbs are pulled out of her.
One is white.
And the other is black.
The body Selena had inhabited drops down and falls into the hole she created, disappearing into the depths.
Without conscious thought, I grab both souls. The moment I touch Onyx’s white orb, it glows for a second before it dissipates, telling me that she’s finally able to move on after being trapped inside a body that was no longer hers. But Selena’s remains in my hand.
I hold it tightly while I consider whether I can destroy it, but when I look back, I see Famine standing there watching me.
There is no part of me that trusts her.
But I know that if we’re going to stop Aemon, I’m going to need all the help I can get. Last time, I tried stopping him alone.
This time, I’m going to be surrounded by others.