Chapter 10 The Fall #2
Rage bristled in Acacius’s chest, furious with her for doing nothing—for letting a god like Torin have his way so easily. This was unlike her. Even when he found her alone all those years ago, overlooking Evander’s punishment, she’d acknowledged Acacius with a blaze in her dark eyes.
Torin held her up by the hair, grinning darkly. “I’m glad you kneeled to me with such ease. Your reign is over, Lady Marina.”
Acacius held the railing in a steel grip, careful to keep from damaging it.
Torin let go, and Marina collapsed onto the floor in the scarlet puddle.
Get up.
Torin stood tall, proudly towering over the fallen goddess.
That ugly, growing knot in Acacius’s chest, eager to see her fall, quickly untied in his stomach.
Not like this.
At this rate, she would actually lose her title.
The air constricted in Acacius’s lungs.
This is what you wanted.
His pulse reverberated in his skull.
No.
He wanted her to fight back, like she had during their encounter in the forest. To feed the war he started with her. Deep down, he didn’t believe she would fall, much less willingly.
Marina crawled up on shaky arms and knees.
Torin’s boot came down in the middle of her back.
A groan pushed out of Marina as she collided with the stone again.
Torin drove his weight onto his foot, forcing her to stay down. “Admit defeat. It’s over.”
I do not care about anything anymore.
Her words tore through him all over again.
This was it. Whatever little spark that kept her going had burned out. She was giving up.
Acacius gritted his teeth as he squeezed the railing even harder. Like hell he would let her get off so easily. Bested by a fucking middle god.
Acacius opened his mouth, her name rising in his throat.
“MARINA!” Naia’s ferocious shout shook across the hall, beating the release of his own war cry.
Startled and slightly confused as he processed the feminine roar, Acacius swung his head to look down the line of Council members.
Naia held the brass barrier with white knuckles, the metal bending in her grasp. Her soft, button-like features were arranged in vehemence, brow pinched with fury as she glared down at her sister.
Everyone in the hall gawked at Naia for speaking out of turn.
As a Council member, they could not intervene under any circumstances.
Not that Acacius didn’t approve, though.
In fact, he found the feisty goddess and her outburst amusing, and it may have been the first time he genuinely respected her.
It brought him pleasure to imagine the astonishment on Iliana’s face behind her starlight beam.
She and Cassius nearly broke when decorum and rules fell into disarray.
Acacius looked back at Marina.
She held herself up on the heels of her hands, her long, onyx strands sticky with blood.
Come on.
A sweat broke out across Acacius’s forehead as he ripped away from the railing. To hell with it. He fidgeted with his fingers, the movement distracting himself from the anxiety brimming in his bloodstream.
Bindings of midnight birthed from Torin’s back like wings, their form morphing into fingers that slithered across the floor for Marina. Acacius recognized this attack, watching the ends of the tufts sharpen like spears.
“Fucking get up,” he murmured to himself.
The floating claws loomed over Marina like a bear trap ready to bite.
She remained with her head down.
Torin shoved his foot into her back once again, grinning with putrid delight. “It’s been a pleasure—”
In one primal motion, Marina shot to her feet, knocked Torin off her back, and slung out her arm. Darkness in the form of a crescent moon took shape from her fingertips and sliced cleanly through Torin’s neck.
The god staggered backward, gargling out unintelligible noise. A fine line of blood painted itself across the base of his throat. Pain warped his features, and his head slid off his torso.
It hit the floor in a harsh thud.
Marina glowered down at his decapitated body, her face streaked in crimson.
Joy spread in Acacius’s chest like shrapnel from a cannon blast.
Finally.
He smiled beneath his mask as the locked breath deflated from his lungs.
With a victor decided, the crowd began teleporting away, like berries bursting. Little by little, the room emptied.
Acacius stretched out his fingers, releasing the tension in them.
Azara and Iliana were the first to leave, throwing up tufts of smoke in their shadows.
Solasta and Mavros followed, their departures hissing in the air.
He turned his head to the lingering High Goddess.
She stared down at her sister, parting her lips in bewilderment.
Acacius followed her line of sight down onto Marina.
The High Goddess of Night’s lethality had melted away. In its place, her chest rose and fell in winded gulps, like she’d lost her breath. She brought a hand up to her cheek, smearing the ruby sap, and pulled it away, gaping down at her stained palm.
Naia turned to Acacius, her evergreen eyes pinning on him.
Acacius met her stare with the tilt of his mask.
The confrontation activated his suppressed rage toward the goddess. The glimpse of admiration—appreciation, even—had all but washed away. The anger he felt at her dormant power flushed through him once more, and it took everything to contain his voracious urges to eat her alive.
The corner of her mouth lifted in a polite smile, and she bowed her head.
Acacius looked away, rejecting her peace offering.
In his periphery, Naia’s form dissolved. Particles of glistening starlight fluttered in place where she stood.
He set his jaw and refocused back onto Marina, listening to her heartbeat ricochet in a fast, uneven tempo. The breath scraped from the depths of her lungs, her chest still pumping erratically. Deities lingered in their seats, murmurs slipping from their tongues as they watched her.
Leave.
The demand echoed in his mind, flexing the power in his core to teleport away. He never stayed behind after a duel. In fact, he was always the first to leave the second a victor was decided.
But his eyes remained on her, unable to disregard the quivering in her shoulders and how she studied the blood caked on her hand with dread dripping down her expression, no recollection of her surroundings.
It was abnormal for her to show emotion this way, to have tunneled vision rather than closely observe those around her.
Before he could register his own actions, he materialized before her.
At the feel of his presence, she jerked her head up and recoiled.
Vermillion stained her eyelids and cheeks. Her face, her arms, the front of her dress, it was all blemished with Torin’s blood. A sightly masterpiece that buzzed in Acacius’s chest.
But then he locked eyes with her, falling into her dilated pupils. They churned with a fear he recognized—a frequent look he found in Cassius’s and Iliana’s eyes.
Trauma detonated inside of Marina, and the pull in him to console her was frustratingly difficult to ignore.
Without thinking, Acacius offered her his hand, reluctant to whisk her away from prying eyes.
To his surprise, Marina latched onto him in a desperate hold, her long fingernails biting into his skin.
A vigilance surged to life. With softness he hadn’t known was possible, he cusped her frame into his side and swept them away in a cloud of cobalt.