60. SOPHIE
Sophie followed Deymos’s command.
It was hard to not turn around and check on Ash, but she knew he was more than capable of handling his own. He was the freaking weapons master and leader of the Godlands Aerial Legion. He would be fine.
Her team, Team Bravo, ran at a gruelling pace. Deymos, Eros and Achlys, their legs much longer and powerful, were battling ahead. Sophie had to use a bit of her air mana to keep up. She had to keep up. Her chest burned with heavy breaths as they scaled the mountain together. Quiet. Focused. They were so close to the end.
Parts of Mount Gehenna were dark, black and jagged. Clouds obscured the very top. The other parts spat lava, adding another layer of difficulty to the task at hand. With every level they climbed, it grew harder and harder to breathe.
“Fuck!” Achlys shouted ahead of Sophie.
They all whipped their heads to the god of eternal night with his black wings and dark skin. A bright red snake flew into the air. “Snakes!” Achlys shouted again.
They didn’t have enough time to register what he’d said when a sea of snakes covered the ground, striking at them in anger. Some were as thick as Sophie’s legs, others were small but looked equally as poisonous.
Snakes? Why did it have to be snakes?
“Keep fucking moving!” Deymos commanded from the very front. He was using his shadows to stop the strikes of several snakes as he ran ahead.
Sophie followed suit, pulling out her blades to slice and dice as she dodged snake after snake. Her breathing grew ragged, and her legs ached.
Eros let out a yelp beside her. A snake had managed to lodge its fangs into his arm. Sophie threw her knife in a wide arc. It cut the snake clean in half before she caught it again. Eros pulled out the snake’s fangs and shot healing power into his arm.
Sophie ran up to him. “You alright?”
“Thanks, Sophie,” he breathed, planting a kiss on her forehead. “Let’s keep moving.”
Together they ran, slicing, dicing, kicking and punching their way through the sea of snakes.
Ahead was a hard ridge, two metres tall.
“Sophie!” Deymos shouted, touching his forehead with the palm of his hand. She learnt that it was a signal to go to him. She ran to Deymos, he hunched over a little so that he was on her level. “When you get up this ridge, you won’t see us. It’s an illusion, but we’ll be right beside you. Do not look anywhere but ahead and up, until you reach a second ridge. Once you climb on top of that, we’ll reach the position Team Alpha has hopefully secured. Got that?”
“Roger.” Sophie nodded.
They were close. So fucking close.
“Alright! Let’s move!” Deymos’s voiced boomed, sending a tendril of terror through Sophie.
Sophie climbed up onto the ridge. Her hands burning from the heat of the rocks. The air was thick with smoke, coiling into her lungs and making her cough. As she clasped the rock edge with her hand, the sound of Typhon’s screaming roared through the entirety of Tartarus. The mountain beneath her shook as if it were a monster coming to life.
Keep climbing. Keep moving.
Her fingernails cracked as she scaled the rocky ridge. Her legs strained as she pushed herself up. She could hear the grunts of the other angels. As she pulled herself over the rocky ledge a wall of thick smoke ambushed her.
Silence.
Gone was the soft hum of insects. The chaotic rustling of trees. The trembling of rocks, skittering across the ground. In its place was silence.
An illusion. Keep moving.
The dark smoke rolled and rolled, and the temperature plummeted, striking painful shivers through Sophie’s body.
Sophie resumed her running pace. She could barely see ahead but she’d been warned times aplenty to not stop for too long. The others were nowhere in sight. Their absence left her feeling empty, unprotected and alone.
Find the second ridge.
The rolling smoke grew darker and darker. Thicker and thicker.
That’s when she felt it. A presence. Something otherworldly, hovering a hair’s breadth away from her.
She couldn’t look back. She didn’t want to. She ran faster and faster.
She couldn’t see a thing.
Until a cold brittle hand laced its fingers through her hair and pulled her down to the ground with neck-breaking force. Dirt flung into the air with chaos as Sophie let out a horrendous scream that lanced through her throat. The back of her skull felt like it had been cracked open and whatever creature it was, had its rotten fingers in there, trying to cleave her head clean apart.
Death was a breath away. She could feel it. Her body felt entirely not hers. Her mana was panicking, rolling in dizzying circles. The ground was up, the sky was down. Blindly, with her own mana slipping through her fingers, Sophie pushed her air mana around her, letting out a sob. The sound of the creature scurrying back was haunting. It was all heavy thuds, wet movements, clicks and cracks.
Sophie clawed her way to her knees, each micromovement earning a warm trickle of thick blood down the back of her neck. Crying, she fumbled across the ground, a whimper leaving her as she desperately tried to right herself.
There.
The smoke was growing thinner.
Sophie crawled and scrambled to the light smoke.
She needed to go. She couldn’t stop for too long.
The cold brittle hands wrapped through her hair again.
“Fuck off!” Sophie cried, the pain bringing a new wave of hot tears to her eyes. She managed to flip herself over and her entire body stilled. Cold sweat pooled all over her.
Above her was a banshee. A soulless creature and an omen of death. She knew it. Deep in her bones. A fear so debilitating shot through her chest and sank its yellowed teeth into her heart.
The banshee’s long white hair was caked in dark crimson blood. Its eyes, hollowed. The sockets laden with rotten skin as it cried blood-red tears. A nasty scream etched into its face, and its hands were now firmly locked onto Sophie’s neck.
No.
The air in Sophie’s lungs dwindled down to paper thin. But as Sophie clung onto her last breath, she dug deep, pulling at her mana.
Please.
She wasn’t going to go like this. Not in the last stage of the fucking Hrabrost Trials. Sophie screamed, expelling the last taste of life from her lungs as she manifested a giant ball of fire. The heat and force of it was deadly enough to knock back the banshee. It wailed as its skin boiled and shrivelled. Air had found its way back into Sophie’s lungs. She crawled onto all fours, a mess of heavy limbs and let out another pained cry, dousing everything around her in fire. And when the sounds of Mount Gehenna returned, and the rolling smoke cleared, she knew she’d made it through the illusion.
Burning death was all around. The trees had been burned to cinders. Nothing but blank stumps and trunks remained.
Sophie wiped her running nose with the back of her hand. She was bleeding. Everywhere. Her eyes. Her nose. The back of her throbbing skull.
Too much power. Too much.
Sophie turned, fumbling to her feet. The second ridge was just a few paces ahead, but Sophie couldn’t keep upright. She was a newborn fawn and the second ridge the salvation that she couldn’t quite reach. She fell, more times than she could count. And as she hooked her fingers, broken fingernails and all, into the walls of the ridge, she began what was the most excruciating, godsforsaken climb. She didn’t care if she scraped her knees, or broke her damned fingers again, or if her brain matter was spilling out the back of her damned head. She scaled the second ridge because there needed to be a tomorrow for her.
At last, Sophie rolled over the edge.
“Eros!” Deymos shouted. “Shit, Sophie, stay still. Stay with me.” Sophie couldn’t keep her eyes open. She was dizzy. So, so dizzy.
The sound of Eros sliding in the dirt toward her echoed in her ears. Too loud.
She felt warmth behind her head. Debilitating pain, as if her skull was being shifted around, echoed through her body. Sophie let out a cry. It was too much.
“You’re okay, Sophie. I’m almost done, okay?” It was Eros’s comforting voice.
Rough hands seized hers and Sophie looked up to find Deymos. His wholly black and yellow eyes looked down on her with worry. “Almost done, Soph. Almost done.” He squeezed her hand tighter, and it only made her cry harder. She was all scared whimpers and panicked breathing, but suddenly her dread was gone. In its place was calm.
It was Deymos. He was taking away her dread and terror.
A sharp pain lanced across the back of her head again and the warmth of Eros’s healing power pulled back. “It’s going to scar, but she should be fine,” Eros said.
“Sophie, do you know where you are?” Deymos asked, his hand holding her chin firm. He was assessing her.
“Tartarus.”
“Do you know what you’re doing here?”
“The Hrabrost Trials.” How could she forget?
“Do you remember what we’re to do next?”
“We need to get to Team Alpha so we can start—” The sound of Typhon’s monstrous scream split through the air again. “—dealing with that motherfucker.” Sophie spat out the blood that had pooled in her mouth.
“She’s alright,” Deymos stated, before squeezing her shoulder and helping her stand.
“Alright, I’ll go help Achlys.” The sounds of Eros’s footfalls disappeared into the distance.
“What happened, Soph?”
“A fucking banshee. White hair. White face. Blood all over.” Sophie shuddered at the thought, wiping the blood clear from her face. She’d be having nightmares for all eternity about it.
“I think she got Achlys too.”
“She didn’t hold back, did she?” Sophie scoffed, though tears were pooling in her eyes.
It was fucking terrifying.
Deymos rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder and surveyed the burned forest below the ridge they’d just climbed. “Looks like you didn’t, either.”
I didn’t have a choice.It was life or death and Sophie sure as hell wasn’t going to let a banshee take her life. A life that had only just begun.
“Let’s keep moving.” Achlys and Eros came running up to them. Achlys massaged his wrist, perhaps he’d broken it and Eros had healed it. There was no mistaking the haunted look in his eyes.
They needed to keep moving. The end of the Hrabrost Trial was a test away.
So together they ran. Across the incline of rocks only to hear the screams and grunts of the other angels. It made Sophie’s blood run cold.
They were meant to wait for us.
As they rounded the mountain, Sophie’s stomach dropped.
The mighty mouth of Mount Gehenna lay open. Hot fire scored every jagged edge. Sophie could feel its heat brush her cheeks from where she stood. The sounds of strange cries and shouts from creatures she knew were made of nightmares, echoed up into the air. Upon the dark edges was Typhon.
Sophie gulped.
His bull-like head and furry body was covered in shadows. He roared and dodged the angels of the Tienthan who sought to strike him with all their power. The dark sky above rumbled with thunder, and lightning flashed.
“Bravo, we need to close Mount Gehenna’s opening. Alpha will push Typhon back in!” Deymos commanded. His hair was sopping wet as rain poured and his black eyes and yellow irises glowed with fervour. “Go!”
Achlys, Eros, Deymos and Sophie spread out, dodging the other angels and the throws of Typhon. His minotaur scream rocked the earth again, sending a few angels scrambling.
When they surrounded the opening of Mount Gehenna, they extended their arms, concentrating their power to close the giant opening. Sweat beaded across Sophie’s brow, seeping into flaked and caked blood on her face. The heat billowing out of the mountain was almost as thick as a wall, making it increasingly difficult to concentrate. It seeped through her boots, melting the bottoms.
All four members of Team Bravo combined their powers, pushing into the mountain. Sparks of power flew in a rainbow of colours. Sophie could see it then. The edges of Mount Gehenna’s opening, growing bits of rock. Smaller and smaller.
“Get down!” Nemysis’s voice boomed across the mountain top.
Sophie hit the deck, her knees and elbows turning red and raw. She rolled onto her back in time to see Typhon shoot laser-like beams from his eyes. Not a laser, that was fire.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Typhon let out another roar and dived for one of the angels. It was Chronos. Her alabaster skin and white hair was stark against Typhon’s dark pelt. He wrenched her into one of his hands and crushed her wings with the other. Her pained cry echoed through the air, slicing into everyone’s attention.
A plume of darkness surrounded Typhon’s hand, and in a blink, Erebus with his red hair and white wings appeared, slicing down hard with a sword he created from darkness. Black, foul-smelling blood spilled down Typhon’s arm as the two angels fell unceremoniously to the ground. Without a thought, Sophie shot out her mana in time to soften their landing with vines.
“Chronos is down!” Erebus shouted through the fray.
Sophie turned to Deymos.
“Change of plans, Bravo, move in with Alpha and let’s take this son of a bitch down!” he commanded.
Achlys roared a battle cry as they all turned to face Typhon together. Sophie pulled together her mana, using all the elements to strike the king of Mount Gehenna down. The Tienthan worked seamlessly, a well-oiled machine. While one half attacked, the other half pulled the beast down. But this motherfucker was strong.
As Typhon clawed through the next round of attacks, the air grew thin and cold. It sizzled.
BOOM.
Rock went flying everywhere. Bright white light scorched her eyes and Sophie fumbled back from the force of the power.
Lightning cracked as Ash crashed into Typhon with his powers.
Sophie moved quickly, pushing all her power into the ground. Vines shot out from the earth. She pushed and pulled, wrapping Typhon’s limbs into the ground, pushing and pushing until his body crushed into the dirt. A mixture of darkness, night, shadows – pure, unfettered power – joined in, helping her push Typhon into the ground.
The king of Mount Gehenna roared, and a slight smile ticked upon his bull face.
Shit.
Pallas jumped up into the air, ready to strike Typhon’s chest with a burning spear but the haunting sound of flapping wings burst through the burning maw of Mount Gehenna. The angels were plucked from the ground by a flock of harpies. One by one they were thrown into the air.
With no functional wings to aid their fall.
Sophie scrambled back. She wasn’t going to let the vines go. They were so close to putting Typhon back in his damned jail cell. She pushed more power into the ground. Pushing him farther and farther, covering the entire mountainside with her vines, hoping that somehow she’d soften the Tienthan’s fall too.
Ash moved to strike down the harpies as they attacked him from above.
We’re outnumbered.
Sophie dodged, rolled to one side, and pulled out her makeshift rope dart. She spun and kicked as much as she could. Wedging the rocky blades into wings and pulling them down with all her might. Where she struck, the harpies came crashing to the floor.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Sophie kept moving even though her body was ready to give out.
Lightning flitted through the air, burning a few of the harpies to a crisp.
But they kept coming.
When the Tienthan downed two, ten more would appear.
Sophie couldn’t see Typhon through the fray. And a panic so debilitating, like a hot knife held to her heart, worked through her when she couldn’t see Ash.
It made her fight harder.
And when she thought things were teetering out of their favour . . . the darkness of night fell upon the harpies, they grew tired. Sleepy.
It was Morpheus, Nyx and Athena.
Relief manifested in a desperate cry.
They came charging into the melee with their weapons and powers, hacking through the harpies.
Together the Tienthan shouted. They screamed. They struck. They worked together as a team to nullify Typhon.
Ash’s lightning struck again, and Sophie ran toward it. She pushed out her mana, immobilising Typhon with her vines while the others pushed him into the opening. With one last cry, the beast fell into the opening of Mount Gehenna.
As Typhon fell, he grabbed a hold of one of the angels.
Sophie’s heart had never lodged itself so high in her throat.
It was Ash.
The Tienthan shouted, but Sophie was faster than all of them. Propelled on a wind of pure adrenalin. She spared no morsel of power as she dived for him. He was struggling against Typhon’s grip and couldn’t quite get free.
The heat of Mount Gehenna almost burned Sophie’s skin off.
Ash roared, channelling all his lightning, striking Typhon in the chest. As he landed his powerful blow, Typhon let go but Ash was still falling, a flightless angel unable to use his wings.
“Grab my hand!” Sophie shouted.
As soon as their hands touched, it was like their powers melded together. Reunited at last.
Sophie shot out her vines holding onto the ledge of Mount Gehenna. The full weight of Ash bounced, tearing something in her shoulder. Sophie let out a cry, but she dared not let go. Below them was certain death. The guttural sound and cries, echoing up from below, chilled Sophie’s bones.
Sophie propelled them up with the mana she had left, letting her vines take the full brunt of their combined weight. “CLOSE THE FUCKING OPENING!” Sophie shouted as they climbed and climbed.
And as Sophie and Ash spilled out onto the edge of Mount Gehenna’s opening, she felt the full force of the Tienthan’s powers wash over her body. The Tienthan were working together to close the opening and the sheer force of it pushed her back onto the ground.
Ash came crashing on top of her. “I fucking love you,” he grunted before kissing her roughly.
“Don’t say I didn’t do anything nice for you.” Sophie breathed heavily and let out a laugh. Ash scoffed as he pulled her up with him and joined in with the other angels.
Together, as a unit, they pushed all the power they had left into the earth, binding the opening of Mount Gehenna shut. Together they hummed something in an old language that Sophie did not understand. And as the words stopped, the mountain rumbled. Then quietened. The air grew less heavy.
Sophie could faintly hear the cries of Typhon from within the mountain.
They’d done it. They’d done it!
Sophie looked around. They were bruised and battered. Their breaths heavy and their eyes were wild, but they’d done it. They’d completed the trials.
A loud horn sounded in the air in the distance and a beacon of light sliced through the dark sky, starting at the base of the mountain.
They all looked toward it. It looked like the light was gradually dimming.
“Shit,” Deymos gritted beside her.
Sophie looked to Deymos, then to Ash.
“Everybody, fucking move! Get to the damn beacon before the light gutters out!” Ash bellowed.
All the angels of the Tienthan sprang to action, beginning the final descent of Mount Gehenna. Sophie had no choice but to follow blindly.
“Ash?!” Her voice was all panic.
“That’s our only way off Tartarus. If we don’t get to it before the light dims out, we’ll be stuck here until the next Hrabrost Trials.”
Well, fuck that.
So they ran and ran.
They jumped, dived and rolled.
This was their out.
Sophie could see it now. The brightness of the beacon threatened to burn her retinas and her lungs were giving out. She pushed harder but with her height, she could barely keep up. From beside her, Ash laced his fingers through hers and shot her forward with him. Together they jumped into the light.
A burning sensation washed over her skin.
Not once did she let go of Ash’s hand.