Chapter 57
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Our magic rushes together like rivers converging into a single devastating flood. Fire, water, earth, and air amplifying and building into something that makes my very bones hum.
I’ve never felt anything like this before, not even when Lark and I merged with the others in the past.
This is different. Vaster. More practiced.
Five consciousnesses touching at the edges while remaining distinct. The sensation is at once intoxicating and terrifying, like flying through a hailstorm.
Through this connection, I feel Lark’s fierce determination, Bastian’s protective fury, Agnar’s reckless courage, and even Rafe’s calculating precision. All of it feeds into a swirling vortex of power with me at its center.
Though Leesa doesn’t have access to her magic and isn’t part of the merge, she stands with us shoulder to shoulder, her face a mask of firm resolve as she wields her fire magic-imbued sword.
From the corner of my eye, I flinch as Agnar’s rebuilt barrier begins to crack under the pressure of divine power. Our initial line of defense, already failing.
Earth responds with a thought, solidifying the wall yet again.
A second wall shoots up on the other side. Ice forms over the barriers, rising higher, growing thicker, stiffening and reinforcing the earth. Then I angle them, creating a funnel that leads straight to us.
A killing ground.
In the air above us, a monstrosity that defies description crawls through a wound in reality.
Six limbs jut out at odd angles, supporting a torso that folds in on itself.
The fucker’s face, if you can call it that, resembles shattered glass caught in a moment of explosion, each shard reflecting a different aspect of divine fury.
Its movements are fluid yet wrong, like a predator from a world with different physical laws.
I’ve never read about anything like it in our bestiaries or histories.
Agnar readies his sword, flexing his fingers on the hilt. “What the actual fuck?”
I shudder when the entity’s power washes over me. “It’s a god.” The creature’s broken-glass face shifts in my direction. “One we’ve never seen before.”
The thing lunges, covering ground faster than seems possible. At the last second, it springs into the air, intending to land on top of us. Broken glass flares wide, maw opening to bite and tear.
“It’s the God of Broken Things! That’s just one of his shattered pieces. There are more.” Bastian’s eyes widen with recognition. “More broken pieces than stars in the sky, the books say. His name is impossible for humans to pronounce. He’s taken on this form for battle.”
Lark calmly follows its moves.
In the blink of an eye, a white-blue haze forms overhead. Fire, the kind used to make steel, creates a protective dome around us.
The monstrosity burns without a sound, disintegrating into fine ash.
Lark blows the gray powder from her sleeves and shakes it from her hair. “Agnar, Leesa, Rafe, protect our sides. I’ll make sure nothing gets the drop on us from above. Sterling, we’ll keep them lined up for you.”
Amazing. Woman.
She thinks of everything.
My love for her courses through my veins and warms my heart, and I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face despite our shitty situation.
I stalk forward, drawing on our merged power. “Got it, love.”
Water answers my call, not as a gentle stream but as a torrent of raw potential. It crystallizes into a blade of ice so cold it shines blue-white in the arena’s sunlight. This weapon is an extension of my arm, the manifestation of my will. Something I learned from Lark and her wings of fire.
Filling the area between me and the opening where the gods’ minions are charging with lava mist is as simple as thinking. Fire, water, air, and earth meld together. The watery air hides the earth and fire, which explode as soon as they’re touched.
Valk’s horned war horses go down first. Their shrill shrieks vibrate through my skull in a direct assault on my nervous system. My vision blurs, and I stagger back a step, fighting to maintain focus.
Obsidian cave cats, Nyc’s favored beasts, attempt to race along the earthen walls.
Until I shroud them in slick ice to hold them captive.
As soon as their claws start to sink in, they’re blasted away.
The sylphs, Gallera’s nearly invisible spirits of air, attempt to get close, but the overwhelming heat of Lark’s dome keeps them back.
None of this stops the gods.
Valk charges forward, double-headed war axe held high. The detonating mist doesn’t even slow her down. Nor do the explosions that destroy her ravens and Hallr’s golems.
She’s on me.
I meet her charge, ducking under the initial strike and bringing my ice-blade up in a sweeping arc. The edge, honed to molecular perfection by my enhanced magic, slices through the handle of her weapon.
The axe head spins away, eliciting a string of curses from Agnar.
The Goddess of War doesn’t hesitate. Her beheaded axe handle morphs into a halberd over my shoulder. She yanks the weapon back.
Crazy bitch plans to skewer me.
There’s no time to dodge.
Ice forms in a smooth curve along my shoulder and neck. The god’s weapon slips along it. Caught off guard when her strike doesn’t penetrate, Valk stumbles.
I take that moment to blast her with a cyclone of warm, wet air.
She’s flung backward.
Right into one of the grasping tentacles of Rivlan’s kraken, who crawled out of the ocean.
Hook filled sucker cups latch onto Valk. A second tentacle wraps around its prey.
The goddess is lifted away—screaming as those hooks carve holes into her flesh—and dragged into the water.
Hallr lunges forward next. He almost comes across as an old, ancient human, save for the granite legs that propel him through the mist.
I raise my sword, ready to take on his rocky skin.
But Hallr doesn’t come close enough to engage. Instead, he reaches down, then throws something at me.
Stones?
No. As the rocky projectiles close in, they expand.
Rock golems.
This low, they’re not affected by Lark’s fire dome.
But, thanks to the merge, Lark isn’t the only one who can use her flames. Just as I would have done with water, I create a wall of fire. It’s not as potent or as hot as Lark’s.
But it’s close enough.
Though these creatures don’t seem to care about the fire. They fly right through the wall I’ve summoned, skin glowing red as their stone bodies absorb the heat.
No doubt Hallr planned that.
Rearing back, I conjure up another wall.
This time, it’s a mix of water and air, both as cold as I can make them.
The golems shatter with high-pitched screams. Bits fly in every direction, including toward Hallr, who raises his arms to protect himself.
“Behind you!”
Leesa’s warning is almost too late as the ground crumbles under my feet.
Forming steps conjured from ice, I climb up and out of the way while hunkering low to avoid the flock of ravens trying to find a way to get down to us.
A pack of Terro’s pangolins tunnels out of the ground. Muck and dirt stick to their hairy sides, their long, sharp claws still covered in grass and mud from their digging.
I spin, but I’m a heartbeat too slow.
Two pangolins reach out for me, and claws the length of my forearm close in.
Pangolin heads, necks, and backs are shielded by scaled skin so thick and durable, it would make for great armor. Though hunting them is useless. They’re nearly impervious to heat, cold, and physical attacks.
A sudden gust of wind howls.
The startled pangolins curl into tight balls.
The wind forces them out of the hole like corks from shaken beer barrels. Spinning, they fly into the air, through Lark’s dome, and into the murder of crows before disappearing from sight.
“Thanks.” I salute Rafe before shifting to confront the next threat.
“Left!” Lark slashes an arm my way, and I duck without hesitation.
A stream of her fire roars over my head, so close it singes my hair. A winged horror diving toward us is engulfed in flames, its feathered body, too many wings, and too few limbs consumed in an instant.
The freaky fuck plummets, a wailing comet of burning flesh that smashes into the arena floor and lies twitching.
“They’re starting to work together.” Leesa kicks a tiny creature, the remains of a sylph, from the back of the winged creature. “This thing guarded against the fire so the others could enter through the dome.”
Her words are barely out of her mouth before a portal opens between us.
Without thinking, I cover the portal in ice as Leesa and I jump clear of it.
Is this what being a god feels like?
The thought is both exhilarating and terrifying.
And so wrong.
A creature slips through the ice and past my guard. The thing has too many mouths, each lined with grinding, gnashing teeth that move independently. It’s on me before I can react, one of its mouths latching onto my shoulder. Razor-sharp teeth sink through cloth and armor to find the flesh beneath.
Pain explodes through me, white-hot and all-consuming.
My concentration shatters.
The water I was manipulating crashes to the ground in a useless splash, and a strangled cry rips from my throat. Through the haze of agony, I feel a cool, familiar presence brushing against my consciousness.
Lark.
Her mind touches mine through our merged magic. “Sterling! Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine. I swear. But you’d better take control of the merge.”
Black ichor sprays across my face as the creature explodes, the substance burning where it touches my skin.
I wipe the mess away with my sleeve, already searching for the next threat. The explosion has cleared a circle around us, the divine creatures thrown back or temporarily destroyed.
But it’s only a respite, not a victory.
Around us, more rifts open. Within the walls we’ve built.
Through those rifts, more horrors line up to enter our world in an endless queue of divine vengeance.
And we’re weakening.
I can feel that truth through our connection.
The strain of maintaining such power is costing all of us.
Rafe’s wind has become a fraction of its normal strength.
Agnar’s earth barriers crumble under renewed assault, no longer rising as solidly as before.
Bastian’s flames dim as exhaustion sets in, the wall of fire he creates to block a charging horde of multi-legged abominations barely charring their chitinous hides.
Even Lark’s fire, usually so vibrant and uncontainable, begins to waver against the onslaught.
My own magic is increasingly difficult to control. Where before water answered my call with eager precision, now it responds sluggishly, requiring more effort for diminishing returns.
The wound in my shoulder throbs with each heartbeat. Blood soaks my sleeve and drips from my fingertips, loosening my grip on the weapons I form.
Is this Rivlan’s attack on us?
Doesn’t fucking matter who’s responsible at this point.
We’re losing ground with each passing second. The circle of cleared space around us grows smaller as divine beasts press in from all sides.
My vision blurs at the edges, fatigue and blood loss taking their toll. I force myself to focus, to keep fighting even as my body screams for rest.
We will not die today. Not on my watch.