Chapter Fifty-Nine
ADRIAN
Adrian watched as the sea continued to churn, forming a whirlpool, until a huge shuddering took place, the waves parting as, finally, the Scorpydra rose.
Its head came first, gigantic, bigger than the entire ship.
Two enormous pincers came next, stretched out in front of it, glowing blue as they snapped in the air.
Next came segment after segment of its curved carapace, the lower part still submerged in the water.
And finally, its curved and wicked tail whipped up, a luminous blue stinger on the end of it, waving in the moonlight.
Astride it sat Scorpius, livid, eyes glowing, trident clutched in his hand.
‘You know, Sun, some of the Stars—the more weak-willed—are happy to let you live until you inevitably kill yourself,’ he hissed.
‘Leyon, Torra. But the rest of us…’ He shook his head slowly.
‘We remember what they so easily forget. We remember exactly what it feels like to be under your rule—our base needs and desires denied and suppressed as we’re forced to be good. ’
‘Here go the soliloquys,’ Enzo said drily. ‘Can you Stars never talk in short sentences?’
Scorpius’s eyes narrowed, and Adrian watched, skirting around the deck as he began to pull that tie to the water back to him, trying to purify it of Scorpius’s toxins. If he could only unseat Scorpius…
‘You can hide behind your sarcasm and wit, Sun, but you can never escape the truth. The one silver lining to you Celestes awakening’—he said the word as though it was something filthy—‘is that something else has awoken too. Something that birthed us all.’
Enzo discarded his blade and clicked his neck.
‘The Dark itself,’ Scorpius said, his voice taking on a dreamy quality.
‘Once upon a time, we each sold our hearts to it for immortality. And revered it. Ariete, fool that he was, bound it when he did you, when we rebelled against the Celestes.’ Scorpius droned on, and Enzo let him talk as Adrian flicked his gaze to the water, assessing the space around him, then the ghost ship that Elara was now safely on.
He continued to feed out his healing energy, imagining a channel from the pit of his stomach to the ocean, clearing and cleansing.
Adrian watched Elara give commands to the dead who had remained upon the ghost ship, then nod at him.
Scorpius closed his eyes, the demented gleam gone in a second as toxic green starlight began to shine from his hands. ‘Though it won’t remain bound for long,’ he whispered. ‘We feel it, even now, trying to get in. And it will. Oh, it will.’
Scorpius focused his gaze again on Enzo. ‘Not that it matters,’ he murmured as the green starlight began to flood the deck. ‘You’ll be dead by then.’
The ghost ship began to glide silently through the water, closer and closer to Scorpius’s back.
Finally, Adrian felt an opening in the ocean, a patch of water now untainted by Scorpius’s spell.
Adrian used a hand to tug the air, pulling it up into a wave—one that lifted Elara’s ship.
She held his gaze, raising her hands in front of her, pressing them together then pulling them apart.
He nodded, understanding her signal exactly. Separate the god from the creature.
As he continued to raise the wave, Elara teetering upon it with her dead, his other hand began to manipulate the water on the other side of Scorpius, now also clear.
The giant water scorpion lurched forwards, tail swinging at Enzo. Enzo ran, ducking to avoid it as it crashed into the ship, punching another hole through it.
Elara pointed a finger, eyes filled with fury, at the Scorpydra. A silent order to attack.
The dead leaped from the ship and on to the back of the mythas, weapons drawn, as the wave broke over the creature, mere feet from Scorpius. They stabbed and slashed as the Scorpydra roared, trying to shake them off. But no matter how many it did, more came, clawing their way back out of the sea.
‘Stop!’ Scorpius roared the order, but his beast was incensed as more corpses crawled upon its back, thrashing and kicking. ‘I said stop!’
But it was too late. With one almighty buck, Scorpius went flying, plunging into the water.
Adrian took his chance, leaning over the side, his ship sinking lower and lower.
He didn’t know how he was going to kill a god, only that he was, and he gripped his sword between his hands as Scorpius’s head rose to the surface.
‘You?!’ he spat in fury. ‘No,’ he growled, flailing in the water. ‘You will not take my throne.’
Adrian could only assume that Scorpius too now saw through the broken illusion Elara had spoken of.
But before Adrian could react, Scorpius threw his trident into the air like a javelin, and, with a roar as starlight spewed from it, it plunged through Adrian’s neck.
Adrian shouted in pain as pure fire coursed through his veins, his grip on the ocean gone.
It was vicious, a stinging, shooting pain.
And then a horrid, sick feeling roiled over him, worse than anything he’d ever felt—even worse than sailing through the Severe Straits.
His body writhed as though trying to rid itself of the poison, but to no avail.
He pulled the trident from his neck and dropped it on the deck, clutching the wound, blood wetting his palm in moments, then pouring down his arm.
He stumbled, blinking up at Elara, who was looking from her ship in wide-eyed horror.
Any magick he had felt rise, any power at all, sputtered out.
He tumbled forwards, down, down, down towards the dark depths.
The last thing he felt was the caress of the ocean, before everything went numb.