Chapter 72
Chapter Seventy-Two
Solace
Acharge swept through the heavy, humid air, lifting my hair from my back and freezing me in place.
Something deep shifted in the magic of the world, like the scales of power were rebalancing.
Instinctively, I checked the wells that rested near whatever was left of my frayed soul.
All three were still intact, though still frustratingly empty, as they would stay until I eradicated those pesky godlings.
The static charging the air disappeared just as quickly, and the skies brightened as I felt the shift.
Kaos, my brother and the last true god to walk this plane, was dead.
I audibly hissed at the thought, my long nails cutting marks into my pale palms as black blood dripped through my clenched fingers to saturate the holy ground beneath my feet.
How dare he soil this place with his remains, here in this place where his final descendant eradicated the last of my kind. While he’d whispered the plan in his descendant’s mind with my permission, their deaths still felt like pieces of my being were being ripped asunder.
His death was supposed to be at my hands in retribution for everything I’d suffered due to his schemes and disloyalty.
I’d thought I was the one dragging Kaos along like a puppy on a leash, molding him into a being that was loyal to me and me alone, sending him to do my bidding and unearth secrets long held in Elyria.
What a fool I was to think Kaos was loyal to anyone but himself.
Now the ability to extract retribution from his flesh was taken from me.
My feet squished in the muddied and blackened grass as I strode down the hill toward the power signature that felt so much like my brother’s.
Perhaps whoever absorbed his magic was still incapacitated, their insides curdling and liquefying as they fought to force the power into a well within their soul.
A maniacal grin lit my face at the easy prey lying beneath the surface, waiting for me to deliver the killing blow.
How easy it would be to simply kill them and absorb those powers.
I’d be the most powerful being in existence, and Fate would be loath to stop me.
Conjuring a small tendril of air, careful to conserve my waxing and waning powers on the slight off chance that the being below made their death more difficult than I anticipated, I began to shift the collapsed main house. The roof was caved in, though no decay grew along the dilapidated structure.
In fact, the entirety of the Valley remained preserved in death, both as a reminder and as a punishment.
Even the scent of decay, smoke, and fire lingered in the stagnant air, wind unable to penetrate the barrier I’d erected at the request of the Last Matriarch.
Little did she know, I needed this area guarded just as desperately as she needed it preserved like a morbid monument to her dead kin.
For buried deep within the catacombs of my progeny, hidden by runes and blood, was the artifact that tied my half sister to this mortal realm.
To now have two artifacts in the same place? It was almost as if Fate’s sister, Luck, intervened on my behalf.
Nearly giddy with the thought, I began to search faster, desperately pulling at collapsed timber and crumbling stone, searching for an entry point to the hidden vaults below.
I savagely ripped at the scorched house, desperation and feral excitement bleeding into every movement. With a large burst of air, I moved an outer wall, exposing a narrow stone stairway that dove immediately beneath the ground.
I paused, letting my magic hang in the air a moment longer before absorbing the remnants as a blonde head appeared from the depths below.
Finally.