Chapter 38 #2
When he says it like that, it sounds like a foolish idea to go after them.
My stomach knots, thinking on what we should do.
“Colton can sense locations. I’m sure they’re all probably fine. Let’s head for the heart stone and find them after,” Malakai says making the decision for me.
My chest tightens but I nod, and we get moving. I turn toward the passageway that drew me to it and the guys follow me without question.
The slash of swords hits my ears followed by familiar shouting. I follow it and come into another cavern where Colton, Ajax, Theo, and Cassius are all fighting one another.
“What the hell?” I ask as I take a step to move toward them, but Cyrus stops me.
“They’re probably under an illusion,” he says as his shadow seep out around him before forming into long tendril and snapping out toward each of them, coiling around them and pulling them apart. But they continue to try to fight one another, clawing at Cyrus’ shadows to get to each other.
“Can I hit them?” Knox says with a little evil grin. “They’ll never know it was me like this…”
Something about knowing he’s one hundred percent serious makes me want to laugh. It releases a sliver of the fear and worry and doubt I feel.
I step closer to him and press a kiss to his cheek before moving back.
His eyes darken with heat as he stares at me. “I can do much more than hit them if you’d prefer?”
I laugh and his eyes soften. “Let’s just get them back to normal. You can kick their asses later.”
He smirks, “deal.”
Cyrus finally manages to subdue them, and I glance around realizing someone is missing. “Where’s Zane?”
“He had the crystal,” Theon reminds us. “He’s probably near the heart stone.”
“Or dead,” Knox points out not bothered either way.
I roll my eyes and move over to Theo, Ajax, Colton, and Cassius and start waking each of them up, hoping they’ll have an answer for us.
“Shit,” Theo jolts awake. “What happened?”
“Long story short,” Knox says, “you were all under an illusion, beating the shit out of one another. Cyrus saved you all from killing each other.”
They look to Cyrus with gratitude, but he ignores them to scan the cavern.
“Where’s Zane?” I ask.
Cassius gets up and walks over to me with a little frown, scanning me from head to toe before sighing in relief.
“I haven’t seen him since that dark smoke,” Theo says sharing a look with his team.
“The heart stone is near,” Cassius says with a little frown as he inspects the passageway across from us before moving toward it.
Hoping Zane is okay, we get moving through the cave to follow him and eventually come out to a huge cavern with high ceilings and long pointing rocks jutting down from it.
My gaze is immediately drawn to the deep purple light at the top of the cavern where Talos is slowly draining the power from the small, jagged crystal Levington gave Zane.
Zane lays unconscious to the far right of the cavern, a gash on the side of his head that still appears to be bleeding.
“Is he—” Knox starts but I finish for him.
“Sucking the power from the piece of crystal… yes.”
My eyes draw to the purple energy once more. It moves as if alive but it’s the energy behind the purple glow that calls me to it.
I take a step forward and my men move with me.
“Sena…” Malakai starts, a growing look of worry on his face.
“It’s the heart stone,” I tell them.
Cassius narrows his eyes on the purple energy. “It’s a barrier. Talos must be trying to use to energy of the crystal to break it to reach the heart stone.” He looks at me with nothing but fear and dread in his eyes. “We must not let him get it.”
Talos finally notices we’ve arrived and spins around to us with a smug smile on his face as we move closer to him.
Theo bends down to check Zane and nods at me, silently letting me know he’s okay before I focus back on Talos.
Talos discards the small piece of crystal, throwing it to the ground. It shatters immediately, leaving nothing but tiny black shards in its place.
I catch the glint in his eyes and every part of me tenses up, waiting for what he’ll do next. Seconds later he turns, and my eyes widen realizing he’s about to attempt to get the heart stone.
I’m rushing after him before I even think about what I’m doing and easily sliding past the purple barrier like it’s nothing to me.
“Sena, NO!” Cassius shouts but it’s too late, I’m already past the purple barrier and into a world of light.
I glance back but I can’t see anything past the purple barrier.
Trying not to worry about the rash decision I just made, I search for Talos and the stone, moving past the large white light at the center to find him on his knees behind it, a thread of energy moving from it to him.
I’m about to move toward him and try to stop it but I pause when I realize his eyes are bleeding and his face is turning gray.
The energy… He can’t contain it.
He drops to his knees with a gasp, and his hands and neck slowly start to turn black. A moment later, he collapses to the side, unmoving.
Feeling a sliver of relief, I focus on the heart stone, wondering how the hell I’m going to destroy it when the light pulses out around me and the dark-haired woman from the chamber appears in front of me.
But this version is softer, her appearance well-kept. Though her face is a little pale.
She gives me a warm smile but there’s nothing but sadness in her eyes. “It is time for this to end,” she tells me. “You must destroy the heart stone. Destroying it will cause the Hollow to self-destruct,” she says. “But it is the only way.”
“How?” I ask and she stares at me with eyes so familiar I wonder if my mother had the same pair. If she looked at me like this woman does now. With nothing but love and softness.
“Reach down inside you. Drag up the power that you were born with. And destroy the taint that created this.” She takes a step back and slowly disappears. “End this once and for all,” she begs, and I swallow hard before taking a deep breath and trying to focus.
Closing my eyes, I reach down inside me, to the depths of my power and slowly drag it up.
I pull it from every inch of me, drown myself in it and feel it as it sweeps over my skin raising every hair on my arms. I let it slide up through me; let it build until it hurts and then finally… I release it.
It bursts out of me in a blast of energy that almost feels endless, all directed toward the light at the center, attacking it until it reveals a large pulsing red crystal in the shape of a heart.
The endless energy coils around me, waiting for my command.
With the thought of needing to destroy the red heart stone, I take a step toward it and my energy wraps around me in a cloth of light. It sweeps along my skin, down my arms and legs changing my black top and trousers to a shimmering light material with tiny crystals all over it.
It keeps moving across my entire body, forming a beautiful long top with skin-colored leggings underneath.
My sword forms in my hand just as the energy builds inside me once more. I let it move past the pain, let the pain fuel it, before raising my sword and slamming it down straight into the center of the heart stone.
I feel it the minute the heart stone cracks, feel the power seep out before its energy snaps out and slams me backward to the ground.
My whole body trembles as I glance up and watch the heart stone shatter into pieces, its energy seeping into the ground beneath it and quickly forming cracks that break and crumble.
The endless energy I felt moment ago quickly disappears, leaving me feeling like I’ve run a damn marathon.
I try to get up before the ground beneath me trembles once more.
I push my hand beneath me, but it shakes and falls as if it’s a dead weight.
I try again and again but I can no longer tell whether it’s the ground trembling or my body.
“You must live,” a soft voice says from somewhere around me right before I feel a tug backward.
“Don’t you dare leave us. Don’t you fucking dare!” Knox screams into the bond. “Come back. Come back. Come back!”
“Thank you,” the soft female voice says just before I’m yanked once more and become free of the purple barrier.
Arms come around me helping me up. I turn to find Theon holding me. “Sena?”
The others stare down at my clothes and frown.
“What happened?” Theon asks.
“I did it,” I tell them as I silently tell Theon to put me down. He helps me to my feet but doesn’t let go of me. “I destroyed the heart stone.”
“I knew you would. But I could fucking kill you for doing it on your own,” Malakai says, looking like he’s about to strangle me. “We’re mates.”
I wince. “I wasn’t thinking when I went after Talos. But I knew I would be the only the that could destroy it.”
He gives me a look telling me he’s not going to let this go anytime soon but for now he’ll drop it. “Where is Talos?”
“He tried to take the energy of the heart stone,” I tell them all. “But I think it was too much. I think it killed him.”
“Good fucking riddance,” Knox says. “I think—”
“You’re a royal?” Zane says as he and his team make their way over to us. Each of them staring at me with nothing but shock on their faces.
How did he? I glance down, realizing the new little outfit change my powers gave me is covered in dozens of crystals like the one Levington gave Zane.
I open my mouth to tell them none of that matters right now when the ground beneath us trembles and slowly starts to split open while the ceiling begins to crumble and fall.
“We have to get out of here,” I tell everyone before taking a step forward and falling.
Malakai and Theon catch me, watching me with worry in their eyes.
“I’m just tired,” I promise them and Theon immediately lefts me up into his arms as we make a run for it.
Shadows swirl around me and in minutes we’re outside on top of the mountain, watching the world collapse around us while thousands of beasts, more creatures I’ve never seen before, and Terrigons all head straight for us.
There’s no way we can get across them.
“Can you open the rift here?” Malakai asks Cassius.
Cassius moves closer and the look he gives me has my heart dropping. “I’m glad I got to meet you. I wish things were different. I wish I could change a lot of things.” He sighs as he takes a step back from me, “But at least I can do this one last thing for you.”
He looks to my mates. “Protect her,” he says.
“Always,” Cyrus answers and Cassius nods.
“What are you—” I start but he raises his hands in front of him and purple energy similar to the barrier around the heart stone bursts out of him, slowly creating a crack in the world.
“I won’t be able to hold it for long,” he grits out while slowly trying to make it bigger. “Being this close to the heart of the Hollow even without the heart stone is dangerous.”
“Why—” I start but then freeze when I see his eyes bleeding and his body trembling.
I move trying to get out of Theon’s arms, but his grip tightens on me. “He’s going to kill himself,” I tell them. “We have to stop him.” But Theon’s grip doesn’t ease.
I look up at him, pleading with him. “We can’t just let him die.”
Theon stares down at me with as much heartache as I feel. “I’m sorry,” he says but nothing more.
I glance over at Cassius just as the rift opens more and he drops to his knees.
“Quickly,” he shouts, “I can’t hold it!”
Before I get a chance to tell him to stop, Theon and my mates rush forward and before I know it, I’m moving through the rift, through a storm of lightening and flames and energy.
Hands slide away from me as I’m tossed left and right before being yanked backwards and thrown out onto the hard ground and sand.
Groaning, I blink away the dust and look up to find the rest of my men on the other side of the large landscape being thrown from the rift while the Hollow around it pulses almost like a heartbeat, growing smaller and smaller, as it collapses in on itself.
Zane, Theo, Ajax and Colton are thrown from the rift next.
But where’s Cassius? I glance around hoping he came through but he’s nowhere to be seen.
My gaze is drawn back to the Hollow just as it pulses one last time and implodes sending a blast of energy outward.
Before I get a chance to move, the wave of energy hits me and I’m thrown backwards.
Pain slams into the side of my head and then there’s nothing but darkness.