Chapter 41 Ares
ARES
The National Gallery had caved in. Fires burned everywhere throughout the building, and in the distance, sirens finally blared. It was difficult to believe that little more than an hour ago we had been inside the building, thinking we were about to steal the swords.
My heartbeat regulated. I had done what I came to.
I’d saved Ember, set her back on the path towards her destiny, and now all that was left was for me to help her meet it.
Soldiers in the tactical uniform that I now recognized as associated with the Chioric sect headed my way.
The hydrae spit infernal fire at the approaching soldiers. It didn’t need my help.
“Remember what I said,” I cautioned as I slid off its back.
“We remember, Ares Necroline. See to your Queen,” the creature replied.
As we parted ways, I honed in on the auric energy of the soldiers streaming onto the lawn, headed for Ember, just waiting for her to fall.
I twisted a dozen or so auras in my grip and ripped hard.
They died almost immediately, but the effort drained me.
This wasn’t how my power was meant to be used, but I didn’t care.
My eternal soul might be damned, but I would protect her as well as I could. She still levitated in the air. My queen, as the spirits had called her. As Tanith left her body, she watched the spirit of the divine entities that humans insisted upon calling Saints rise into the air.
I only had eyes and attention for her, as I moved through our enemies, picking up discarded weapons as I went. I would drain myself too quickly if I manipulated aura, and besides, I was not above some good old fashioned slaying.
Cromvale was headed straight towards Ember with the thrysos. The thing glowed a terrifying green, so obviously hungry for destruction. I had to keep him from Ember before she fell from her encounter with our gods. I paused, a grin spreading over my face. Perhaps she didn’t need my help after all.
As Tanith rose into the air with Amarante, Ember drew the sword that had disappeared into her spine when I pressed it to her back. Though I knew the Maere’s swords were a literal part of their bodies, it had been a long time since I saw that truth played out in person.
My heart beat faster as I fended off a few more soldiers, keeping one eye on Ember. A very real sword was in her hands as she fell, angling with a precision that came from thousands of years of battle, training, and innate talent.
Whatever Cromvale’s deal was, he’d gravely misjudged her. He didn’t even bother to move out of the way as she fell, moving at what felt like light speed. It all happened so fast.
She landed just before him, her blade dripping with blood.
For half a moment, I didn’t comprehend what had happened.
Had she missed?
No, her blade was slick with blood.
Ember, my vicious, chaotic Ember, smiled brightly. “Goodbye,” she said, her voice soft and sweet as a lullaby while her arms moved lightning fast, drawing down on the thrysos as Cromvale’s head slid neatly from his body.
The thrysos exploded as Ember’s blade sliced through it.
She whispered something inscrutable as her blade completed its arc, the hydrae disappearing from sight, sucked directly into Ember’s sword—into some void that opened within it, through it.
What I saw was beyond understanding. I hardly knew what I saw.
I watched, wide-eyed, as the energy of the combined Poltergeists drew in upon itself, imploding like a dark star. Perhaps the girls had been right; perhaps they were dark matter incarnate, because as they went through the void the sword had created, they sucked the thrysos in with them.
“Where did you send them?” I murmured as I rushed towards her.
Ember shrugged as she stepped over Cromvale’s body. “Who knows?”
That was my girl. I didn’t have time to hug her, or to tell her all the things I felt. As she rushed to my side, we moved forward together, as one, to meet the last of the Chioric soldiers. We moved together, my body a mirror of hers as we dealt death across the National Gallery’s lawn.
There were so many of them, and there was a part of me that wondered if we could be overwhelmed. If I could even be killed. Amarante’s touch had changed something within me. I could feel it in the way I moved, the way I felt stronger by the moment, instead of more drained.
I was willing to die here, with Ember at my side, but that small kernel of power glowed within me, growing by the moment. I moved faster than I was typically able, the soldiers I fought falling in a blur of golden light.
Ember too, was wrapped in some divine light, though it was a dark light, hard as that was to comprehend. I barely registered the motions my body went through, all on its own. Slash, stab, kick, duck, fight, kill. There was no room in my mind to think; everything moved far, far too fast.
The glow around us both… it was divinity.
Amarante and Tanith had come, for whatever reason, and what they’d left behind was just enough godhood to make this moment impossible to understand.
The Chioric weapon had been destruction embodied, and now Ember and I were both death’s sweet kiss and immortality’s divine power, all in one.
By reversing which of their children they embodied, the gods had given us the power to be more than we were.
But it was temporary, I felt that acutely. And though we fought well, more soldiers streamed onto the lawn. Were the Chiorics so prolific? Standing at the edge of the lawn, near the burning Gallery, I caught a flash of a familiar face. Fairchild. His face was drawn in rage.
He spoke into a walkie talkie, though I couldn’t make out what he was saying. More soldiers appeared behind him before he blinked out of sight. We were going to be overrun. I grabbed Ember’s free hand.
“Stay still as you can,” I shouted. She’d managed to cut down enough of the soldiers that we had the briefest of moments before the onslaught of new blood arrived. Ember nodded, trusting me implicitly.
I pulled the last of Tanith’s power from her aura, whispering a prayer for forgiveness. With fleeting godhood flowing through me, I took hold of every aura but Ember’s on the Gallery lawn and tore them free in one fell motion. Then I shoved hard, sending them all to the other side.
For a brief moment it was the same as when Ember sliced through Cromvale. I wasn’t certain it had worked. Ember squeezed my hand hard, keeping me tied to this plane. And then they crumpled, all at once. As the last soldier died, the divine light faded from both our forms.
We were left as we had been before, though I had to admit that Ember was obviously much improved with the return of her sword. Her injuries had disappeared entirely.
“The spirits are gone too,” Ember murmured as she looked around. “What was that?”
I looked around, trying to make sense of it all. “I think that Tanith and Amarante helped us, called the spirits to aid.” For a long moment, I couldn’t speak. It was too big to comprehend. “Is that possible?”
Ember swallowed hard. She too was processing all of this. The destruction around us. The gods and monsters that had walked this plane, only moments ago. “Yes. It’s possible.” She stared at the river, then sheathed her sword. I marveled as it disappeared back into her.
“The Ceti were drawn by the Chioric’s summoning rituals. They must have been working on them for weeks, if not months… On the island…” she hesitated, as though worried to expose some essential secret of her people.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said, squeezing her hand. “It’s all right.”
She shook her head, smiling. “It’s not that. I’m just trying to put all the pieces together.”
I nodded, waiting for her to find her words. We were both a bit overstimulated and overwhelmed. She gazed up at the sliver of night sky that had appeared above us, a dazzling array of stars beyond the clouds.
“We are told, as children, that the gods exist in another realm from us. One that abuts our own, but that is not easily accessed in either direction. Long ago, there were sects, like the Chiorics, who were obsessed with getting the gods’ attention. Maybe that’s what all this was.”
I nodded. “If they cracked open a portal to the divine realm, perhaps Amarante and Tanith were able to slip through as well.” I thought of how Briony’s stepmother had been so careless as to not protect herself against spirits like the one she’d called to possess her stepchild. Maybe it was something like that.
The sound of a speedboat broke my concentration. I touched Ember’s arm. “Look, our friends.”
I held out a hand to her. She didn’t need my help up, but she took my hand anyway and let me pull her into my arms.
“You came,” she whispered, more than an echo of Tanith, but the full measure of her heart behind her words.
“I will always come when you need me,” I replied.
She smiled up at me. Lara was calling to us from the boat. She screamed that they were being pursued. Ember took my hand, and we raced for the boat. There would be time for catching up later. Now, we had work to finish.