Chapter 37
THE END
Wind tears through the throne room, and Odessa halts a step away from the bottom. My necklace chills slightly before plummeting into frigid iciness. The bitterly cold temperature burns my skin.
Julius takes a small step towards Lachlan and then quickly lunges at me to catch us off guard. But Lachlan jumps in front of his path, deflecting the blow that was clearly meant for me.
I’m confused that I didn’t see the move before it happened.
But if the guys can’t shift, power here must be blocked entirely. Lachlan begins to slash at Julius, forcing him away from me.
Their blades clash together and echo throughout the throne room. Odessa lets out a low whistle, and demons begin surging in from the hallways, their claws scraping against the floor. Evander, Mina, Tane, and Mathilda jump into action, battling them back.
Odessa smirks at me as she saunters down the last step. “It’s a pity it had to come to this.”
I glare while squaring my shoulders and tightening the grip on my axe.
“Yeah, it’s a shame you murdered my parents and turned out to be a raging bitch.”
She freezes, her mouth stretching grotesquely wide. “Helena, such language is unbecoming of a wannabe queen.”
I snort. “Oh, and murder is perfectly acceptable?”
She throws herself at me after she reaches the last step, and I easily bat her sword away. Her movements seem sluggish, and I’m not sure if it’s just a tactic to get me to underestimate her or if it has something to do with magic not working.
Fighting her is easier than the demons we just faced, even without my powers. Her black sandals slide along the marble. She’s too weak to even pick her feet up.
“We don’t have to do this. Wouldn’t you rather just face up to your crimes? I’m sure we can construct a prison or something for you both.”
She rolls her eyes at my suggestion and slashes wildly with her sword. Her effort increases marginally, but there’s still little force behind her attack. She’s like a child playing with a sword that is far too heavy.
Julius and Lachlan are locked in a tumultuous battle across the throne room. Their violently colliding swords send tiny sparks bouncing across the floor.
A grunt of pain causes me to flinch, fear slicing through my focus.
I flick my eyes to their battle to confirm that it wasn’t coming from Lachlan.
But my brief assurance costs me. Odessa manages to graze her sword along my bicep.
It’s only a shallow cut, and it’s more than worth the relief I felt at seeing Lachlan still moving and on his feet. Julius, however, seems to be waning.
Small droplets of my blood splatter onto the white marble floor. Odessa grins wildly at the shallow cut.
“Did I ever tell you how easy it was to kill your mother?” she hisses.
My entire body halts at her words. My blood boils, and I swipe at her with my axe with more force than before. Her eyes widen in horror as my blade narrowly misses her.
“Say one more word about my parents, and I will cut off your fucking head,” I grit out as I deflect her sluggish lunge.
“Julius killed your father first, after it was obvious they wouldn’t agree to our demands.”
My stomach hollows out.
“Your mother wept like a child over his body. Neither one of them had even attempted to fight us.”
My sight turns red, and a high-pitched ringing builds in my ears as I hack at her. Odessa scarcely manages to dodge and duck out of the way of my axe. My frustration boils over, and when I realize she’s in range, I kick out, slamming my foot into her chest and knocking her down.
Her skull cracks against the marble floor, dark blood creating a halo around her raven-colored hair. I unsheathe my father’s sword, the blade glowing in the moonlight spilling through the open ceiling. Odessa begins cackling like a mad-woman.
The world around me withers away until the only thing I can hear is the words slipping from my lips.
“Do you have anything else you’d like to spew before I end your life?” I hold the point of my blade just above her chest. My blood hammers through my veins, red still coating my vision as my knees threaten to buckle.
She lies there laughing and wipes a stray tear from her cheek that spills over.
“You really think you’re going to kill me?” she croons. “Not even your mother would have attempted to kill her own sister, and she was an actual warrior, born and bred. You? You’re just a weak, pathetic girl that your own parents didn’t see fit to raise here.”
Her words slice through me.
I tip over the edge, blacking out.
My arm rears back before thrusting my sword through her chest.
I didn’t have to push nearly as hard as I thought I would to cut through her ribcage or sternum and into her heart.
The metal of my blade clinks as it makes contact with the marble of the floor.
The blackness ebbs away. My sight returns.
I see why it took so little effort as her body began to twitch.
Smoke streams from her sliced-open skin, and tendrils of it twirl around my blade.
A black oil-like substance spews from her body.
“Lachlan!” I shriek.
The writhing mass of flesh twists into something from my darkest nightmares. Footfalls thunder towards me. Julius is face down on the ground, Evander and Tane holding him in place while he screams with rage. The demons that had been pouring in from the hallways, now corpses littering the floor.
Their black blood is in puddles.
Lachlan skids to a halt beside me and watches the creature that was once Odessa writhe around the ground. Her golden skin shifting into blackish-green scales. Her raven hair fades to a brittle white and crumbles to dust around her.
What was once her beautiful, youthful face ripples and contorts into a grotesque, serpentine monster.
I take a step back. “Is that what I think it is?”
The writhing body stills on the cold marble floor.
“It’s an asphidra,” Lach mumbles. He turns his terrified expression my way. “From Jotnar.”
“The giant’s realm?” I ask, kicking at the corpse to confirm it’s actually dead.
My stomach heaves as its flesh gives a squelching sound, and black blood continues to ooze from the gaping hole in its chest.
Lachlan’s expression turns murderous. “It’s been shifted.”
He storms towards Tane and Evander, where they have Julius’s hands bound and leaning against the wall.
A crack echoes through the throne room as a fist connects with his face.
Blood gushes from his nose, and Lachlan grasps the torch beside his head.
He wipes the blood pouring from Julius’s nose and rubs it between his fingers.
The blood looks normal, but there’s an odd silver sheen to it that I didn’t notice until Lachlan held his fingers closer to the flame.
“Shape-shifter,” Lachlan grinds out, and Julius begins to chuckle. His iridescent blood dribbles over his lip and down his chin.
“It took you long enough,” he taunts. Blood coats his teeth.
I push past Lachlan and come face-to-face with Julius.
“Who are you? And what did you do to my aunt?” I scream into his face, but he merely shrugs.
“No one even noticed that this place was crumbling before their very eyes until it was too late. It was almost too easy to infiltrate this realm and begin dismantling it. I honestly don’t know which was easier: kidnapping your queen and locking away your god or killing your pathetic parents.
” His declaration echoes through the Great Hall.
“You—you kidnapped the real Odessa and locked away Odin?” I ask, bewildered.
He only nods his confirmation, his eyes more hollow than I’ve ever seen them. His face cracks into a smile as he turns his eyes up towards the open ceiling.
My necklace begins rapidly pulsing.
An icy wind blows through the opening in the ceiling, dousing the torches and plunging us all into darkness. The smell of smoke from the torches and something sour permeates the air. The moonlight streaming in is the only light left, piercing the thick darkness in the Great Hall.
But the faint white moonlight shifts to a greenish color, and Lachlan presses a blade against Julius’s throat.
“Don’t ye dare move.”
My necklace is still rapidly pulsing, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. “Lachlan,” I warn.
My palms prickle.
Lachlan glances over to Evander and Tane.
“Go check that out,” he orders, not leaving my side as he places himself between me and Julius, who begins chuckling louder.
The sound is full of malice, and in the faint light, it is eerily sinister.
A heartbeat later, an explosion rips through the terrace, sending us sprawling backwards towards the throne.
Our bodies collide with the marble floor, and flames erupt through the terrace passageway.
The blast causes my ears to ring, and I gasp for air as the wind is ripped from me.
From my prone position on the floor, I see the sky change to a brighter, more vibrant green, and then a blue light materializes from the middle and plunges straight into the Great Hall, mere feet from Julius.
He wasn’t impacted by the blast at all and stands unharmed, shrugging off his restraints before walking towards the blue light. I look around for help, but Tane and Evander are knocked unconscious, Mathilda and Mina are slumped against the wall, and Lachlan is struggling to rise onto his side.
A groan slips from his lips. He clutches his head.
Blood trickles from a gash on his temple. The sight of him hurt has me surging to my feet, past the splitting pain in my head.
I look around for any weapon in reach.
But I’m too late.
“Helena,” Julius’s voice slices through the ringing in my ears. “You can have your pitiful throne back, and I’ll give Odessa your regards. Oh, and Skadi too when we breach the human realm.”
He winks before vanishing into the light.