Chapter Twenty
Something gives. Snaps. Maybe it’s hearing their screams or maybe it’s watching the woman he loves risking everything to end it all. He’s tired of running.
EDUN
A crimson stain is blooming over his chest. Blood soaking into the pristine white fabric, dripping, thick as sap. The First looks down, staring at the blade with a furrowed brow. Cassius’ grin is vicious, more bared teeth than a smile as Silas draws to his side.
Then the growing red stain stutters. Shrinks.
The blood is spilling back into the wound as if time is nothing but a word.
The First turns his head, calm in ways that promise pain.
Marcia’s hand is still wrapped around the hilt, as if holding it there will make the blood spill once more.
The First’s hand wraps around her wrist. There is a sickening snap of bone, the end that held the knife now bent back in an angle so unnatural it makes Anna’s stomach churn, but it’s the lack of scream—the lack of anything—reflecting on Marcia’s face that makes her blood run cold.
The First meets the blonde’s darkening gaze.
“Dear Cassius, I do believe you’ve finally made yourself more trouble than you’re worth.
” He charges forward—faster than Anna’s eyes can follow.
His fingers wrap around Cassius’ throat, lifting him with a strength no mortal should possess, the hilt of the blade still protruding from his chest as if it were nothing.
The tendons in his forearm flex, a map of veins and sinew leading to the hand tightening around Cassius’ throat.
“Fear not. I will find another use for you. It will be curious to see how much this body of yours will take before it breaks.”
Cassius’ hand wraps around the blade’s hilt, pulling it free from The First’s flesh just as Silas draws his own.
The glint of smooth metal is the only warning before he stabs the arm choking his lover.
It slices all the way through; the tendons snapping and his grip going lax.
Cassius falls to the ground, dragging air into his lungs with heaving, wheezing breaths.
Silas immediately goes to his side, herding him away and placing himself between the threat.
The First looks at his arm, lip sneering as the blood drips from his fingers.
“You too, Shepherd?” He grabs the hilt, pulling the knife slowly from his flesh.
Anna can hear the agonizing scrape of blade against bone, but The First gives no indication of feeling any pain.
He tosses it aside, the steel clattering amongst the roots.
“Here I thought you realized your place. Did you forget you are expendable?”
The blood recedes, just as it did when he took a blade to the heart. He holds his hand up, flexing his fingers into a fist as if testing how well the sinew has knit itself back together. “It seems I have been too lenient with you. All of you. I will be certain to avoid such mistakes in the future.”
Silas scowls, his eyes melded with a fury Anna has never seen him wear. “You are undeserving of your gifts. Of your power. I will see you stripped of them, or I will die trying.”
“Die?” The First scoffs, his silver eyes gleaming, molten with a simmering fury. Dark tendrils spill from his fingers, translucent as smoke and rising above him until the wisps meld into a singular form. A shadow. “Pray that I will be so merciful.”
The shadow strikes, spilling across the ground like ink, dark hands reaching towards Silas—
“No!” Cassius shouts. Driven by his will, Marcia throws herself in front of his lover, her body a shield. The shadow reaches her, siphoning into her veins and branching out over her pale skin like an infection. Like poison.
Cassius’ kiss held the power to turn her against her master without so much as a flinch.
The bones in her wrist had snapped beneath The First’s fingers without a whimper.
Whatever the shadow is, it must be made of the worst the world has to offer—a blend of agony and nightmares—because Marcia’s mouth parts around a scream.
Anna has spent lifetimes around the sounds of the suffering, but nothing compares to what she’s hearing now. Sharp and guttural, it claws its way into her chest like a howling beast, thrashing behind her ribs and clashing with the strangled beat of her heart.
This is more than pain, more than suffering.
It’s as if every one of Marcia’s nightmares have become real and they’re feasting on her—breaking and burning her from the inside.
Part of the shadow remains, spilled limply over The Tree’s roots. Sluggish and a few shades lighter, it reaches for Silas and Cassius’s ankles as they rush around it. Marcia falls, her lungs emptied of air but her mouth still yawning open around a scream she can’t give sound to.
Cassius slashes at the god’s throat, but The First leans back and the blade’s tip only nicks his skin—the wound healing over before the bead of blood can roll down his pale neck.
The god’s hand lashes out, aiming for Cassius’ face, but Silas lands a stabbing blow to his side, first—the knife slipping between his ribs and puncturing a lung.
Anna is horrified at how little it slows him.
The lovers move as if it is a dance: parry, block, strike.
The flashing of steel, the wet glint of crimson as it arcs like ribbons each time a blade tastes flesh.
The First heals fast, but they aren’t giving him time to breathe between blows.
Frustration pulls his lips over his teeth, snarling.
A flick of his hand, and his shadow trembles, reaching for Marcia.
The toxin fades from her veins, soaking back into the shadow.
It grows darker, faster, as her tortured expression smooths back into apathy.
She stands, released from her nightmare as the shadow rushes to its master’s aid.
“The binds, Cassius!” Khiran yells. The rope twining around his neck and wrists flicker as he fights against its hold. Beside him, Kaia sidles closer to the water’s edge. Her eyes, dark as the deepest parts of the sea, follow The First’s movements with a determination that promises action.
Marcia’s body stills, gaze empty as her hand reaches out towards Khiran. The golden threads around his wrist and throat unravel, floating on the air like spider silk, before winding around The First. He snaps them as if they are as brittle as glass.
Khiran’s hands are cold against her shoulders as he tries to draw her away, but his touch feels more like an echo than reality.
Anna hears the sound of her name, the sounds of battle, but there’s something else gnawing at the edges of her sight.
A vision pulsing under her open palms, carried by the roots the way veins carry blood to a heart.
A vision of flames.
Of a canopy of branches alight with a fire so consuming, the smoke blocks out the light. Of smoldering ashes, an emptiness where a magnificent tree once stood.
Anna knows why The Tree has been dying. Knows it has been in preparation for this exact moment. The barren branches creak, the dried out limbs rubbing together like kindling without a match. There is no water, no life, there. Just the spirit, urging her to burn it to the ground.
One look at Marcia proves she is still under Cassius’ possession.
Her gaze is clouded, her body a weapon under his control.
She fights beside the lovers, her movements more fluid than any puppet has a right to be as they dodge fists and shadow.
Cassius, bruises ringing his throat like a necklace, must have given the silent order to protect, because when she isn’t attacking The First, her body is shielding them from his wrath.
Anna’s eyes slide to Malik, to the anxious sparks lighting his hands as they flex at his side. He looks lost. Unsure. No one has given him an order. Anna knows he won’t get one. Not here. Khiran’s words from decades ago ring in her ears.
He’s a bomb waiting to go off.
A bomb. The Calamity. The bringer of the end for whoever is unfortunate enough to be there when he detonates.
Khiran is still pulling at her, urging her up. “We have to run,” he says, his eyes wide and frantic. Water still drips from his hair, his face pale with pain. “Go to Kaia. While he’s distracted.”
Anna’s lips part around an apology she can’t bring herself to make. It sticks in her throat, stubborn and honest. He sees it—she knows he does—because the desperation rimming his eyes blurs into fear.
“Anna—”
She kisses him. Hopes he tastes apology mixed with the goodbye. Then she does what he asks:
Anna runs.
But not toward the water. Not toward Kaia and the escape she offers, but toward Malik. The child with a temper faster than reason because he was never given the opportunity to grow old enough to control his impulses. Anna is counting on that temper, that lack of control, now.
He’s so focused on the battle, he doesn’t see her until a split second before she collides with him.
They’re on the ground, roots digging painfully into her hip as she scrambles to get up.
Malik’s complexion is so red it’s beginning to bleed into purple.
Fire flares from his fingertips, licks of it slipping between his clenched teeth.
The First catches her gaze, snaring her between dodged blows.
There’s a furrow in his brow—disapproval—but he must see something in her.
A determination. A confidence. Then his eyes slip to Malik, and he bares his teeth around a snarl.
“No!” Abruptly, his shadow abandons the battle and reaches towards them, clawing over the tangle of roots with a frenzy that feels reckless.
It’s too late.