Chapter Twenty #2
Malik’s small mouth is already parted in a scream full of flames and fury, leaving his hands with such force that Anna can hear it.
The roots at their feet catch, the flame traveling faster than should be possible—as if The Tree itself were urging it along.
It sweeps over the network of limbs and branches over their heads, the wood groaning and cracking.
Malik stares up at the burning canopy, the fire reflecting in his wide, terrified eyes as he realizes what he’s done.
The First is yelling, furious, but Cassius and the others don’t give him the opportunity to come forward.
Someone has landed a blade behind his knee, cutting through the tendons and crippling him, but he isn’t given a moment to drop his hands long enough to remove it.
He turns to Kaia, his eyes wild as he continues to block their blows.
Gone is the calm, confident control—burned away like the branches raining ash and embers over their heads.
Gone is the god, exposing the desperate man beneath the power. “Don’t just stand there! Put it out!”
She steps back, drawing herself closer to the shore. Behind her, the water ripples as if in anticipation. Her answering stare is as frigid as her answer. “No.”
He growls, blocking Silas’ attempt to cleave his hand from his wrist and backhanding him with enough force to send him hurtling into the throne—smoldering roots snapping on impact. Anna cries out, ready to run to him, but a hand clasps around her wrist, stopping her.
“Don’t,” Khiran begs, a hiss in her ear.
She doesn’t understand why he’s stopping her, not until she notices the erratic twitching of the shadow mere feet from the boy curled on the ground, his hands over his ears and his face burrowed in his dirty knees.
It shudders in indecision, as if torn on who to punish, before retreating from the shell shocked boy and racing back towards its master.
Silas stands, embers falling from his broad shoulders, and dodges the pale hand shooting for his throat, sweat slick on his brow—
And steps on the hungry shadow waiting for him.
He drops, screaming, as his veins blacken and his eyes roll back until all that’s visible are the whites. On instinct, Cassius reaches for him.
A mistake.
Tendrils of shadow claw at his wrist, poison seeping into his skin. His knees crack as he kneels, dull nails clawing at the dark lines spreading over his flesh. His pain is only drowned out by Silas’ continued scream.
Chest heaving, The First pulls the blade from his leg, blood splattering across the pale, broken and burning roots of his once mighty throne with a hiss.
He towers over them, flames reflecting like embers in his pale eyes and the blade’s hilt strangled in his blood soaked grip.
“Do you have any idea what you have ruined?!” he thunders, delivering a swift kick to Cassius’ prone form.
The blonde wheezes as the foot connects with his stomach, the air expelled from his lungs.
Beside him, Marcia stands listless—strings unplucked.
Pushing his pale hair away from his face, he whirls on Kaia with new fervor. He steps toward her, made all the more terrifying by the backdrop of smoke and flames. “Put. It. Out.”
She returns his stare, flames reflecting in her eyes as the water rises around her. It moves with her when she takes a slow step forward, coiling like a snake ready to strike. “No.”
“Don’t be a fool!” he rages, but his tirade is interrupted by a jab to his neck. Blood gushes over Marcia’s fingers.
From the ground, Cassius grins through his pain.
His jaw clenches so hard, his gums bleed from the force—staining his smile red.
What was left of the shadow after infecting Silas must not have been potent enough to debilitate him completely.
His glare is as sharp as the weapon wielded by Marcia’s puppet hands.
He’s in too much agony to speak, but there are volumes in that stare.
Chapter after chapter detailing all the ways The First has wronged him; all the ways in which he would see him pay.
The First draws the knife high, blood still dripping from the steel and eyes rabid, and Anna knows he’s aiming to kill.
Her heart drops, scrambling toward them despite knowing she’s too far to stop its descent in time—
Before she can even register the loss of his hands on her shoulders, Khiran teleports to the god’s side, tackling him to the ground before his blade can taste Cassius’ flesh.
The First howls in rage, slashing at the shapeshifter’s face and missing when Khiran blinks away and reappears at the water’s edge beside Kaia. “You.” The First spits the word as if it is something foul. Something poisonous.
Marcia’s blade glints, aiming for the stretch of spine between his shoulder blades, but he turns, catching her wrist before she can meet her mark.
He doesn’t settle for snapping the bones, not this time.
His other hand raises to her throat, his long fingers curling around the back of her neck, and crushes her spine.
She goes limp. Lifeless. The knife in her hand drops to their feet half a second before her body joins it amongst the roots. For a moment, The First stares down at her crumpled form, something that almost looks like regret flashing over his face, before he turns back to Khiran.
“This is your fault,” he fumes, walking toward them.
“I could have ended you—I should have—and this is how you repay my mercy?!” A crack in the flaming canopy of them, a thick branch crashing to the ground and erupting in a storm of embers.
“Do you want to know a secret, boy? Why I bound you with the promise not to meddle in the lives of mortals? Why the terms were loose enough for you to walk among them, but never save them?” His lip curls into a vindictive smile that looks so much like the one Marcia wore, it’s staggering.
“It’s because I knew you would fail. You and Eira were always so keen on helping those who are beneath our notice, fools that you are.
I knew you would get too close, too attached, and every time you broke your vow would mean I would have the pleasure of breaking you. ”
Kaia’s eyes flash, her voice a hiss. “How dare you say her name?!”
Beside her, Khiran’s face is dark with contempt, but Anna is increasingly aware of the rising heat making her sweat—the smoke tainting her lungs.
Silas and Cassius are still lying amongst the roots, prone to the flames.
The blonde is crawling towards his lover, who is dangerously close to the fire, but the shadow’s weight pins him down.
The First laughs, cruel and mocking. “Had I known what ruin her choices would bring, I would have killed her before she brought this bastard into our midsts.”
Anna ignores the clenching of her heart, muscles straining as she pulls Silas away from the flames. His body is taut with pain, making it harder for him to drag, but she’s not willing to give up on him.
Hands.
The ones she knows—the ones she loves—wrapping around her waist and winding beneath Silas’ arms. Magic pulling at her stomach, blurring her vision, and they’re at the forest’s edge.
Far from the flames and far enough from The First’s reach.
Khiran blinks away, gone for mere seconds before returning with Cassius.
“I loved her,” Kaia says, and the words are enough to draw Anna’s gaze.
The calm Kaia exudes is deceptive. There’s danger lurking beneath the words; rows of teeth gnashing beneath still waters, waiting for the moment they can sink into flesh.
A wall of water swells behind her, towering like a giant and trickling beneath The First’s feet.
It rises up to his ankles, his calves, wicking up his pale robes.
Then it freezes, anchoring him in place.
“I loved her, and now she’s gone. Extinguished by the same flames devouring your beloved throne.” A shadow moves in the mountain of water behind her. “She burned, and for that, you will drown.”
Tentacles break through the surface, coiling around The First’s wrists like ropes.
He growls, fighting the creature’s pull into the unnatural tide.
“You cannot kill me,” The First spits, but there is an edge of desperation to his voice.
His shadow spills from Cassius and Silas’ veins, reforming and racing towards the woman in the water. “I am a god.”
“Even gods can drown,” Kaia promises. “I will drag you down so deep, you will beg for death to take you.”
There is too much distance for the shadow to cross, it only makes it halfway before the water crashes over Kaia and The First’s heads; the tide pulling away from the shore as quickly as it met it.
Anna watches as the shadow seizes, shivers and shrinks.
By the time the tide recedes, only Kaia remains.
Anna knows, without a doubt, that she has fulfilled her promise.
That her currents have swept the self proclaimed god into the rivers and out to the deepest, darkest parts the ocean has to offer.
A crack, louder than a gunshot. A scream sticks in Anna’s throat as she ducks, hands flying to protect her head on instinct. When she looks up, the main trunk is split—yawning open like a hungry mouth.
A screech rings in Anna’s ears, high pitched and urgent. It drowns out everything and everyone else.
Distantly, she registers Khiran is yelling her name, but there’s something she has to do first. She can feel the demand squeezing her heart, its hold so tight it’s almost suffocating. There’s something in the trunk. Something she has to get.
She pushes forward, the heat almost unbearable.
The pain of it feels worse than she remembers.
Worse than when it licked up her dress and left her in nothing but ashes.
She bites back the urge to scream, gritting her teeth as tears track over her face.
They evaporate before they have the chance to fall.