Chapter 12
Twelve
ZAYA
I let him in.
I can feel the damage the Cataclysm is causing to the intersection point, and with my conversation with my father still fresh in my mind — alongside knowledge of the political and geographical ramifications the last time someone tried to wrestle control of the North American intersection point from the Conduit — I know I need to mitigate as much of that as possible.
Plus, I’m more powerful here. On the intersection point and with a shard of it around my neck. And that doesn’t even factor in the power that comes from how all the intersection points are connected.
That last thought flits through my mind as if it’s not wholly my own, and I know, even if I don’t understand the how of it all yet. I know that the Cataclysm can’t stand against me, not here and certainly not with two soul-bound mates at my side.
Or at least the other-dimensional being wearing him like a skin suit can’t.
He stands hulking and huge on the bluff, having closed the anti-essence portal at his back and seemingly waiting patiently for my approach.
Reck jogs up to us from the beach house, with Bellamy making a beeline to the main house to cover Presh and DeVille, just as I had asked her earlier. Gigi and Coda will monitor everything else, making certain that no one else attacks us while we’re dealing with the Cataclysm.
Because I’m absolutely waiting for the Authority to make a move. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re outright backing Oso and have been backing him along with the Federation’s sorry excuse for a government for decades now.
“Zaya,” Reck snarls, pushing between me and Rought on my right. He presses his shoulder to mine as if to block me or at least slow me down. His gaze is fixed on his father out on the bluff. All our gazes are fixed on him.
The Cataclysm takes a few deliberate steps until he’s standing over the crack in the fabric of our existence. The crack through which I’m almost certain he originally slithered.
“We don’t want to help him widen it,” I murmur.
“What?” Reck snaps. “Never mind, you need to let me —”
I wrap my hand around his wrist, drawing it down, along with the knife he’s holding, until it’s tucked partly behind me.
Reck tries to twist out of my grasp, but I tighten my hold in warning. Tension etches through his jaw. He nods stiffly, and I let him go.
“Rath …” I murmur cautiously.
“I see.” He doesn’t bother to lower his voice.
The wind picks up. Clouds rapidly condense, smothering the starlit sky overhead as a low fog forms at the edge of the crashing surf on either side of the bluff. From this higher vantage point, the beach stretches as far as I can see in both directions.
I’m probably the last to note the weapon in the Cataclysm’s hand, hanging casually at his side. A roughhewn short spear … white bone … dipped in blood …
“But …” I whisper. “That’s …”
We can smell it, Tempest. Rath’s voice rasps through my mind, followed by his voice in my ear. “Your power is unmistakable.”
“I destroyed his compound,” I say, just a little pissed. “He must have had some of my blood and the antler off-site already. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you fucking apologize for him or his fucking actions,” Rought snarls. He’s as heated as I’ve ever heard him, though I can feel the strength, the warmth, of our connection thrumming in my chest.
“He didn’t have access to Bellamy,” Reck says, malevolence dripping from every word. “He had to find another dire mage willing to twist that to his specifications. Probably the one who fucking shot you out of the fucking sky, brother.”
Rath snorts. “I ate him. And his friend.”
I throw him a surprised look.
“Even better,” Reck says, all arrogant and smug. “He had to find another, hence the delay in coming after you, Larkspur.”
The nickname — the one I forbade Reck to use but which has slipped from him, seemingly involuntarily — shivers through me, like a claim that can’t actually take hold.
Rath shrugs. “They tasted like shit. I spat them both right back out.”
Rought throws his head back and laughs. He laughs as if we aren’t standing on the possible edge of the end of it all. “You should have seen it. The dragon hacking away like a fucking cat with a hair ball.”
I shake my head at them both. “The point is —”
“He thinks he can use my own antler against me,” Rath says. “If I weren’t invulnerable to my own fucking antlers, I’d have accidentally skewered myself numerous times while learning to smoothly transform.”
It’s my blood in the mix that truly worries me, but I let the conversation drop. And not only because we appear to be entertaining the Cataclysm by pausing to chat about it.
Reck stays tight to my side, his arm and the knife still tucked behind me as we cross out onto the bluff, closing the space between us and the Cataclysm.
Rought and Rath share a glance. The energy shifting around them lets me know they’re talking to each other telepathically. Rought grimaces. Rath nods curtly.
They stop walking, each stepping to the side. Seemingly giving ground to the interloper, leaving Reck and me to face him alone.
A moment later, essence rolls over both Rath and Rought. The bonds between us thicken and sharpen as they take their beast forms — forms that are too large to allow all four of us to be arrayed shoulder to shoulder across the bluff.
Reck has chosen the knife over teeth and claws. But then, in the form of the cu-sith, he can’t fly and swoop down on his prey.
The clouds break open overhead. Large drops of rain splatter over us, wetting the rock.
I pause a few paces from the Cataclysm, noting that he seems even larger than before.
With the backdrop of the night sky surrounding us, it’s as if we stand on the edge of the world — quite literally, with the entire Pacific Ocean stretching out endlessly before us.
The Cataclysm should have felt larger stuffed into that plush prison cell he held me in, not out here against this seemingly never-ending vista. But then, my senses were seriously dampened in the cell, and now they’re wide open.
Wings snapping taut and muscles bunching as he launches upward, the gryphon takes flight. The celestial dragon slips off the side of the bluff, sliding easily over the jagged rock and down into the churning water below.
A frown flits over the Cataclysm’s face. But his confusion is smoothed away a moment later.
Reck almost steps past me, almost tries to strike at his father preemptively, then checks himself.
The Cataclysm smirks. “Such a good puppy, coming to heel for your mistress.”
Reck’s energy contracts. I take a wary breath, hoping the cu-sith doesn’t make an appearance. That would be an extra complication. He stays in human form, though.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” I say, continually aware of the gryphon in the clouds and the dragon in the water — both circling around their father, primed to strike.
The intersection point vibrates under my feet, essence threading through my every word.
“I’m glad you’ve come to return home. It’s past time. ”
Anger shifts across the Cataclysm’s face, but he just widens that toothy, fanged smile, not bothering at playing human at all. “You aren’t strong enough …” He flicks his gaze to Reck, who bristles at the attention. “You haven’t claimed what is yours. So he weakens you instead.”
I smile back, playing at being charming. “You could always go voluntarily. I’ll reseal the breach behind you.”
He snarls. “If Disa couldn’t vanquish me —”
“You weakened her.” Cutting him off, I viciously throw his own words back at him. Mine ring with utter truth, as if voiced by the universe itself.
The celestial dragon climbs up and over the far point of the bluff, behind the Cataclysm’s back.
Fog roils around him. The small slices of moon and starlight shining intermittently through the clouds reflect prettily off his iridescent scales as the dragon lowers his head and fixes blazing amber eyes on his prey.
The Cataclysm shifts almost minutely, as if reacting to the dragon’s presence.
Except …
Not taking my gaze from him or the looming dragon, I focus my own energy downward.
The Cataclysm is pulling more of that anti-essence to him …
from the crack in the intersection point.
Him standing around for a chat as we obviously settle into an attack formation, rather than outright attacking us, makes much more sense now.
Once again, that anti-essence, that otherworldly antimatter, registers as nothing to my senses. There’s that weird emptiness that feels almost suffocating anytime I’m near him — and I can’t feel it or see it happening.
This is how he hid it from my aunt.
This is why the Cataclysm looks bigger.
He is. He’s somehow pulling energy from his realm or reality.
The gryphon strikes first, streaking down with talons extended. Reck lunges from my side, bringing the knife into play. The dragon opens his massive maw, displaying teeth longer than my forearm.
The Cataclysm steps to the side, twisting and somehow backhanding the gryphon as if he might be an oversized fly. More of that anti-essence explodes between them, sending the gryphon hurtling, tumbling toward the far point of the bluff.
The dragon coils, shifting to clear a path past the careening gryphon as he readies a lunge.
The Cataclysm knocks Reck’s knife strike to the side, grabbing him by the neck and yanking him off his feet with his other hand.
The portal yawns open behind him, as if maybe it had only been masked from our senses. It most effectively cuts off the dragon’s attack — even as the gryphon tumbles right into it.
I scream, flinging my arms forward as if I might actually grab the gryphon from this far away. All the energy of the intersection point reaches with me, tangling around him. Somehow, the beast catches the edge of the portal with his beak, then his talons hook into the craggy granite of the bluff.