Tim morphs into dark form, giving chase through the relieved skies. I yell at Harper to remain with Quorroc as I give chase, feet pounding the cobblestone, making gains on the back of her dress. The smoke column shoots through thin air, weaving and twisting to achieve maximum velocity, easily outpacing the woman. She gasps and grunts and winces, turning sharp corners around the Seat’s protective wall to avoid him.
Hannah veers a sharp right at the top of the God’s Road into the Observatory district. The stone arch has settled into its jagged new form where dragons once rested on it. The nebula overhead makes the structure appear smaller than ever, even as she bolts up its gentle ascent, past the cross where she crucified Hardwick. The body on its crude, intersecting beams is nothing more than a skeleton now. Its left arm is gone, and the rest sags on the stake, almost tumbling where nails were driven through my old partner’s palms.
As the smoke column arcs down, touching the courtyard, the man who calls himself Death returns to his regular appearance — the microbes of darkness solidify, amalgamated into a human silhouette. The color of its flesh lightens, lifts and fades to pink skin and hairs of his dark beard.
As I arrive at his position, stopping in front of the double doors left ajar into nothing, we share a glance, and proceed inside the Observatory.
Three go in, but not all will come out.
***
The fact that the blond woman chose the site of the Council’s massacre to make her final stand is an irony not lost on me. Of all the beautiful monuments and timeless architecture destroyed in her siege on Atlas, the Observatory is relatively unharmed. Sandwiched between the destroyed Cathedral and Arena on either side of its enclave, the district is more victim of crippled integrity than physical destruction.
As Tim and I enter the long hallway past the doors — where the Royal Guard closed them to protect us from the monsters beyond its threshold, unaware the true threat was already inside — Hannah waits in front of the half-moon bench. The chamber draws into view, but the moment spent consoling our pounding hearts and sweating palms overrides any sense of victory.
The woman waits — her army of winged beasts and Brotherhood are gone, wiped out by the Avatar’s sacrifice. Barrett is dead. Seraphina betrayed her, and Mykul is no longer here to defend her. All the walls that have kept us from winning — the bureaucracy and red tape of darkness — are cleared away, and all that remains is reckoning.
Hers. Ours. Light’s.
Creation’s.
The fate of all living things.
“Have you come to put me out of my misery?” she asks. “You’ll have to forgive me — I was never very good at begging.”
A thousand comebacks rest on my tongue. I have to remind myself that my part in this fight is over, as is Harper’s.
This is Death’s war now. Everything he has done and seen has led to this. Every terrible choice and wicked impulse of a human being forced into inhumanity has left his calm disrupted, his psyche broken.
And still, his voice is quiet, composed to the point of terrifying; no empathy left for his childhood sweetheart.
“The Seed, Hannah.”
The woman smiles, reaching into her bosom, retrieving a familiar emerald light from her gown. Held at eye level is her final bargaining chip against annihilation.
“Oh— you mean this little thing.”
Tim extends an open palm.
“Give it to me.”
“Or what?” she asks. “That’s right— or nothing! The fact of that matter is, dear husband; a cornered animal has nothing to lose.”
Hannah lifts the Seed above her head, holding Creation at risk using nothing more than a panicked gesture.
“Not...another step,” she says. Her blue eyes dance with the object’s God-given glow, the effect washing over her face and shoulders in the rotunda’s low light.
There is no upper limit to the woman’s tenacity — she has every reason to quit after her inner circle collapsed; and yet, anything we could do pales in comparison to her Dark Lord. She would secure all of Creation for him, or die trying.
But Tim doesn’t see it.
After all this time, despite his anger, he cannot see she would destroy us all.
“Please,” says the man who calls himself Death. “Is this really what you want your legacy to be, Han?”
In spite of all her cruelty and unlicked wounds, she has just as much of a blind spot for him. For a second, her expression softens, and I believe he has gotten through to her. The arm holding the Seed buckles, dropping back to her side. Still unbunching from our pursuit, the gown slowly deflates, and will continue to do so until physics iron it out.
“Please, Hannah. It’s time to stop this.”
Head turned aside, looking to the place she first descended the stairs at the end from the checkered hallway, where her estranged husband first laid eyes on her for the first time in God knows how many decades, she is torn between morality and defeat, rebellion and acquiescence.
Returning to full awareness, there is no indication of further trouble; which makes the following seconds — as the Seed is vaulted into the air with her fist, and thrown at the ground as fingers open — the more shocking.
The tiny jewel smashes against the ground in a hundred fragments, pieces scattering outward in every direction across the Observatory floor as my mouth hangs open and Tim’s eyes widen at the sheet of exploding Light. There is no immediate effect— that comes seconds later.
Light escaping as steam drifts back from the rotunda’s far corners, sweeping in a circle motion from the outer edge. The constellation-laden glow is absent here, as is the verdant shade of its escaping life force.
Likewise, Hannah waits for the consequences to materialize. The punishment is delayed, but the dimmest soul could see the woman just opened Pandora’s Box.
The ground begins to shake, early shocks of a devastating earthquake that cracks the marble flooring. Rumbling becomes louder than any Behemoth I have seen or heard. It is a twelve on the Richter scale, pulsing from the point of impact, pushing out the open doors into greater Atlas.
The half moon bench collapses as Hannah stumbles back under the repurposed floor. Tim and I fight for balance on the other side of a rising geyser shooting from below the supreme realm. The floor’s center rises in the middle, giant halves of a former whole violently drifting apart. Walls are torn off in irregular, jagged halves. Main doors to the structure are ripped from their hinges. Beyond them, I barely catch the Spire topple in opposite directions. One part plunges forward, another to the side, while the base falls in on itself.
All of Atlas is breaking apart.
There is no more sign of Tim’s wife. The rising rotunda rises like a wall in separate halves, obscuring angles of the giant chamber in a wave of marble and dirt and dust.
Stumbling and grabbing onto anything that will support our weight as the Observatory’s dimensions rotate and change, the roof snaps off in quadrants, pulled apart at its common vertices. Its pieces plunge sideways, down and across as the supreme realm continues to self-destruct.
I try to yell Tim’s name, but am either muted or dumbfounded beyond words, unsure if the syllable escapes into the symphony of crashing materials and groaning beams.
Tim!
The world revolts, and I lose sight of my guardian angel between the floors rising up and separating us. Soon, I am alone— caught amidst the slabs and debris of Creation, tumbling down from the heavens above.
The world buckles. It swallows everything, and I am being swallowed with it, falling into the darkness I have belonged to since birth.
As I depart this final frontier, legs kicking into oblivion and the stars surrounding it, my eyes are overcome — they are blinded by love I can no longer feel, optimism that is beyond me, leaving only a final, horrible impression.
White motherfucking lights.
The story will conclude in
The Book of Death:
Apocalypse
Ac
knowledgements
The longer a series goes on, the list of people to thank for their help and insight grows more bountiful. As Atlas is my longest book, that list becomes longer. For the sake of brevity, I will try to list them here.
My editor Kindra Austin, for lending her expertise to this project. Kris Hack of Temys Designs for a stunning cover. Beta readers Capes, Leanna, Emma and Maranda for their time and diligence. My friend Candice for being the first to review and support this project, as with so many others. Kristiana Reed for her insights on classical pantheons. My Instagram community of authors and followers for helping me become a better author, offering advice and encouragement writing this tome.
On the personal side, my girlfriend Sara for putting this idea in my head, and helping to refine some of the wilder ideas. My daughter Skye for reminding me to never give up on my dream.
And you, reader, for your time and investment in this universe. The epic finale is almost here, and I hope you will want to return for one last trip around the afterlife next year.
Atlas Page 33
