by Amy Braun
The breadth of its power astounded me. Not just what I could feel throbbing and hissing through the air, but the sheer scope of it all. That was the closest I would ever get to touching space.
The gods were just as awestruck as the rest of us.
“How…?” whispered Apollo. “How did you get this?”
His gaze was fixed on the Eye, but his words were for Selena. She looked away. Tears shimmered down her face.
“I cheated, I bribed, and I lied. I made friends with more dark scions than I care to mention, and I didn’t care how badly they were hurt.”
Apollo stepped past her, magnetized by the Eye. Ares chuckled next to me.
“Why Cassandra, I did not believe you capable of such ruthlessness. It could very well be a shame to lose you to my brother.”
I stared daggers at Ares, but he didn’t care. Selena refused to meet my gaze.
Apollo extended a hand to the Eye. Its aether edges curled around his fingers and forearm. I don’t know what the power did to him, but his eyes widened. He curved his arm, twining the limb through the Eye’s power.
“My Sight has changed,” he whispered.
The cavern was dead silent. Ares turned rigid at my side, then whirled on Selena.
“What did you do, harlot?”
He raised his fist and wrapped flames around it. The pulse and heat of his magic almost rocked me back. I reached out—
“She did nothing,” Apollo clarified, halting Ares’s attack. “I ventured to look forward in time to See what the Eye would show us of our victory, and… I have Seen everything, Ares. All possible outcomes.”
Ares frowned. “That is no different from your usual abilities.”
“In the past, yes. But since our return, I have Seen only the most prevalent outcome and far along its path. Yet with the Eye, I can See all outcomes, good and ill, for eternity.”
Apollo reached his other hand out to the Eye of Cronus. Jet-black aether wove around the god’s crisp white suite. I could no longer see his golden hand. His eyes were wide, intense.
Possessed.
Something is wrong.
Carefully, I slid my gaze to Selena.
She held my eyes, then flicked a look between Ares, the Cetea, Thea, and Corey.
A distinct order.
He didn’t reply, but I knew he had heard me. I had no idea where I stood with him, but I still trusted him to fight with me. That would never change, no matter how pissed he was.
Apollo’s fingertips reached past the aether edges to touch the Eye itself. Ares stepped forward with caution. Ki̱demónas hovered close at his side.
Apollo’s long, delicate fingers, the fingers of a musician, a healer, a warrior, brushed against the surface of the galactic Eye.
Every single star within it flared. Their light shot outward, obliterating the blackness and swelling the Eye with a light even brighter than Apollo’s. The light grew and grew, the aether tendrils flaring white and wrapping close around the god. His eyes widened, and he tugged his arm away, but he was not freed. The light expanded and consumed Apollo’s arm. In the next breath, his body was half gone. At the third breath, he could no longer be seen at all. It was just blaring, blinding light. And from within that light, I heard a god screaming.
It had devoured him.
Horrible memories of the first Cronus Shard we recovered, the Heart of the Devourer, surged into my mind. Its devastating cold bite, the pressure against my skin as my magic and life force was sucked out. It had been horrible, and I had escaped it by the skin of my teeth.
And while it wasn’t the Heart consuming Apollo, he was still contending with a Titan’s power. And it was ripping him apart just as easily as the Heart nearly ripped into me.
You can’t help him. He did this to himself. He’s hurt you and your friends. He nearly destroyed Selena. You can’t withstand the Eye’s power. If it can ruin him this way, it will absolutely kill you.
And, deep down, you know he deserves this.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed away those dark thoughts, squinted through the chaos, and moved.
I called Ki̱demónas from Ares’s grip. I pressed my hand to my chest and drew on my own aether. Gritting my teeth, I used the aether to freeze the dagger embedded in my shoulder. It crackled and hissed and splintered into four smaller sections. Using the aether as a grip, I dragged the splinters out of my body and tossed them aside. I pressed a quick healing spell to my shoulder and slid around Ares’s back.
The light ebbed and faded, and Apollo’s form was returning to view. I knelt next to Selena and pushed my hand against her leg, freezing the dagger in her thigh with aether, just as I had with my own. I removed the blade from her leg and healed the bloody wound. I quickly glanced over my shoulder to where Liam and Corey would be. My brother had slipped away from Alexi and had removed the dagger from Corey’s shoulder so he could heal the wound. Corey’s face was pale with panic, but I was just so godsdamned glad he was alive.
The light of the Eye vanished completely. I helped Selena stand and tucked her behind me. Apollo stood in the center of the floor, his shoulders heaving and his bright suit smoking with energy. His aura remained powerful, but it didn’t feel like a bright pulse of light burning against mine. It was corrupted, jagged and coarse, like sandpaper grating against me. The god turned slowly and lifted his gaze.
My blood went cold.
The Eye itself was gone.
So were Apollo’s eyes.
The gold and white orbs had been replaced by the Eye’s galactic depths, glossy black from eyelid to eyelid and spotted with stars and galaxies. And the look on his face…
I was used to the gods staring blankly at mortals. They simply believed we were beneath them. But I wasn’t used to seeing such emptiness. It was as though the Eye’s power had scooped Apollo out and was just using his shell.
Ares stepped forward. “Apollo?”
Apollo turned his head and looked at the god with a robotic movement that sent a chill up my spine. Selena’s hand clasped mine and squeezed it tight.
Ares took another step.
And then Apollo moved.
Light exploded from his hands and slammed into the God of War. Ares flew back and smashed into the wall. I stared, not even able to feel joy at seeing Ares being thrown around like a rag doll.
Apollo turned to me.
I reached for Ki̱demónas.
The god’s twisted eyes flashed with sparks of unnatural light. A spear of light whipped from his fingertips and knocked the spear away from me. Another ray of light raced toward me. I let go of Selena and dashed away from her to dodge the light. It flashed to my right, intending to slice me in half. I flipped my hand up, forming a shield of aether. It halted the blast of light, but the pressure of it knocked me aside.
A furious roar echoed through the cavern. Apollo raised his hand, and light swept around his body. Ares’s flame battered into it, igniting the cavern in a blaze of red and white, stinging my skin with its burn.
The God of War howled and shoved his flames at Apollo. The incendiary magic crawled along the walls, forcing me back.
I saw Selena stand up and rush toward me. I reached for her, but she jerked to a halt mid-run. A spear of light sliced through the space she would have occupied had she kept running. It exploded against the wall, and Selena covered her eyes against the brightness.
I called Ki̱demónas with one hand and drew on its well of magic. Aether slipped out of my body. I twisted my torso and launched the dark magic outward. I hardened it, shielding Selena from Apollo. She raced by my darkness, flames and sharp light nipping at her heels. She was nearly at my side when a hook of light sliced past my aether and scored her along her back. Selena yelped and stumbled. I slid past her and threw Ki̱demónas. Aether erupted off the spear and splintered the light. I clutched Selena’s arm and lifted her.
“Are you all right?” I called.
She nodded.
“Wha
t’s happening?”
“Apollo… the Eye… it made him insane.”
There was no time to ask how she knew. I just took her word for it. And if she truly was Cassandra, she would know the truth more than anyone.
“Corey needs to get us out of here,” she called over the heat and chaos. “That’s the only way we’ll survive.”
I nodded, clasped her hand, and raced along the wall. I closed aether around us, sending telepathic commands to Ki̱demónas to protect Liam, Thea, Corey, and Mason with walls of aether.
Shards of light stabbed in front of me, forcing me to stop running and push them back with aether. Apollo’s attacks came from all sides, even under our feet. His light branded my arms and legs, and even cut a line across my neck. He knew every move we were going to make, even as he held off Ares’s unrelenting storm of power.
The Eye. It must have amplified his powers to an unimaginable degree, the price of his sanity.
I could hear him screaming in his orb of light. The words were muffled, incoherent, and entirely in Greek. I only translated one sentence clearly.
“Afíste tous na ftásoun se mia roí aímatos.”
Let them rise to a tide of blood.
I FOLDED SELENA close to me, instinctively healing the bloody gash on her back, and pushed through. Her body shuddered with adrenaline and freshly healed muscles in her leg and back.
The heat of Ares’s flames grew, seeping through my shield of aether.
Spikes of light pierced my shield as well.
And then they pierced Ares.
Spears of light magic stabbed through the war god’s chest, arms, and legs, effectively pinning him in place. Ares bellowed with rage but didn’t die.
Apollo didn’t give him a second glance. He turned, his galaxy-crazed eyes fixed on us.
“Corey,” I called, keeping my eyes focused on the God of Light as his blazing aura flooded the cavern, “get us out of here. Now.” I didn’t care where he sent us, just as long as we got some distance away from the two crazed gods.
I called Ki̱demónas back to me just as Apollo raised his hand. Light exploded through the cavern. I raised a shield of aether to block the jagged magic. It pounded into the dark barrier, shards punching through and burning like cigarettes on my skin.
Ki̱demónas landed in my palm, and I peered past the shield.
Apollo had formed two swords of light and slammed them both down at me. A whip of fire flicked toward his chest. Apollo stepped back casually and stabbed a sword outward. It caught Liam in the shoulder. He screamed and grimaced but couldn’t move. The second sword cleaved toward his neck.
I opened myself to the Rage and pushed the shield outward, concentrating on turning its flat edge into a wall of spikes.
Apollo flicked his fingers and obliterated the wall.
Beyond Apollo, I saw Ares pry himself free of the light spears and explode into a being of fire. I didn’t run away. I charged toward Apollo, just as Ares did, and we attacked him with everything we had.
Fire and shadow tore out of me. I slashed with Ki̱demónas, drawing on the last scraps of my magic to make myself fast and strong. I no longer felt the burns or cuts that peppered me every time I moved. I worked harder and faster to fight Apollo, with Ares as a temporary ally.
Fire consumed the cavern. I blocked out every shout and scream, the calls of my name, and the bellow of a raging god. Ares poured flames on his brother’s back, but Apollo shrugged off the flames. He twisted and flung his hand upward, blocking Ares with a pillar of shimmering fire. He turned back to me, and I swung Ki̱demónas at his face.
He caught the spear in his grasp. Dead, starry eyes bored into me.
“You cannot See,” Apollo said, his voice cold as his gaze. “You refuse to See.”
I swung my fist into his jaw. Apollo’s head turned with the blow, like it was a pat on the cheek. He ripped Ki̱demónas from my grasp and punched me in the chest.
The blow knocked me against the wall, then a fireball exploded against my chest. I dropped to my knees and clasped my aching chest. The Rage was gone, and pain slammed back into my body. I hissed at the touch of raw skin and looked down to see a fist-sized burn swelling against my torso.
“Derek!”
I turned to Corey. A gap had been torn in the right shoulder of his wetsuit, and the skin was smeared with blood, but it was healed. He looked pale and agitated, but Mason, Thea, and Selena were already gone, presumably teleported to wherever Corey had deemed safe. I heard Kallis shout distantly, saw him and his twins charge Corey.
Liam wrapped his hands around my shoulders and dragged me back toward the wall. Apollo advanced, opening his palm and filling it with two balls of light.
Ares slammed into us, knocking us out of the way, and stood in front of Apollo. He wasn’t trying to save our asses. He just wanted to deliver a punch to Apollo’s face.
And I have to admit that it was a hell of a punch.
The blow rocked Apollo’s head back and threw him across the room. He was still flying when Ares burst into flame and leaped across the cavern with his sword and shield in hand. Apollo recovered and defended against the God of War, turning his body into a column of burning light.
The gods no longer wore the shapes of men. They were beings of fire and light, colliding and exploding and blasting the cavern with fire and light.
We were forgotten.
I called Ki̱demónas back to my hand and raced to Corey’s side. Liam hauled himself back with me, blood leaking from his torn shoulder. We reached Corey at the same time the Faidon family did.
A spear of ice formed out of Kallis arm and hovered, pointy end first, close to my chin. Kallis’s eyes were fiery and enraged. “My children go first,” he growled.
“Liam’s bleeding.” Corey tried to protest.
Another spear of ice pulled free of Kallis’s other arm and pointed at my friend’s eye.
I wasn’t sure I could move fast enough to save him.
“Do it, Corey,” I said.
The wayfare scion hesitated for a second. Then he reached for Alexi and Catalina.
But before they could leave, light exploded around us. It screeched, an enraged Olympian’s cry echoing along with it. I reacted, wrapping my arms around Liam and using my body as a shield. I slung Ki̱demónas over my back and drew on its final scraps of magic to protect us. Spikes of light cut along my calves and nicked my ear.
Corey zoomed in front of me and grabbed Liam. He blinked out of sight, taking my brother with him.
A harrowing scream tore through the air. I glanced to my right.
Kallis was leaning over the bodies of his children.
He didn’t even notice the cuts and slices on his own body. He cradled his twins, their bodies riddled with bloody holes from where Apollo’s light had stabbed them. His grief was a raw, horrible thing to watch.
I didn’t like Kallis Faidon. I hadn’t liked his kids. But in that moment, I pitied him. I would never forget what it was like to watch Liam nearly die. It was a pain I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy. Kallis deserved to be punished for the horrible things he had done. Innocent men he’d led to slaughter were lying in the cavern.
But he was still a father. And no father should watch his children die.
My neck flared with pain, and my limbs moved without my control. I jolted upright and swung toward the heart of the cavern, Ki̱demónas singing in my grip.
Apollo and Ares had separated, their bodies no longer burning with magic. Ares had planted his body in a fighting stance next to mine. His aura pulsed with white-hot energy, and his eyes were fever bright. He’d lost his shield but not his sword.
Apollo stood across the cavern, his white suit smoking with power and his eyes sparkling and black. Neither of them appeared to hear Kallis howling in the background.
With a roar, Ares threw up his hand and filled the cavern with flames. I raised an arm in front of my eyes to shield them from the light. The heat was devastating, and I had to
check my arms to ensure they weren’t actually on fire. I could see nothing but flames from wall to wall, top to bottom. Ares turned his fiery blue eyes on me, a stark contrast to the fierce orange and red flames billowing behind him.
“We must contain him, my son. I shall defeat him in combat, and you shall create your shadowfire soldiers to snare him.”
I jolted at the name. Apparently, the soldiers I’d use in the Prophecy were comprised of both aether and fire. I’d heard of shadowmen, but the beings I could create… they were more than that. They were a combination of both, a mixture of the most dangerous types of elements.
I was in no hurry to create such things and speed the Prophecy along. Fighting monsters and men was one thing. Fighting an immortal god who could See through the expanse of time and turn me into a pincushion was quite another.
Further, I had no idea how to do what he was asking. I could fight with aether, but I’d never made other beings with it.
“I don’t have any magic.”
Ares scowled and grabbed Ki̱demónas. The spear trembled violently. A crush of power tore through it and then me.
I choked on a scream as Ares’s aura erupted like a volcano in my body. Every nerve became a live wire. Magic crushed my bones and boiled my blood. When it reached my heart, I thought I would explode.
Yet when the pain subsided, I was still alive, and my magic had regained its full potency. I was almost grateful… until I looked in Ares’s eyes.
“I was not asking you, my son.”
The War Pact seared my neck, and my limbs moved again. I filled Ki̱demónas with aether and cut a line through Ares’s fire. In that opening, I saw Apollo. He glowed and his body twitched madly. I threw Ki̱demónas, and he slashed his arm down. A scythe of light tore from him and knocked Ki̱demónas aside.
But I was already moving. I planted my hands against the bloody stone floor and loosed strands of aether and ripples of fire. I focused until they began to mingle. The two magics repelled one another, fire eating smoke and smoke smothering fire. They refused to knot together, to form what I wanted.
Light flashed in front of me. I looked straight down the barrel of Apollo’s magic.
