Shattered Heir (Broken Gods Book 1)

by N. M. Howell

  25

  Rhea braced for his attack, preparing to die—but nothing came.

  Her uncle stepped toward her, bending down and placing his index finger beneath her chin, lifting her face as she peered up at him with tear-filled eyes.

  “There, there, child, no need to cry,” he cooed at her, his voice sickly sweet. He then pinched her chin tightly between his index finger and thumb and snapped her head to the side with full force as he pushed her away.

  “How did you know I was here?” Rhea asked her uncle, so angry she nearly spat on the floor as she spoke.

  “You are the most predictable, pathetic little child I’ve ever met,” he said to her, his voice singsong. “You think I’m dumb enough to fall for that stupid tactic? Causing a distraction in front of me so you could sneak in the back. It’s all so tired and has been done many times before, little one. I’m quite appalled, to be utterly truthful, that you would think me so stupid to fall for something so simple.”

  She glared up at him, pure hatred seeping through her very core. Her body still shook, but now from rage more than anything else. She could feel his magical energy pressing against her, and this time she didn’t deny her heritage. She allowed herself to soak it up, infusing her with his own power. But she felt something strange, something unfamiliar and cold. It was as if he had put up a block against her magic, and she couldn’t absorb more than a simple prickle against her skin.

  He looked down at her, laughing, a wide grin spread across his face. “Oh, you are my stupid brother’s daughter after all,” he spat at her. “I’ve put a block against my brother before, and your magic, while quite powerful for someone so pathetically small, is no match against my own. Sorry child, but you will not to win this one.”

  He began laughing, the cackle echoing around her and making her shiver.

  She carefully pushed herself up to a standing position, facing them squarely as she rolled her shoulders back in false confidence. Her fingers wrapped around the hilt of her sword that hung from her belt, ready to pull and strike at any time.

  She knew the small weapon was no good up against her uncle, who was an externally powerful and experienced god, but if she could at least give him one good slash before she went down, she would consider it a win. Perhaps she could slice across his face, cutting through that disgusting sneer of his. That thought made her smile as she looked up at him.

  Her expression made him pause, his smile faltering. “What do you look so happy about?”

  “Oh nothing, Uncle. Just happy to see you.” Rhea stood there staring at him a long moment, hoping that perhaps her mock confidence would be enough to set him back a little bit. She could hear fighting above them growing louder, more explosions and screams and shaking of the walls. She knew that she had to get out of there soon or else sacrifice herself so Crystalline and her warriors could get away.

  “How perfect, you die down here with all of your little guardians,” he said, picking at a fingernail casually as he spoke. He was massive—tall and broad and strong, both in physical stature and in his magic. He had adopted all kinds of dark magic, even more so than her father. Perhaps that was why he was so angry her father had sat the throne for so long, and fought so hard to take it from him when he murdered him days before.

  Rhea remembered he hadn’t been claiming the throne for too long, fortunately for the realm. She wondered what would happen to the world after she was gone, after she and her guardians were murdered. The rebellion would surely get wiped away. The thought made her heart sink, and bile rose up in the back of her throat.

  She thought back to all those people in the rebellion, the burning village and the children and the grandparents screaming as it burned to the ground. She remembered all those bodies strewn across the battlefield when they’d first come through the portal. She knew that she had to do what she could to stand up against her uncle. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and let him kill her, to make all of this end, but that would be the weak way out. That would be cheating. That would be running away yet again.

  Death was the easy part, and she knew in the bottom of her heart that she had to do everything in her power to take her uncle out. If she was going to restore the world to peace as she had promised, she knew she had to step forward and not be a coward. But it was so hard. She’d become the person who ran away, who escaped and let others deal with the world’s problems.

  “But no more,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “No more what?” Aelon snapped, his upper lip rising in a nasty sneer.

  Her grin widened as she stepped forward, pulling the small sword out, holding it up to him. He simply looked at it and laughed, pulling his own sword out and holding it up to her.

  His sword was positively massive, one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. It was long and white and glowing and made a sharp tzzing sound as he pulled it from his scabbard. The handle was intricately carved and there was a large purple gem that sat in the middle, just above where he held it in his hand. She had never seen anything so amazing, though it looked somehow familiar.

  She gasped and stepped back when she realized it looked similar to the two daggers her mother had gifted her.

  “No, it can’t be,” she whispered, staring at the incredible weapon that he held before her, ready to strike. The amethyst shone brightly in the sword’s hilt.

  “Oh, yes,” her uncle said, stepping forward.

  Rhea took two steps back away from him, her body shaking as her chest grew tighter. She let her weapon-wielding hand fall down to her side, her strength lost as she became barely capable of holding the weapon up.

  Aelon looked fondly down at the sword, tracing his finger around the large purple gem. “Now the world will be no match for me.”

  The amethyst of destiny.

  But Rhea knew the stone was a myth, he was just trying to deceive her, to strip away her confidence. He was playing tricks, she knew he was. That was exactly the type of person he was. When she accepted that fact, it gave her another wave of false confidence. She stepped forward, rolling her eyes.

  “Nice little stone you’ve got there, Uncle,” she said to him casually, mimicking his fake sweet voice.

  Her words seem to make him falter, as he himself took a step back, causing her smile to pull up wider on her small, delicate face.

  He then grew angry, his eyes stormy and his body seething. “How dare you speak to me like that,” he said. He lunged forward, raising the sword with two hands above him. It glowed faintly, and she did feel a strange energy radiating off of it. It must’ve been imbued magic, which made her pause.

  “I am the God King of the Otherworld, and you will bow down to me, you stupid little girl.”

  She glanced up at the weapon, terror filling her. The confidence she’d felt left her faster than the wind, leaving her nothing more than a trembling, weak child. She looked to her guardians, and her eyes brimmed with tears again. Her guardians were so weak, so battered and destroyed from what she assumed had been an entire night’s worth of torture. They could barely meet her gaze, but she could see in their eyes that they were defeated, broken.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to them.

  Her heart broke as she looked to them all in turn, wishing desperately that she knew where Grayson was. He would know what to do. He’d be able to come and smash through these walls and take out her uncle. She knew it.

  If these guys were so destroyed, though, her eyes flicking between Arry, Taelor, Roan, and Keaven, she suspected Grayson must not be in good shape, either. In fact, he was probably dead. That was likely why he wasn’t here.

  Rhea’s throat tightened at that realization. Turning back to her uncle, angrier than she’d ever been in her entire life, she screamed. She ran forward, slashing at him with her small sword.

  He took a step back, laughing, dodging her attacks easily. She swung the sword this way and that, barely even nicking his robes. He then swung his own sword down, and she screeched
and jumped aside. The blade barely missed the side of her face. She felt the wind move against her skin. If he had been an inch closer, he would have cut right through her flesh.

  Taelor’s training came back to her though, and she stayed light on her feet. “It’s in the stance, not in the muscle,” she repeated under her breath.

  “Stop talking to yourself, you crazy little brat,” her uncle snapped at her.

  The two of them must have looked quite the scene, dancing around each other. Two wildly contrasting people; one large and one small one, one regal in green and orange robes and the other in oversized clothes and rags in her hair. One wielded a massive beautiful weapon fit for a king, the other a small sword that looked little more than a steak knife.

  “Say goodbye to your little guardians, child,” her uncle sneered. “This will be last time you see them.”

  She fixed her eyes on him, refusing to look at her guardians in their cells.

  “You may take me out, uncle,” she said to him, spitting. Her body shook and her muscles were tense. She wanted nothing more than to destroy him, but she knew she didn’t have the power to do so. “You may kill me this day, but remember this. I am weak. I’ve been living in the human world for six years, and killing me will be no grand feat. It will be doing nothing more than killing a weak child, as you say. You will not go down in history for this. You will be the most hated man in the world for taking out someone much weaker and smaller than you.”

  Aelon rolled his eyes. “Oh, who gives a shit,” he snapped. “I’ve had just about enough of your whining. Prepare to die.”

  Rhea lunged forward suddenly, stabbing him in the stomach as she took him unaware. The sword penetrated through his robe and into flesh, sticking strangely as if she had shoved her sword through thick mud. He screeched and hopped back, and she pulled the sword out as blood dripped down the tip. It hadn’t been a fatal hit, but perhaps it would be enough to slow him. She smiled and accepted the win, dodging sideways as he swung his own weapon at her fiercely.

  They danced and fought like that for what felt like ages, until her body was so weak it took every ounce of strength to remain standing. She couldn’t hold her sword up and she let it fall to the ground, her hands raised in front of her face as if she were sparring. Her uncle circled her, and then finally had her cornered in the far side of the room. Her guardians watched in silence, waiting for the inevitable attack that would destroy her.

  Realization then dawned on her. She couldn’t be killed if her guardians were still alive. They shared her soul.

  She looked up to her uncle, confused, gazing back and forth between them. What would happen if he attacked her, stabbed her in the heart or cutting off her head? Would she still die? What would happen to her guardians? She had never thought of such things, and wondered how the whole system worked. She knew that in order for a god to be destroyed, her guardians had to be destroyed first. That’s what had happened to her mother.

  Or perhaps if she died, they would all die at the same time. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she pressed her back up against the corner of the stone wall, her uncle stepping up against her, his stature massive as he leaned into her face. She glanced down and caught a good glimpse of the sword, the intricate carvings over the handle positively luminescent beneath his ragged hands. It was the same beautifully-carved horn that graced the hilts of her mother’s daggers.

  The thought of her mother filled her with renewed determination. She had been strong, sacrificing herself so that her god could be killed. Rhea owed it to her to try and live. To do everything in her power to survive. Her mother had died for it, but Rhea didn’t know what she could do. She was cornered.

  Oh, how she wished she had those daggers. She would slice her uncle’s face into so many pieces and wipe that sneer right off of it. She couldn’t stop looking at the sword. The jewel that was set in the hilt glowed so brightly, casting its own light around them. It was beautiful and mesmerizing, and she couldn’t pull her eyes away.

  Her uncle cried loudly and raised the sword, and she cowered. This was it. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the attack, but as she heard a loud swoosh through the air as her uncle sliced the sword through the air, she felt it come up against her, hitting some sort of resistance, but the darkness and pain didn’t come.

  She heard her guardians gasp and her uncle shouted in rage as he flew backward and sprawled painfully on his back twenty feet away. The impact of the sword had sent him flying, and the sword dropped with a clang on the ground before her.

  Rhea opened her eyes, blinking. She felt her hands across her chest and face, but there was no gash. She wasn’t dead. She looked down at herself and she was hardly touched. She felt a bruise perhaps forming where the sword had hit, but she wasn’t cut. She was still in one piece.

  The sword had certainly hit her, and she could feel the pressure as the sharp sword sliced through, but it hadn’t left any markings.

  The sword hadn’t hurt her.

  It took a moment to gather her wits before she stepped forward and turned to her guardians, her eyes wide in shock.

  “Rhea,” Taelor gasped, his eyes flicking between her and the sword. “The gem,” he said.

  Rhea’s eyes settled again on the glowing amethyst. She looked back up to Taelor, her eyes wide. “No, it couldn’t be.”

  Taelor nodded slowly. All four guardians stared down at it, confused. She had no idea what had happened. Only Taelor seemed to fully grasp the situation. “It’s the amethyst of destiny.”

  Her uncle looked just as confused as she was, staring down at his sword, completely frozen in place. He remained sprawled on the ground, his body crushed from the impact, yet she remained untouched.

  “How,” he called to her, his expression flaring. He pushed himself up, wincing painfully, and stumbled forward toward the sword, but Rhea reached down and picked it up before he could.

  The sword filled her with strength. Unusual energy coiled up her arms as she held it up high before them all.

  Her uncle faltered and stepped back, looking afraid for the first time since their encounter.

  She could feel the magic of the sword, something about it slowly fueling her energy. She felt completely renewed, as if she were a different person. The magic that flowed through her was so strange and foreign, yet it felt familiar somehow. She closed her eyes and let it wash through her, binding and weaving in and out through her body, filling her with a renewed sense of determination and power.

  She felt she could do anything so long as she wielded this sword. When she opened her eyes, she turned her attention back to her guardians. They were looking at her with expressions of mixed awe and wonder. She felt light, and her hair even lifted as if gravity no longer existed around her.

  Rhea sprang toward the first cell, Arry’s. Raising the sword as high she could, she slashed down against the lock. The lock broke free with the loud clamor that was deafening in the cavernous space. The sword shook her at the impact, but the massive cell door swung open. Arry stumbled out, his body shaking, but as he fell from the cell, he wrapped his arms around Rhea and held her close.

  She wrapped her free hand around him, holding him tight, but then let him go to move to the next cell. She slammed the sword down again, this time freeing Keaven.

  He stepped out, and he too looked shaky, but smiled at her, placing a cold hand against her cheek, his eyes glinting and his smile soft. He nodded to her. “Great work, Rhea.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears as her uncle simply stood there staring at her, seething with rage as he remained frozen in place. She eyed him momentarily, but turned her attention back to the third cell where Roan lay collapsed in the back corner. She raised the sword yet again and slashed down, this time running into the cell when the door opened. She shook Roan awake.

  He came to with a start, and jumped up to his feet staring at her with wild animal eyes, ready to attack. When his vision registered who she was, they softened and he reached his ma
ssive arms around her and held her in a tight hug. He was burning hot, his eyes raging like a wild animal. “I’m so glad to see you, kid,” he said, then pulled her close again and planted a wet kiss on her cheek.

  She let out a laugh as she pulled herself away from him, making her way to the fourth cell where Taelor stood, his arm much more broken than she’d originally thought now that she took a closer look at it.

  She slashed his cell open, and as the door swung he stepped forward, placing himself between her and her uncle. The rest of the guardians joined him, forming a barrier between Aelon and Rhea.

  Rhea placed her hand against Taelor’s back, but he raised his unbroken free hand to silence her. They were all in such terrible condition, hardly able to remain vertical, yet they still stood before her in an attempt to protect her from her uncle. She had a feeling they were the ones needing protection, though. The sword buzzed in her grip and she stepped around them, silencing them with a harsh glance as she approached her uncle.

  “How is it that the sword didn’t hurt you?” Aelon asked, his eyes narrowing in on the weapon. He looked afraid, confused, his face growing redder by the second.

  Rhea inspected the sword closely and shrugged, turning it side to side. “I don’t know. Luck, I guess?”

  She smiled at him as she took another step forward. Her uncle took two steps back. Arry snickered behind her.

  “Perhaps the magic is not capable of hurting anyone.” He stood taller, squaring his shoulders bravely toward her. “I dare you to hit me,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  Rhea took another step, suddenly unsure of herself. If it hadn’t hurt her, surely she had no hope of hurting him with it. Maybe the sword was spelled so that it couldn’t be used as a weapon. Perhaps it was merely an artifact of magic, not meant to be used in violence.

  She stood there tentatively, glaring at her uncle. She wanted to slice it through him, but something stopped her. Extending the sharp tip forward, she reached the sword to her uncle’s finger and sliced along the edge before he could pull back. Blood welled up and fell to the ground in tiny drops. He recoiled his hand back in shock.