Page 91 of Invoking Ruin

How terribly boring.

No, not a hero, I promise myself. Just a selfish goddess who wants to keep her god safe.

And her horse.

The rest of them are just getting lucky.

Each passing layer makes the crack in the sky grow. It’s so much more massive than it appears from Olympus. The target inside of it starts looking more and more impossible to hit.

Clawing fear tightens its grip on my chest. How did I think I could do this? The sword is heavy and unwieldy already. My arms ache from carrying it two-handed. How did I think I could manage to get this through Nyx’s neck? More likely, I’ll pass right by her and slip straight into non-existence.

Lethe was right. I should have told the others my plan and let them handle it. All I have is the certainty I’ll find Nyx in the center of this mess.

I’ll feel like a complete idiot if I’m wrong.

The crack grows so large, it becomes all I can see. I pause, hovering before it.

Fierce, strong wind tugs at my hair, my clothes, pulling me closer and closer. The Void is sucking the very Aether out of existence.

My stomach dips. If I retch right here, will it fall? Or will the Void have that, too?

Better not find out.

I scan the Void. Nyx was already nothing but darkness, so she has considerable natural camoflauge. The chances of finding her are slim, like a needle in a haystack. On a moonless night.

Noble impulses are so stupid. To think, other gods have these kinds of thoughts all the time.

The Void nips at me, and I take a couple steps back to fight it. The wings are pumping hard to keep me still, but it’s a fight we’ll eventually lose.

I don’t have much time, and I can’t turn back. It’s too late now. I just need to spot her. I keep scanning the blackness. She has to be here somewhere.

She simply has to be.

There. Right at the center, a shimmer, barely visible—like a fold in black blanket—but it’s enough to aim towards.

I fly higher, drawing closer to nothingness, and the outline of a figure curled in on itself emerges.

“There you are,” I whisper.

Nyx, or what’s left of her, grows clearer and clearer as I ascend. She’s made herself hard to strike, wrapping herself around the knife protruding from her belly, as though to protect it to the bitter end.

I’m going to die up here. The Void is pulling harder, faster, my skirt whipping in the wind.

I wish I felt less afraid, and more like some noble hero making some grand sacrifice, but I don’t. I’m a villain. The only soul I care about is Dionysus. Ok, and Pegasus.

If we could have survived the end of the world, I wouldn’t be up here. The rest can all fend for themselves. I’d have run away with him.

But I can’t run from this.

I’ll do anything to make sure he lives.

My hand trembles, and I tighten my grip on the sword.

I should have spent the last few centuries doing some rudimentary combat training. Then I wouldn’t be so inadequate. My grandmother’s words return to me:

You’re a scavenger, an opportunist, and you know better than anyone when you’re beaten.

Well, I am an opportunist and a scavenger, that part was correct, but I’m not beaten. I’ll never get a better chance to right my wrongs than the one directly before me.

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