Page 50 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

Red light blazed from the sigils all over my body as I blasted Cronus with stream after fireball after whip of magic, all my mates’ powers and mine tangled up with others I didn’t recognise, and the real kick in the titan’s teeth—his own magic.

I sank threads of blue time magic through the cuts I opened in his body until his movements turned sluggish.

Enjoy the bitter taste of your own medicine, cocksucker.4

Screams came from across the field, and my soul went wild at the frantic volume of their urgency, but I couldn’t look away from Cronus. We were on a knife’s edge, so close to ending this. At his back, Lili hit him with so much fire that I feared for my eyebrows, and at his front I kept up a relentless pace, plunging into the pit of bright magic over and over.

His knee buckled, and my heart faltered with it.

Please. Gods, please.

When his mouth opened next, his shadow face splitting from edge to edge, it wasn’t a shriek that poured out but his voice, awful and deafening and as deep as the ocean.

Don’t you want to know what I learned from Gauvan? He asked, his voice invading my skull with violent pressure. Blood tickled my ears as it dripped down my neck.

I shook my head hard, trying to push him out. Rage gave my magic an extra kick; I caught my breath when magic roared out of me in a dozen different shades of colour. It hit Cronus hard enough to knock him onto both knees, but his low laugh never stopped.

He told me all about the things he did to those boys, the way they used to cry and plead with him to stop.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” I snarled, Lili’s inferno exploding in my vision, blocking out everything except vivid orange flame and fierce power for a moment.

He loved it when they cried, when they stopped begging and accepted what he did to them. The silent tears were his favourite.

“Shut up!” I screamed, horror like a sickness in my soul. I shut it down, slammed down a solid wall so it didn’t reach my mates, and slashed more magic at Cronus, so livid I couldn’t breathe.

The flare of my power was so bright it blinded me for a second. That moment was all it took for Cronus to fling his hand towards me. I expected him to bat me out of the air, to grab me and crush my bones to ash, but it was a net of electric blue power that snapped around me. The threads of magic criss-crossed over and over, the ends reaching towards each other, enclosing me.

No, no, no.

I slashed with my dagger, a sharp breath catching in my throat. My blade went through the time magic but did nothing to stop it. Outside, all movement ceased. The violent roar of the battle fell to silence. Even Lili’s shouts faded to whispers as she flew higher and higher, calling up the ring of power she had around Cronus.

Please not again, I pleaded with the universe as the net bit into my skin. I couldn’t handle another fake timeline, wouldn’t survive another dream come true if it was going to break my heart when I realised none of it was real.

The few wisps of shadow wrapped around my dagger pulsed, ebbing and flowing amid the bright jewel tones of the other magics. My bottom lip wobbled.

“Busty…?” I asked, my lips numb and slow. The shadows danced higher, slashing the air like the furious limbs of an octopus. A smile curled my lips in slow motion. I heard his lecture even if he couldn’t speak to me like this. No doubt it would be droning, insightful, and annoying.

Don’t give up. That’s what he’d tell me, only with extra fancy words and passive aggressive allegories. You’re so close to winning, don’t give up.

I exhaled a hard breath and let myself fall into the pit inside me, deeper than before, deeper than I thought possible. Oh holy shi—

My mouth tore open on a scream as a cataclysm of power blew from my body. This was—impossible. This couldn’t be mine. I didn’t have this level of power. This was god level. It shuddered down my wings, bled colours from my eyes, and the net shuddered around me.

It rippled and twisted but did not break. One of the threads snagged my wrist, and I hissed as my arm was snapped close to my side, my dagger pointed down.

“Bastard,” I spat, grabbing my knife in my left hand instead, driving it up—where a thread snagged my arm, pinning it against the net, my knife useless.

A scream formed, a roar of frustration and sheer, defiant refusal to lose, to die at this bastard’s hands again.

Never fucking again.

I threw myself deeper into the pit of magic and gasped at the volatile wave of power that surged through me. Cronus laughed. I gritted my teeth.

Those poor boys, he taunted, unable to escape for so long. Locked in the dark, screaming themselves hoarse, crying for help that would never come. He sneered, Pathetic. They should have died decades ago.

I thrashed, struggling against the net, so furious that magic blasted from me without my conscious decision. It wasn’t enough. All the magic I had, every last bit, even now it wasn’t enough.

“I’m going to fucking end you,” I snarled.

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