Page 62 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

Cronus’s eyes narrowed as I drove him across the room, pushing him back step by step, flame by flame. There was a never-ending supply of it within me, and by the flaring of his nostrils he knew it too. He was livid, murderous, but there was no hiding the unease that rippled through his eyes as I drove him out of the living room, through a door that gaped open, and into a hallway papered with expensive forest green patterns—a jungle of lush leaves, trees, and exotic animals. I swore I saw a toucan move but I narrowed my eyes on Cronus and ignored it.

He never took his eyes off me either. “Do you really think you’ll win against me?”

“I know I will,” I replied, hitting him with another blast, so hot that it sent ripples through the air and blew my hair back off my face.

Cronus knocked it aside and laughed, a soft whisper that scared me more than any loud rumble. “Wane fought me for a hundred years and never won, and you think you can fight me for a scant number of weeks and triumph?”

“Yup.” I whipped my knife through the air, discharging a blazing line of fire that he annoyingly sidestepped. The bundle of rags he’d tricked me into thinking was Kaida had vanished, proving he was just fucking with my head.

He walked backward, uncaring that the hallway dead-ended a few feet away. His eyes fixed on me with deep, seething hatred.2 “I broke Wane apart piece by pathetic piece, until I saw his inner workings. And do you know what I found?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” I hissed, jumping when movement blurred down the wall to my left. A capuchin monkey leapt from tree to tree in the wallpaper. I slammed my shield into it, leaving a scorch mark before it could attack me, and swallowed my guilt. Sure, it was an illusion, but I still felt bad for hurting an animal.

“There is nothing at all remarkable about that runt you call a mate,” Cronus laughed, his face twisted in jealousy he couldn’t quite hide. He was still glaring at me, walking backwards, unwilling to look away. “He bleeds like any demon, screams like any prey, and begs for mercy like anyone given the right leverage.”

“He’s remarkable to me, you piece of shit,” I hissed, my next pulse of magic blowing me back three steps with its power. I needed more space, needed somewhere I could release this maelstrom of magic and fury without bringing a fucking house down on myself.

“I suppose the one remarkable thing about him is that he never broke.” Cronus’s next smile made my stomach curdle. “Until he sensed you, of course. Then he folded like a house of cards.”

Horror made my stomach roil. I’d suspected as much, but hearing it laid out like praise by the monster who tortured my mate was a whole other thing. I curled my hands into tight fists around my shield and dagger, only the knowledge that I would miscarry if I brought the house down holding the wave of lethal power at bay.

The green carpet blackened beneath me as I took an enraged step, then another, then another. Cronus laughed, but I saw his fear. I brought both my dagger and shield around and slammed the blade into the disc of magic. There was no noise, but a storm of flame exploded down the hallway, burning everything it touched, curling the wallpaper until its creatures screamed. The carpet melted to a river of fire that should have burned me but only caressed. Ruby, sapphire, silver, and rose rushed around my boots and towered higher, flames forming an arch around me.

Cronus stumbled back. I was so surprised to see him stumble that I nearly dropped my dagger, but his falter gave me enough time to rush across the hallway on a wave of furious magic and drive my dagger at his throat, intending to cleave his head clean off his shoulders.

Metal rang.

My blood sang a moment before I saw what he’d used to counter my blow—my second volcanic dagger. A grin pulled at my cheeks. There you are, my soul seemed to sing, like the knives had become part of me.

“You truly think you can win,” Cronus laughed, scraping the knife in his hand against mine until the wavy blades locked. Stalemate. “I reached into your mate’s chest and ripped out his heart. I burned my magic into his soul. I stole his darkness. I am the great titan who leashed a child of Erebus. And you, child of nothing, think you can beat me?”

“Child of nothing,” I breathed, locking eyes with him, the two of us terrifyingly close. “And here I thought I was a descendant of Ares, and Rhea, and you. If I’m nothing, so are you.”

“Do you think the life I showed you is the first time I’ve played games with Wane’s mind?” He smirked even as I drove him back, slamming my shield into his stomach. “I’ve showed him a thousand lifetimes, and I’ve ripped every thread of happiness from him—every single time.”

He did that to Wane. My Wane.

I sucked in a painful breath, my eyes burning. It was enough for Cronus to shove me back, to rip his knife away from mine. But the dagger vibrated in my hand, resonating with the one in his, pulling like a magnet. Like Cronus felt it too, his words grew sharper, hitting my bruised soul.

“Wane killed you in each lifetime,” he gloated. “He killed you, and his brother, and those other mates of yours. And if you had children, he killed those too. A hundred years I had him, but he lived thousands of lives, broken in the dark of that room, ever bleeding, ever suffering. A killer.”

Killer. God-killer. I glanced at the knife in my hand.

I shook my head hard, flinging tears off my cheeks, my throat so tight that my words were guttural. “You will pay. You will die.” They were the words of the Fury, the decree, his sentence. His crimes had been weighed, his punishment set, and justice would be done.

He was trying to break me. And it was working. The thought of Wane being cut apart and physically tortured for a hundred years had killed me, but this? No wonder he wouldn’t speak about what happened in that prison. No wonder he was so terrified that I’d find out.

You will pay. You will die.

Kill him.

I sank down, down into the pit of my power, deeper than I’d been before, and bathed myself in its bright, limitless magic as I repeated the words. Kill him.

I flexed my hand and the shield unravelled itself from existence. Flexed it again and my second blade shot out of Cronus’s hand and into my palm. I wrapped my fingers around the pink hilt, breathing fast, half of me there in that burned corridor facing the titan, half of me submerged in so much magic that I couldn’t breathe.

Kill him. Help me kill him.

Erebus said I had something Cronus would never have, said my magic was pure and raw enough to do anything, that it could be anything.

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