Page 33 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

"I am calm," I replied, my tongue burning with the bone pin's power. But I heard it in my voice—the need to draw blood, the hunger to cause pain.

Was there any difference between me and Lili now? Would we both be bathed in blood and rage by the end of the day?

She marched at the heart of the front line, a beacon of power with golden light shining around her brow—the halo, murmurs went through the ranks. Another legendary power. But was that what I'd seen shining that day in Olympus, when we lost?

The bloodlust boiling through me wouldn't even entertain loss. We would be victorious. He would die.

"Where is he?" Harvey demanded, staring at the wreckage of the Capitol building.

"He's still in there," a woman answered from the line behind us. I peered back to see a rosy woman with long, dark hair threaded with silver, and gleaming eyes that held an otherworldly power. I quickly looked away, even my violence not wanting to cross the woman. The goddess? Titan? I couldn't tell at this point.

"Why does my magic pull me to you?" Harvey asked, his mouth twisted with annoyance and distrust.

The woman laughed softly. "Because your magic is bitter sunlight, Harveil, and I am Eos, goddess of the dawn."

"Well," he said, facing the road again—and the Capitol which was now so close we crossed onto the long path that led to its collapsed doors. "Shit."

"I’ll strike and blind Cronus's left eye. His right eye is yours," the woman said, something annoyingly flirtatious in her tone.

I walked across smooth bricks, trusting Em on my left and Kai on my right to keep me moving and not let me fall as I twisted to face the woman, the goddess. "Do you know what this dagger is called?" I asked conversationally, pulling my knife an inch out of its sheath.

Light rippled through her eyes. "I do."

I smiled, letting my insanity and hunger for blood show. "Good."

I faced the front again, my message delivered. Judging by the sudden tension in the soldiers around us, we were in the midst of yet more gods. And I just made them all afraid of me. My smile widened; I ignored Em's worried glance and followed the march of the crowd.

My heart beat harder, exhilarated and terrified all at once. There was a heartbeat all its own in this army, and I knew the three companies approaching from the other compass points would have their own heartbeats, too: a loud mix of thumping footsteps, creaking leather, and those ever-present drums. If this heartbeat could speak, it would chant kill him, kill him, kill him.

"Halt," Lili yelled, her voice brutal and cold.

Ahead of us, the drummers stopped dead, flanked by twin pools of ashen water, debris and chunks of pale thrusting out from the pools like broken teeth. I sucked in a breath, an arrow of fear making it through my craving for violence. That was the signal; the drums had stopped.

"Fuck," Harvey breathed beside Kai. I felt the tremor though his soul, felt his doubts, his desire to run. It was too late to run.

My pulse fluttered in my neck as I waited three seconds, five, seven, ten—there!

Cronus had left the shattered Capitol building as a symbol of his power and might, but all around it gleaming buildings thrust from the ground like knives of obsidian, catching the pale light from the storm gathering overhead and trapping it in the dark stone. Dark shadow. I couldn't forget that these were built with stolen shadows. With Wane's shadow. A single swath, cut from him.

A smile stretched across my mouth, hooking deeper as I watched the sharp knife of a building to our left shudder.

"It's coming down," Kai breathed, surprised.

Did he really think Wane couldn't do it, when he possessed a hundred shadows, a thousand? Cronus had done this with a single shadow. Wane could subjugate the entire known universe if he wanted—not just Earth but Olympus, Heaven, Hell, and every realm in the underworld. It could all be his. The universe should be glad he wasn't hungry for power. I wouldn't have been so kind after the way it had treated us.

"Got it," Wane breathed beside Emlyn. I felt his excitement, his electric glee as the building lost its form all at once, collapsing into smoke and shadow. Dark, sinister satisfaction curled through Wane's soul, and I peered down the line at him, not recognising the cruelty on his face or the wicked smile. If anyone deserved revenge, if anyone deserved to make their abuser suffer, it was Wane.

"Another," I urged him, and held his stare when he glanced at me, his eyes full black. I must have looked similar with the bone pin's power ravaging me. "You're fucking incredible, Wane."

His throat bobbed. His smile softened, just slightly.

"Don't push too hard," Harvey warned, but I shook my head.

"He could remake the whole world if he wanted to," I murmured, remembering Erebus's warning that Cronus wanted just that. I smirked. If you want it, come and get it, fucker.

And he would. I knew he would; he was greedy and covetous, and he wanted Wane's raw, malleable magic more than anything.

"Ready," Lili yelled from the centre of the line. I tensed, an equal dose of nerves and thrill shivering through me. I stared at the dark, ominous buildings all around us, my heart swelling with pride and something deep and unnameable when, one by one, they collapsed into smoky shadows. No longer anything but the rubble Cronus had made the city of Washington, DC.

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