Page 32 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

"Where is she?" I screamed.

Renna raced towards me, a long gash down the side of her purple neck and shoulder. A souvenir from emptying Cronus’s prisons, from taking that power from him. "Haley's at the front with the rest of your guys."

My pregnant mate was at the front of the army. The first in line to clash with Cronus.

The drums grew louder. I flinched with each one.

"Tell them to stop," I commanded gutturally.

Renna gave me a sympathetic look. "The drums mean it's already begun. Wane will already be bringing down the building."

I clenched my teeth, rage pouring through me like boiling acid. I hated the plan and hated that it would put Haley and Wane in the heart of the conflict. It had seemed dangerous before, but there’d been no convincing Haley to stay out of the fight, and it had seemed possible, survivable, if we were by her side.

Now the idea of pissing off Cronus by dismantling one of his shiny new buildings made me sick. We didn't even know if Wane could do it, but Cronus would be livid if we succeeded—and even more so when Wane replaced it with his own shadow creation. Nausea sloshed through me. My pregnant mate was down there, the very first place Cronus would strike in his rage.

He was a maniac with limitless power and endless reach. I’d lose them both.

"It's too late to stop," Renna said, seeming to realise the horror I was struggling to conceal. "I'm sorry, Wynvail."

Fuck that. Fuck it being too late. Until the breath stopped in my lungs, it wouldn’t be too late.

I shook my head and tore away from her, plunging into another bright slash of magic, carrying myself further and further to the front.

When Cronus emerged, furious about Wane's show of power, the next part of Queen Lili's plan was simple; everyone would attack him to split his focus, and Haley would take her dagger and slice open Cronus's stomach, freeing all the gods he’d devoured.

My mate would be fighting a titan. My pregnant mate.

I raced faster through my moonlight magic, praying I could reach her in time, but knowing, as the drums roared louder, faster, I would be too late.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HALWEN

Sacrifices, thefts, and gifts bestowed

When archdemon's final seeds are sowed

Those were the lines of the prophecy repeating in my head over and over as I marched on the front lines of an army, feeling thoroughly out of place among demon warriors, angel soldiers, and gods who burned with grudges against Cronus. I was a criminal, a killer and a thief, not a soldier.

I dug through the pack Wyn prepared before we left, and clenched my teeth as I found the smooth bone edge of the hair pin. My toes curled in my boots, my eyes blown wide, and I tasted lightning and power, fire and ice. But I could endure this. If it would take Cronus down, once and for all, I could endure this. I tucked the pin under my leather armour, pressed to my skin at my waistband, and the constant connection, the deluge and endless storm of power seared itself right to my nostril hair.1

Sacrifices, thefts, and gifts bestowed. I knew what it meant, knew what Erebus had told me in the vision in the forest by our new house. It was power—every element. Sacrificed magic, stolen magic, and gifted magic. Inherited magic, passed down through my family line and through the—the baby's father's line.

I didn't know the extent of the magic I possessed yet, the magic I could only access because of the life growing inside me, but I knew it was a damn sight more than just a snippet of time magic and Wane's shadow.

It would be enough to kill Cronus. Wouldn't it?

I swallowed the knot in my throat as we marched closer to the wreckage of the once-beautiful building. Its pale dome was now cracked and lay discarded on the ground, in the middle of a pile of ashes and rubble that reminded me too much of Olympus in the moments before I drove my dagger into myself.

The dagger he stole.

"I'm here to get it back, asshole," I said under my breath and hoped he heard me.

I had so much rage, so much emotion brewing inside me that it drove out any common sense, any self-preservation instincts. I wanted to fight and punch and stab and bleed and scream. Nothing else mattered.

I realised now, as we marched down the broad avenue, that the mask I'd been wearing all week was for one person—Verena. But Verena was safe, and she wasn't here, so the mask ripped itself off to show the rotting, howling, broken thing underneath. And that thing wanted everyone else to be in as much pain as she was. It wanted Cronus and his henchmen to suffer most of all.

"Hales," Emlyn murmured beside me, armour rattling as he reached across to set a hand on the small of my back. "Calm down."

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