Page 49 of Shadow Fall: Part Two

We’ll make it count. We’ll make him pay.

I signalled to Lili with three fingers, then two, and I shot up off the ground on one, ploughing my wings through the air. My breath caught when colours rippled along my feathers, magic propelling me faster than I’d ever flown, giving me strength I’d never known. I strangled the hope that wanted to form, but I couldn’t forget Erebus’s words. Use your power, Halwen. All of it, every kind that lives inside you.

Every flicker of colour was a different power, my own and my mates’ magic somehow working in harmony. None of it made sense, but name one thing that had made sense since I came back from the dead.1

Another boom of my wings and I was within range, close enough to see the flash of delight in Cronus’s eyes. He was having fun, enjoying us fighting, giving everything, and losing.

Yeah, well, now it’s your turn to lose, asshole.

I pinched the metal star between my thumb and finger, letting rage pour through me and push that core of fire higher. My blood pounded as sparks of orange, purple, and silver leapt from my wings onto the star, encircling every spike and wicked edge. I didn’t have time to glance down at Lili, to see if she was ready to spring whatever trap she had planned. I flicked my wrist and sent the star flying, praying, my breath held, that it—

The star drove into Cronus’s right eyeball, and blood and goop spilled down his furious face. Alright fucker, say bye-bye to your other eye. It was faster to light the second star, my magic eager and hungry. Quicker still to send it flying into his left eye. Lili’s victory cry was so loud I heard it in the air.

I glanced down and my breath shattered when I saw Cronus’s massive shadow hand rising. Time to get out of here. I pumped my wings and angled hard, escaping the reach of his hands by a hairsbreadth. A ripple moved over my body, making hairs stand on end. Magic.

I braced for pain, for his cruel blue threads to wrap around me, bite into skin and bone, and trick me into another timeline. Instead, violent fire roared up from the ground in a five-foot wall that wrapped all the way around the titan. Like he was a demon trapped in an old-school summoning circle. My heart skipped.

I wasn’t sure what putting him in a burning circle did, but Lili was the one with the all-seeing halo and I wasn’t about to question her. I said the last few lines of the prophecy under my breath, desperate for instructions.

King's final stand, titan's last breath, a hellborn angel will deliver death. Gods and mortals and titans all, will bring the end at shadow fall.

How? How did I deliver death, and make his next breath his last?

Runes covered my body, the same symbols that made up the prophecy shining as crimson as blood, but what use were they when I didn’t know how to kill Cronus? We were so fucking stupid, trying to fight him, kill him, when nothing had changed.

No, that wasn’t true. Something had changed. Now we had so much more to lose.

Don’t think about it.

The loss was too raw to let those thoughts devour my focus. One false slip and Cronus would kill me for good this time.

I beat my wings, flying out of Cronus’s reach and not quite able to stop staring at the sparks of colour that flew from each of my feathers, like even my wings were magic. I drew another knife, a small weighted one suitable for throwing, and the moment it erupted with flickering magic I buried it in the titan’s throat.

How did I make him draw his last breath? Crush his lungs?

I thrust my arm out in front of myself, hovering in place, and crooked an inner finger at the pit of magic inside me. Shit! Magic blast from my palm so powerfully that I was knocked back through the air, only instinct angling my wings to keep me adrift. I could have sworn I heard a roar in the distance, could have sworn it was Emlyn’s voice, and for a split second I was back in Olympus, my own dagger buried in my gut.

Cronus’s low, whispering laugh drew me back to the present, and I watched his shadow face split, laughter pouring from his empty maw as he lifted his hand and caught the pulse of magic in his enormous grip.

Motherfucker.

Pain hit me like a dagger when he crushed my magic out of existence, and a grunt forced through my clenched teeth. My empty hand shot to my chest where shards of pain carved through my flesh, my bones, my blood. Fuck, it hurt. I panted, baring my sharp teeth at his shadowy face as I reached for my power again. My nostrils flared at the splinters of damage in my magic, but that wouldn’t stop me.

His mouth still split in that horrible grin, Cronus took a step like he meant to pluck me from the air. Maybe pluck my wings like a bird he’d caught and planned on roasting on a spit. But his huge, black foot landed in the ring of flame Lili had formed around him and a harrowing cry pierced the air. It stabbed my ear drums, sending me careening back through the air until I shook off the vertigo.2

On the ground, Lili laughed. Right. All going according to her master plan. Time to put my own plan into action.3 I needed all the magic inside me, needed every last drop. He was weak, I reminded myself. Everything we’d done up to this point had weakened him. I could still see the hairline fracture across his stomach where I’d hewn him open. I just had to press the advantage, bring him down to our level, and achieve the impossible. Kill him.

“Now!” Lili screamed from below, surging into the air with a blast of air from her black wings.

“Now, what?” I yelled, but I sank into that pit of ashes and jewelled flame, and—screamed as power blast from me like the mushroom cloud of an atom bomb. It blew my hair back from my face, sent me whirling through the air, and shuddered through every cell of my body like the bone pin’s magic—but this magic overflowed with euphoria and strength, not nerve-searing pain. A smile pulled at my lips. This magic felt good. Limitless. Ready.

I could have sworn the darkness that wound through the pink and primrose and smoke hues of my magic pulsed in encouragement. Yes, it said, this, finally.

Lili’s dark, rumbling laugh was the only warning I was given before the ring of fire snapped shut around Cronus and rose to his knees, locking him in place. Another ear-splitting shriek left his slash of a mouth, and he whirled his hands through the air in a clumsy attempt to knock us both out of the air.

I sank back into the pit of gleaming fire and thrust both my palm and dagger in front of me, jerking my knife in a sharp line. I could barely breathe when the stream of rainbow power opened a vicious wound from his shoulder to his opposite hip. Not deep enough to flay him open, but enough to give me hope.

I cut him. I fucking did it.

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