Page 138 of The Nightshade God
Whatever it was, it had wings.
Fuck.
“Well,” he said, his voice hoarse in his dry throat. “I think we found Apollius.”
CHAPTER FORTY
GABE
I sing of Hestraon, god of fire and forge, whose every feeling burned.
—Auverrani hymn, outlawed in 2 AGF
Gabe burned and burned and burned. Seeing that shape, white wings that spanned the whole of the island below, made Hestraon surge forward in his head, a storm of sorrow and longing and deep anger.
That’s Him, Hestraon said in Gabe’s skull, echoing like the hiss of flame.That’s Him.
He let loose another gout of fire, roaring, heedless of Bastian’s voice yelling at him to stop. The dead were still coming, still climbing up from the depths to attack Caldienan and Kirythean and Auverrani alike, but those ships were well behind them now, left in their wind-sped wake.
Up ahead, the Burnt Isles.
It was strange to pass them, these islands that had been talked of like one of the myriad hells for as long as Gabe could remember. The two closest ones, first, where the mines were, carving out the riches that Apollius and Nyxara had rained on the earth asThey tried to kill each other so long ago. They were near enough to the shore to see people on it, a horde of inmates that looked nearly as numerous as the dead, staring at them, shouting, trying to figure out what was happening. He wondered, idly, how many of the dead in the sea had been prisoners first.
Then they were past the prison islands, urged to impossible speed by Alie’s winds. They skipped past beaches that had been hidden in ash for five hundred years. Another with people on the shore, all dressed in the same pale fabric, half of them staring at the passing ship and the battle on the horizon, the other half looking fearfully up into the sky, to the god hovering there, white wings and gold and horrible light. More islands, uninhabited, burned out and dead.
And finally, the Golden Mount.
Alie’s now-gentling winds pulled them right to the beach where he’d slept with Lore, the same sands he’d kissed her on. The trees were just as dried out as on any of the other islands, but the sand was pristine in the shadow of the looming mountain. The shadow of those wings.
Gabe didn’t wait for the gangplank. He jumped off the side of the ship, his knees protesting the landing, but he barely felt the pain. “Malcolm, I need that piece.”
“Wait, Gabriel.” Bastian, jumping after him. “We have to—”
“He’s up there,” Gabe snarled, throwing his hand in the air, to the shining winged thing that could only be Apollius. “He’s up there, and He’s done something to Lore, and He possessed you. I am going to make Him pay for it.”
“I’m on board with that,” Bastian snarled back, “but we have to have aplan.”
Apparently, all of them were forgoing the gangplank; Alie climbed down, dazed from channeling so much magic. There was a strange ghostliness about her hands, making them almost translucent. Lilia was behind her, and Val and Mari had alreadyjumped into the surf, eyeing the god in the sky with expressions that vacillated between curiosity and awe and terror.
Malcolm clambered to the beach behind Bastian, the piece in his hand. He hissed as if it burned his fingers. “I assume the Fount is probably exactly where He is? Because of course It would be.”
Lilia’s eyes narrowed at the sky, her face blanched in fear and resignation. The resignation seemed odd to Gabe, but not enough to make him stop and consider it. He grabbed the shard from Malcolm, his hand going numb to the elbow. That only made him hold it tighter as he whirled toward Alie. “Give me the other one.”
But she was eyeing the god hanging above them with nearly the same trepidation as Lilia, a more personal kind of horror seeping into her expression. “Gabe, shouldn’t we—”
“Give it to me.” His voice crackled like kindling. The flames at the corners of his vision were constant, an endless flicker distorting everything.
The Fount piece shone in Alie’s hand, retrieved from a pocket, bright against the copper-brown of her skin. She turned it nervously. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
“He won’t,” Bastian said, at the same time that Gabe said, “I won’t let any of you get hurt.”
They looked at each other, brows lowered in twin expressions of wariness. Bastian would stay here. Apollius had hurt him enough. Gabe would fight tooth and claw before he gave the motherfucker another opportunity.
Even if it meant he had to fight Bastian first.
And it looked like Bastian knew it. His dark eyes went flinty, something in them calcifying. “My love,” he said quietly, “don’t make me do that.”
Gabe said nothing, still holding his hand out for Alie’s shard.
