Page 161 of Crown of Olympus
I could not stop this.
He raised a shaking hand to my cheek.
I felt the thread between us fraying, one tendril at a time. His heart slowed beneath my fingers, and his lungs stuttered with every laboured breath.
“Night…shade…” Caelus sputtered, more ichor coating his tongue.
“No!”
Tears flowed down my cheeks, falling onto his torso, mingling with the gilded blood of a god.
My powers over death stirred, and I knew, deep down in mysoul, that this was a goodbye of the permanent kind. And, like my father, this was a farewell I would never recover from.
His soul brushed tenderly against mine one final time. Then it retreated down the almost entirely frayed thread of fate.
“I love…” Caelus’ voice trailed off as his hand dropped from my face with a lifeless thud.
His eyes stared blankly; the swirling had ceased completely.
I cried out as the thread snapped with a painfultwang, releasing its hold on my sternum, and I knew he was gone.
Caelus was dead.
CHAPTER 46
Nyssa
He was dead.
“NO!” I screamed, my powers exploding outwards — agony tearing me apart. I longed to destroy it all: the crowns, the realms, fate itself. I longed to shatter it, burn it, tear it all apart.
Little one,Velira said softly.
My soul had been cleaved in two. My chest felt empty. My heartbeat raged, then stuttered, then raged again.
I tore the dagger from Caelus’ chest and launched it at the murderous bitch as hard as I could. It impaled Hera’s left shoulder. Her mouth dropped open in a scream — but I couldn’t hear it through the roar of my grief.
Little one, Velira said again, firmer.
Dimly, I registered Charon’s arms around my waist — holding me back, or holding me up. I neither knew nor cared which.
All that mattered was the man before me, growing colder by the second, his eyes still locked onto my face. I threw myself over his body while it was still here, sobbing harder than I ever had before.
How could we have had so little andlost so much? How were we allowed only atasteof possibility, of promise, of devotion — only to have it ripped away before it ever really began?
I never even told him I loved him,I wept to my grieving beast.
Little one, she said more forcefully.Find him. Bring him back. Quickly!
It took a moment for her words to pierce the haze of anguish.
Bring him back?
I have suspected for some time… never mind. Just bring his soul back to his body before it fades.
With devastation still clawing at my heart, I did as the dragon suggested. I sent a second wave of power out in a burst, capturing and clutching onto any soul within the vicinity.
And somehow — surely by fate’s design — I found it: the quickly disappearing soul of the man I loved on his way to the River.
