Page 101 of Godsbane
Fire engulfs the bolt as I yank fruitlessly on the unyielding chain. I reach inward for my power to find the seedling of magic slowly spreading. It’s still not enough to wield. I need more time.
Mark’s maniacal laugh resounds through the throne room as I writhe on the ground to escape the encroaching flames. His eyes sparkle as his words hit, words that don’t have their intended sting.
I may never have had a say in my fate’s connection to Cal’s, but I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that what I feel for him is real. And I’m ready to make my choice.
“Wield it!” he screams at Cal, kicking him again and again as the captain’s body curls inward.
Circling him, Marks flexes his power, sucking the air from the room once more. He’s so consumed with inflicting pain on Cal that he doesn’t realize the fire banks at the loss of oxygen, buying me precious seconds to grow my seedling of magic.
The Wolf God runs the blade’s edge up the backs of Cal’s legs, blood pouring onto the white stone floors. I expect to hear Cal’s hoarse scream, but it doesn’t come. I see every ounce of the pain etched into his gray eyes, but his face remains stoic.
My heart cracks at the sight of him: a man who is no stranger to being on the receiving end of this kind of torture.
“Such a shame. Something as meaningless as the mortal realm shouldn’t stifle the infinite power of the Prince of the Gods. You’re weak, just like your father.”
The storm cloud eyes of the Prince of the Gods search mine from across the floor. But they don’t find shock or hurt or anger looking back at them in light of this revelation. My mother gave me his true identity days ago.
“Nobus thought sending me here would weaken me, but the only weakness here is you.” I watch helplessly as Marks continues kicking, his boot now coated in his nephew’s blood.
Cal’s pain radiates throughout the throne room, ricocheting off the walls and piercing my dying soul. Pain that began twenty-six years ago when my mother helped kidnap him, when he was stolen in the night and taken to the human realm to live out his days, never to see his parents again.
The Prince of the Gods, fate-bound to me. A god who could have chosen to hate me for what my mother helped his family do but instead chose to love me. Not for what my magic could do, but for who I am in spite of myself.
The seedling of power within me spreads.
Marks loosens his grip on his magic and Cal flails at the sudden influx of oxygen, his whole body moving in great gasps.Fire resumes its ascent up the iron chain links as the Wolf God turns his attention towards me.
“It’s me you want. I’m the one who can open the portal.” I rise to my knees on the floor, willing my face not to show the panic coursing through my body.
“You?” Marks laughs again, moving across the room to stand over me. “You think you have the power to unite the gods? Oh, this is too good.”
His heavy-booted foot meets my chest in a swift kick, knocking me backwards onto the ground.
“You wield a single element and some fancy shadows thanks to your father. That is not power, you fool. Callan here has power. The raw power of a king runs through his veins, and as soon as my nephew unleashes the magic that I know he’s capable of, he will open the portal so I can return home and show Nobus what it looks like to truly rule a realm.”
Cal’s magic tingles in the air, weak and barely recognizable from the unimaginable horrors that have been forced upon him, but it’s there. The Wolf God’s chest constricts slightly as if something, or someone, is squeezing the blood pumping through his heart.
“Your magic cannot overtake me, boy,” he bellows. “You have always been destined to die in this realm, one way or another. Do not waste your last moments fighting forher.”
Marks grabs a fistful of my hair, hauling me to a seated position as the flames crest the final link of my chain. The cold steel of his blade bites my neck, warm rivulets of blood trickling down the column of my throat as my eyes meet Cal’s across the room—despairing eyes pleading with me for forgiveness.
He can’t save me and he knows it.
“What will it be, Prince? Will you wield your full power before or after I slit her throat?”
Fire engulfs the iron around my wrists, but I do not feel its heat. Not as my magic flares back to life within my veins, the full force of it overtaking me as I will it to calm.
Using the only element that Marks knows me to wield, I command the earth to tremble beneath our feet. Cracks spider web across the great windows as the walls of the palace shake under my command.
“That’s it, boy. More!” he yells, pressing the blade deeper into my skin.
Even now, faced head on with magic that is undoubtedly mine, Marks denies the magnitude of my power, once again unable to fathom the endless depths of a woman. Layers of rage and love stitched together generation after generation to create seamless, exquisite beings.
The marble columns holding up the vaulted ceiling crack, chunks crashing to the floor as the brave soldiers of Corinth scream and run towards the exit. The smell of my burning flesh fills my nostrils as I dig deeper into my power. Death has come for me at last and I am ready for it.
“Cal,” I call out on a shaky breath preparing myself to make one final choice.
When I am gone, there can be no doubt that this was for him. For the love that I denied because I believed myself unworthy, but the love I deserved all along. For the promise of what he will do for this world in my memory.
