Page 102 of Godsbane
Death chose me, but I choose Cal.
I do not know what my first words were, but I know what my last words will be. “I love you.”
With a final exhale, I open the floodgates within me to release every ounce of the magic that I have kept locked away for eighteen years. I rip open every wound, every scar to find any pocket of pain, hatred, or terror still hiding in my bones. Deeper and deeper I go, unburying graves and skeletons that I forcedfrom my mind years ago. My body vibrates with power and I know I am primed to explode.
The outer walls of the throne room crumble as Cal calls out for me to stop. The Wolf God drops his knife and staggers back in shock as he recognizes for the first time what I am truly capable of. The woman he always underestimated will kill him even if it kills her too.
“You,” he gasps, black pupils overtaking his golden eyes, a sign of his magic rising within him.
With that, Marks sheds his mortal persona, fully becoming Mikais, the heretical god he’s hidden behind a human facade for so many years.
He doesn’t have time to form another word before the column of my sparkling magic barrels into his chest. A scream rips from my throat as I push more and more power out of my body and into his. I call forth the fire in his veins first. Mikais falls to his knees, the smell of his burnt flesh mixing with mine as I roast him from the inside out.
But it isn’t enough to kill a god.
I dig deeper, looking for any emotion that I can draw upon. I think of the man who raised me, the man I called a father, now rotting in a grave desecrated by the Lord General’s soldiers. I think of my mother, a goddess who followed a misguided leader but still loved her people enough to buy them a way home. I think of Cal’s mother, of the Goddess of Protection so afraid of Nobus’ influence that she hatched a plan to have her son smuggled away.
I curl my fists into tight balls, finally allowing tears to fall. Blood pours from Mikais’ eyes, nose, and mouth mirroring the salty liquid streaming down my face as I command the water in his veins.
Thick vines crawl their way upward, twisting around the god’s body. Tighter and tighter they constrict, like a snakeimmobilizing its prey as it slowly suffocates to death. I force it taut, the magical vines remaining unburnt as Mikais fights for air. Shadows converge on his body, puncturing his skin with their pointed spikes and rotting the flesh from his bones.
But still he fights back. The living core of raw power inside of him still pulses.
I have to access it, have to force it to submit to me. That much power requires me to unlock the iron-clad door within my heart that I have been avoiding. The one that holds every ounce of self-loathing and unworthiness. The repressed emotions flood out of me, mixing with the most powerful feeling of all—regret.
Regret for how I treated Cal.
Regret for how I fought Cal.
Regret for how I denied Cal.
Regret for the time I didn’t allow us to have.
The moment I first laid eyes on him, my soul recognized its counterpart. My magic practically screamed it at me every day since then, but still I fought it. I chose him for a night and felt whole for the first time in my life, but still I denied myself. Cal wanted to turn back but I rejected him, and now his life hangs in the balance because of my stubbornness, my unwillingness to walk away from revenge and my destiny to die here.
I take one last look into the depthless seas of his gray eyes.
Home. That’s what we could have had together.
With my last moments, I will deny it no longer. He is the true owner of my broken, shattered heart. Cal is my home and I will choose him with my dying breath. There is not a path he could take that I would not follow, in this life or any other.
I push every last ounce of power coursing through my body into Mikais at lightning speed. The sea beast on my skin thrashes wildly, the last shred of her magical protection disappearing as the connection between us shatters. My body convulses, black spots creeping into my vision as my beating heart slows.
I have nothing left, no morsel or crumb of magic that I didn’t give for him. I pray that it was enough to kill one god and spare another.
The sun disappears from the noonday sky, casting the throne room in total darkness as I take my final breath.
CHAPTER 38
CAL
An earth-shattering scream pierces the veil between worlds. It echoes throughout Corinth, Synal, and the island nations. It reverberates through the immortal lands of the god realm and ricochets between the dead and the living before settling into the crumbling walls of the Amethyst Palace.
A scream of agony unlike any ever heard by mortal ears. A scream formed in the depths of my soul, ripped from my raw and raspy throat.
I love you.The last words she spoke before sacrificing herself to save us all. To save me.
As quickly as it disappeared, the midday sun rises again, washing the throne room in daylight.
