Page 21 of Fates of Monsters

Air lifts one eyebrow. “We will discuss that later.”

She flies through the air, effortlessly disappearing into the thick of the battle while I pray I did the right thing. I hope I did. The earth god steps out of the portal next, and he looks just like Paxton, albeit an older variation. His hair is dark green, like forest leaves, and his skin is darkly tanned. The fire goddess is naked, has been since I met her, but her long red hair covers most of her body. Her hair is red, but it’s on fire, constant burning flames in locks that contrast against her pale skin. Her eyes, pure red flames, look my way before she walks into the monsters, leaving a trail of lava in her wake. She barely spoke the words of the bond to me, and I wonder how long it’s been since she talked to anyone. Silence can drive even the most powerful insane.

Lastly, the water god jumps out, digging his hands into the ground, which opens up into a massive hole, right down into the earth. The earth god watches, and I’m not sure which of them did it. He looks up at me with nothing short of hate before looking back down at the ground. Water shoots towards him from every direction, hitting monsters but avoiding Wyerns and sucking them into the hole in the earth.

“I need to find Emerson,” I shout to Posy over the sound of the water shooting in every direction. Screams, roars, and shouts fill my ears, and I can barely hear Posy’s agreement over it all. I keep my sword in my hand as I run through the pathways where there is no water, seeing hurricanes spreading into the sky nearby, the mountains shaking with the power of the earth god. Emerson. I need to find him. I search our bond, but whatever the witches did to me, I still can’t reach him. He must be going out of his mind.

Posy makes a portal, taking us to another part of the battlefield, near one of the mountains. I sense Emerson’s nearer. Five Rift soldiers lunge at us when we step out, and I immediately cut one of them down. Fire spreads down my sword, and I swing it, casting a wave of flames that smacks right into two more of them. The others are on their knees, clutching at their necks as Posy steals the air from their lungs. They collapse in minutes, and I turn around to see fae fighting nearby us, fire magic bright and colorful as it spreads across the ground towards the monsters and the Rift soldiers.

My eyes drift up to the mountain. Emerson is up there. I know it, I can feel it. Posy nods to me once and we run for the mountains, only to get blocked again and again by Rift soldiers and monsters. Everything blurs until it is just me and them, my sword, and the power it is feeding through me to battle. I’ve barely touched the true amount of power the sword holds, and I know once I dive into that power, it has to be used for Louie and the old god. My hands are coated in thick blood by the time I get to the base of the mountain and turn around.

Posy is gone. “POSY!”

“Calli!” Zurine shouts, and I turn to her. She is in front of two Rift Kings, the light-haired twins easy to spot with the crowns shining brightly on their heads. The sword vibrates in my hand, recognizing she’s barely holding them back with her ice magic, and she is struggling. My feet are moving as I lift the sword, and they both notice me. Zurine drops the wall of ice as I jump past her, landing right in front of one of them. He slams grey magic right into me, but I block the attack with my sword. The power, the magic, is absorbed by it like smoke. The Rift King stumbles back, and the other one runs from me.

I don’t let either of them get far. Using my magic, I make the floor ice, and the one running slips. The other one stares at his hands, in shock, like it’s their fault the magic won’t work. He doesn’t fight me as I slam my sword through his heart and rip the crown off his head. He fades into a pile of ash that I step over to get to the other one. He throws his magic at me, and the sword makes it easy to cut through it and slam the tip through his heart. The second he is dead, hundreds of monsters and Rift soldiers around us simply fall dead, like a wave of death. Zurine runs to my side, and I search her, noticing the awful shape she is in. Cuts smother her, burns too, and she is bleeding everywhere. She still stands strong, but I know she needs to rest. Zurine huffs a laugh, wincing. “If it’s this easy for you, the war should be over soon.”

“They weren’t as powerful as he is or the old god will be,” I admit, picking up the second crown. Holding them both feels odd, and I can tell there is nothing in them. Louie must be keeping all the power, but why? Why hasn’t he destroyed them all yet? “Where is Emerson?”

Zurine looks up the mountain. “He followed Louie up there. I’ve been trying to fight my way up.” She looks back at me. “Tell me he is alive.”

Emerson’s roar fills my ears, my mind, along with a sharp pain I feel in my own chest. His scream echoes to me, tearing me apart, making me feel weak and mortal again. Powerless. My mate is hurt.

ChapterFifteen

POSY

My heart is racing as I anxiously look around, the surrounding air reacting to my magic and protecting me. I lost Calli. I was meant to protect her, but in the crowds of monsters, I lost her. One moment I was ripping apart three monsters with a lash of air magic, and the next she was gone, and I’m not sure where she went and in what direction. It’s madness here, and I can’t see which way is the best to go. The ground continues to shake, the air is hard to breathe, and there is fire everywhere now. Gods are on the playing field. In the distance, the water god is destroying the sirens in the water, leaving their blood to mark the seas for years to come. I keep searching for Calli, for anyone that I know, but there is nothing but monsters and the Wyerns fighting them. Fae are dotted around, easy to see with their magic, but none of them are Calli.

The monsters are endless, ruthless in their attacks, and I can’t focus on anything but stopping each one of them as they lunge right for me. The Rift soldiers’ heartless, cruel faces will haunt me for years, stuck in my mind, as I kill them one by one. I pull more power from my chest, from where it feels like it comes from, to protect myself as a massive group charge at me. I step back, tripping on a rock. Deadly air whips around me, cutting into them before they can get close, and they fly high in the air, well away from me. They will be dead when they land. My magic won’t cushion their fall. Weakness settles into my bones, pulling me under the spell of magic, into a place that I’m not meant to touch. Too much magic is a death sentence, and I’m close.

I need to stop.

I’m not trained enough for this. I’ve been a bat for too long, far too long. My hands sink into the mud beneath me as I slam another group of monsters up into the air. I inhale deeply, needing strength and reminding myself that I’m stronger than I ever thought I was. The witches didn’t destroy me. My past didn’t break me. This war will not be my ending, either. I pull myself up off the ground, letting my air magic wrap around me, undoing the braids of my hair until it’s freely flowing around my shoulders. The air glitters, like my magic can actually be seen within it. I push out all of my power, into everything around me, and hundreds of monsters going flying into the air, Rift soldiers too, and witches with them. Breathless, I lower my hands onto my knees and grin at a Wyern male who raises his eyebrows at me from across the battlefield. He goes to say something, but he pauses, the color draining from his body as grey magic wraps around him, pulsating like a fog that’s alive. The Wyern falls into the mud, and behind him is something worse than all the monsters, all the evil that’s on this battlefield.

A Rift Queen.

She has long blonde hair that’s gone grey in patches that matches the color of her skin.Drained of lifeare the only words that come to my mind. She was a fae once, and only her pointed ears are left to mark that. Her teeth are pure black, like they have rotted, as she grins at me. Her gold crown shines brightly on her head, and it’s addictive, pulling me towards it. Everything is a contrast to the crown, and I have to force myself to look away. To realize how much danger I’m in. I search around me, and I realize with horror that my sword is gone, lost in the bodies and mud. I’ve used too much of my powers, and I’m so tired, weak from defending myself for too long. A wave of grey magic spreads around me like a storm coming in on the horizon. Horrid magic wraps tightly around my body, lifting me off the floor. Suddenly, everywhere it touches, it burns. I scream and scream as she pulls me right up to her, close enough that I can smell the rot on her skin, in her soul.

“Old magic,” she coos at me, reaching out and running her sharp nail down my cheek. I can’t stop screaming. I can’t move, I can’t breathe. I need to escape. My heart is thrashing in my ears, and I barely focus on her. “How powerful you are, demigoddess. Creatures like you should not exist. My mother used to warn me of the gods in her stories and their children, born with power that can consume them. Will it consume you before I kill you?” She shakes my body like a doll, and I can’t stop screaming. “I think I’d like to see it. A demigoddess consumed into a monster.”

I keep screaming, barely even able to understand her. She’s going to kill me. There’s only one person I can think of. The only name that comes into my mind is Lorenzo. How I never made sure he survived this and how he deserves so much better than me. I wanted him to have a happy ending, to find a way to be happy. It was never going to be with me. I need him to know that. I need to know he’s okay at the end of this. But I’m going to die here, and if I am, I’m going down fighting. Sweat pours down my back as I close my eyes and reach for my power, for too much of it, letting it flood in my system and knowing that there is no way back from this for me.

Just before it’s too late, before I’ve taken too much, a cry echoes in the air. It almost sounds like what I would imagine a dragon roaring sounds like, and it’s loud. The Rift Queen looks up at the same time I do, only to see Celeria diving right at us, and on her back, Lorenzo. Celeria slams hard into both of us, her claws grabbing me around the waist and harshly tugging me from the magic with its claws as Lorenzo jumps off her back, placing himself between us both. A sword rests in his hand—his father’s sword. He looks back at me once, checking I’m alive with his bright green eyes, before turning on the Rift Queen with a look of pure vengeance on his face. “Hurting my mate, my female, means death. What’s your real name so I can tell your family of your demise?”

She glares at him and never answers his question. Even in vengeance, he is good. He asked her name because we both know this female was once a little girl stolen from her parents. My heart pounds as he lunges towards her before she can use her power. He moves fluidly, like breathing, and his sword is a part of his every move, like it is part of his body. Witch, shining gold magic seems to hover around him as he moves, but my heart lurches when the Rift Queen sends grey magic right into him. He flies backwards with the hit, rolling to a stop in front of me, blood pouring from a lashing on his chest. He looks right at me as the Rift Queen heads towards us. I grab his collar. “You shouldn’t have come! You’re going to die protecting me, you compete fool!”

Lorenzo’s eyes soften. “Finally.” He blows out a breath, picking up my hand. He kisses the back of it, and a fire burns in my body from the touch. “You admit you care. I will not die, and neither will you as long as I am alive. We fight her together, the way we were born to be.”

I pull my hand from his, and he grins as he stands. Lorenzo looks down at me once more, serious this time. Prince of the Wyerns and leader of the Wyern armies. “Knock the crown off her while I distract her. It’s her power.”

The Rift Queen lashes at him with her magic, but he dodges it this time, moving so fast that he reminds me of a summer breeze, swift and alluring, as it blows through you. Lorenzo moves so fast that I barely see him go, and the Rift Queen’s attention is fully on him this time. I lift my hand, making the wind pick up in a storm around us, pulling power from the sky above. Rain pours down my neck, down my clothes, and the wind harshly protects us in a circle. I tug a strand of the air towards me, a grey rod of air forming in my hand… like a whip. I lift it quickly and slash it across the top of the Rift Queen’s head, knocking her crown straight off and into the air. She screams and lunges for it, but Lorenzo jumps, grabbing the crown midair. He lands, twirling his sword around in his hand and slamming it through the stomach of the Rift Queen. Her eyes widen as he pushes her further down into the ground and puts the crown on his head. Gold magic explodes out of the crown, smothering Lorenzo from head to toe and straight down the sword.

He can wear the crown. How?

The Rift Queen screams, the sound echoing through the world before she turns to ash around the sword. Lorenzo wipes rainwater off his eyes as he looks at me and takes the crown off, the gold fading away. I walk to his side, noticing the ash floating away and slightly glowing for a moment before it’s gone. “How did you know the crown wouldn’t consume you?”

Lorenzo shrugs a shoulder, and he steps closer to me. “Nothing in this world, magic or not, could consume my soul when it belongs to you. You consume me, Posy. The crown had no chance.”

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