“You are nothing,” Headwaters spat.“How dare you call on god magic.How dare you disobey me.”
I rolled onto my side, hands and knees, my head hanging.The world was blacking out and snapping back into place.Bright, much too bright.
I pushed upward because Lula was moving, on her knees, then struggling to her feet.
We weren’t going to die on our knees.
“We obey no god,” I said, “or the worthless castoffs they create.”
Headwaters laughed, and it was rotted and cruel.
“You think you can stand against me?Imadeyou what you are.I control your souls.”
Lula could barely lift the book, but she drew it up to her chest and opened it.
The spells were all we had.
It would kill us, but we were going to cast god magic again.
“No.”Headwaters didn’t yell, didn’t even raise his voice.But it sounded like a mountain falling, that one word hammering painfully through my brain.
Lula staggered and almost fell.
“I tore your souls apart once,” he hissed.“I forced the bloody pieces to join and twist and scar.I can rip them from your bodies and end you for good.”
He raised his hand again and my back bowed like I was caught on meat hooks.
I screamed.
Movement to my left shifted, something fast I couldn’t track.
Abbi stood in front of us.
Not in the guise of a child, but someone, somethingolder and more powerful.Her mortar glowed in her hands, the pestle carved from stars, a cloak of shadow rising like wings behind her.
I tried to call out for her.To tell her to run.
She was a deity.
She was powerful.
But Headwaters was powerful too.
Abbi threw magic at the monster.
Headwaters lunged, inhumanly fast, his claws extended, aimed at her throat.
A fissure of light cracked open in the space right behind Abbi.
Cardamom stepped through a portal, whipping fireball after fireball of magic at Headwaters.
But not even a powerful wizard could stop that monstrosity.
I reached for Abbi…
…and time stopped.
Headwaters was frozen mid-leap, Cardamom’s magic wrapped around his throat, Abbi’s magic shrouding his head.
