I drew upon the lost god’s magic to transform it.
Lula trembled beside me.I shook as the world went frigid.
Each word was harder to speak, each utterance softer, my voice raw and used until it was nothing, barely a whisper, a gasp, a breath.
All through in one.
Before the last word, Lu grabbed my hand that held the watch.
Except it wasn’t a watch.Not anymore.
It was our hatred, our anger.
It was a pulsing glob of magic and time, a bomb built for one purpose—to snuff out the spark of life in the horrifying creature who had destroyed our souls.
To kill a powerful thing created by a powerful god.
But I did not say the final word.Could not say it until the weapon was buried in that monster’s chest.
Lu knew it.Somehow she knew.She took a step, forcing me forward with her.I couldn’t feel my legs, didn’t know if I lifted my feet or if Lu dragged me there.
She stopped, panting through clenched teeth, and her gaze met mine.
I nodded.
She yelled and thrust my hand upward with enough force that we punched through the monster’s flesh and bone.
My thumb slipped off the watch stem.
I screamed the last word of the spell with everything left in me.
Time snapped back into motion?—
—Abbi yelled?—
—Cardamom yanked her through the portal?—
—Lula laughed as a hundred lightning bolts struck the ground, caging us and the monster in electric fire?—
—this was our death.But gods be damned, we were taking that fucking monster out with us.
An inferno of black flames engulfed Headwaters, devouring flesh, bone, and blood.
He twisted and convulsed, scrabbling at his flesh to get away from the agony.
Before Headwaters hit the ground, he evaporated, molecules, atoms, nothing.
Then time itself exploded.
* * *
She was walkingdown the street and suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.I’d been working since dawn the day before, breaking rock, digging ditches for the farm just east of town.The farmer had sent me on my way with barely a penny in my pocket.
So I was in town, cleaned up as best I could in the stream, and looking for work.
But seeing her stopped me in my tracks.
She turned to look at me, her hair soft autumn fire, her eyes a hazel more gold than green.
