She could no longer hear his voice, but she could feel the memory of him as clearly as if it were his arms wrapped around her instead of Chaos’s. She could feel his lips against hers, his hands on her skin, and every nerve within her was suddenly calling out not for Oblivion but for Creation. For Snow. Jo ached for him, so Destruction did too, and all at once, it became unclear which of her was which.
“But we’re doing thisforhim,” Destruction said in Jo’s voice. “Even if it means losing him.”
Chaos’s arms tightened and a giggle spilled from her lips, tickling at Destruction’s neck with honey-sweet breath.
“Then we know what we have to do.” For a moment, it was as if Josephina Espinosa stood before her, blocking the path from Destruction’s view. It felt like looking at her own reflection and seeing a memory. A beautiful memory that she would hold on to for as long as Oblivion allowed.
Jo stepped aside, letting the path shine before them, and Chaos’s laugh filled Destruction’s ears. This time, stepping forward was easy. Even as she and Chaos began to merge into one, Destruction had no trouble walking the path. Even as her steps began to feel more weighted, power fracturing the ground beneath her with each step, it was easy.
Every movement was so, so easy.
It wasn’t even about giving in, really. This had always been the outcome. It was just a matter of finding her way back together. The leisurely pace down the path became a skip, a twirling jog, a sprint. Her magic twirled with her, around her, licking at her heels and helping her speed down the path until she could see it: an actual light at the end of the tunnel where the world awaited her return—theirreturn.
It had been too long, toolong. And as the path came to an end, but a single step left for her to take, there was no hesitation.
Oblivion’s heart soared at the feeling of existence, her body somehow both weightless and settled into the gravity of her new world. It was euphoric, intoxicating, and for a fraction of a second, she could do no more than breathe it in, her eyes falling lazily back open.
If her old and fractured memories were any indication, not even a second had passed, Takako still poised to fire in her direction. It was a laughable display. To assume any weapon held the power necessary to destroy her, Oblivion was almost insulted. Hunt had always been foolish, no better than her beasts.Best remind them of who they were dealing with.
“You think that little toy of yours can stopme?” she called out in a voice that could shatter the very foundation of the bedrock itself. “I am Oblivion! I am agod!”
“And I’m the Champion sent across the ages to take you down,” Takako replied, not even bothering to raise her voice. Not that she had to. The arrow flew the moment the words registered, a lifetime of knowledge and experience rushing through Oblivion’s head.Champion, Takako had called herself. For the first time in her new life, Oblivion’s heart skipped a beat, just in time for the arrow to pierce it.
Chapter 34
Oblivion
Beads of sweat traced the outline of hair on the nape of Snow’s neck, rolling down under the collar of his shirt.
Every drop of magic and focus was wrapped around Jo and Pan in a desperate attempt to combat Pan’s sway. He could see the swirl of magic like a rainbow whirlpool, though he didn’t know if it was visible to only him, or if the rest of the team could see it as well. Frankly, he wouldn’t have even known they were standing next to him were it not for their muted words.
For him, the only thing that mattered was Jo. It had been the only thing that mattered throughout the whole of his existence. He had been made for her—for this—to shield her magic and keep her wholly separate. Then, he’d fallen in love, and after that it was hopeless to expect him to do anything less than make every sacrifice he could for her—from ending the Age of Gods, to surrendering himself to Pan, and now this.
He was a horse that would run until its heart exploded and legs gave out, not daring to stop even a moment sooner.
Which made it an even more bitter pill to swallow when he felt the current of her magic shift. Jo would leave him, he realized. While he’d been expecting her to resort to desperate measures, he’d never expected her surrender.
It wasn’t until he could feel her slipping into what promised to be a swift descent that she finally looked his way. Despite the confusion, despite the agony of loss, his heart stuttered beneath her stare. His chest ached at the thought of losing her, but the idea that she was sharing her final moments with him, in the only way she could, was a thin spackle to the cracks of his breaking heart. There wasn’t long now until she would be gone, and he would fill his sight with her for every last moment.
“I love you.” Her lips formed the words, silent amidst the chaos but loud within his ears, his mind. One of the few remaining wisps of her magic broke free from the rising tide, just long enough to reach out for his presence.
Then, her eyes shifted. Briefly, barely, a small change in focus that Snow almost missed. He fought to tear his sight from Jo, fearful of what it would mean when he looked back—if she’d even still be there at all.
Takako stood at his side, sure-footed atop a fallen bookcase leaning against a pile of rubble. Snow squinted at her, his mind struggling to make sense of what he was witnessing. She held her arms steady, muscles taut, and in her hands was the glittering outline of a bow, one made purely of her magic’s design.
And the arrow that he had seen crafted ages ago was suspended between it. The arrow that had been made with the power to kill a god.
Snow’s attention jerked back to Jo the moment he felt her magic slipping free of the protective well he’d been shaping for her. A soft “Please” may have escaped his lips as he searched for her eyes. But it was too late.
It was over in barely a second, swirls of rainbow colored light dancing over Pan’s hair and Jo’s skin, spinning about the two of them until its speed obscured them completely, the sheer luminosity of it blinding. All it took in the end was a blink against the barrage and suddenly Pan and Jo were no more. In their place was a being Snow had only ever heard tales of, in whispers between him and Destruction, in words of warning from those who’d created him.
The rubble bit into his knees as he collapsed onto it, hands swinging limply at his sides. Magic swelled in him, making him whole in a way he could barely remember being, for the first time in eons—fully untethered from Pan. For Pan was no more, Jo was no more; there was only Oblivion now, and what looked to be the end of all things he’d ever fought for.
The sheer oppressiveness of her power aside, what truly brought him down in a way that no man or god or demigod had ever been able to do before was the curve of her jaw, the lift of her cheek, and the fullness of her lips. He could see her—Jo, the woman he loved, the woman he’d been made for. But he could also see Pan in the slit of her cat-eyes, in the opalescent hair flying madly about her head.
“You think that little toy of yours can stopme?” Oblivion spoke with Jo’s lips, the sound a rumble that seemed to come from the very heavens. Yet even in the sound, his ears objected, trying to pry apart Jo’s voice. “I am Oblivion! I am agod!”
“And I am the Champion sent across the ages to take you down,” Takako’s voice pierced the cacophony like a bullet through the center of one of her targets. Or perhaps, more accurately, like an arrow through the heart of a god.
