They’d tried to trap her, but there was no circumventing her future. Maddison was the one controlling the Hellbringers. The one remaking the world.
There had to be something that meant more to her. What did she need…?
“The Atlanteans…”
“The Atlanteans?” Axl asked, his eyes greener than ever as power rode him.
“They’re in the underworld,” I said, starting to pace. “Trapped there. We need to free them. Returning that much power to the surface might be enough to draw her attention.”
A sense of grim purpose and determination gave me something to focus on. I was already striding toward the Amphitheatre, ready to return to the underworld. This was the right step. I needed to bring them back to the surface.
“I need to free them now!” I snapped, my brothers rushing to keep up with me.
Louis tried to follow as well, but I shook my head. This was a family matter, and as much as I liked the sorcerer, he was not family. Not yet.
Maybe if we got Maddison back, it’d be a different story.
“Keep everyone safe here,” I told him. “Prepare for anything. Maddison is not herself, and everyone in the world is at risk.”
Louis looked like he wanted to argue but refrained. He stared me down for a few minutes, before he nodded and returned to the group of powerful supes that had been preparing to defend the world from the gods. “Find Jessa, Braxton, Mischa, and Max,” he called after us as we entered the path to the underworld. “Find them and bring them back too.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I told him.
My priority was Maddison. The rest would have to wait.
Chapter 34
The world was a mess. I hadn’t noticed until this moment, but now, with my ability to search through and beyond the current timescape, I saw it all. Using my abilities, I followed the path of destruction, through wars and murder. Mistake after mistake. I had a vague recollection of learning about war in class. The teacher had asked us what we learned from war. What it showed us.
It showed me that maybe my work here was greater than just remaking the gods. My work would require me to remake the very fabric of this world, because the inhabitants were beyond corrupt. They never learned. They sacrificed … everything … for their own gain.
This is your role. We were there at the beginning. We will be there at the end.
The longer I spent time with the spirits of the Mother of All, the more I learned about them. They had been in control of the original creation, and they were in control now. They had been lost for many years, sleeping in the original lava of power.
Yes. The lava that had stripped my humanity, was the very material that scorched the earth and formed the mountains and oceans, the trees and plants. From that original energy, everything grew.
You can reform your skin. You can reform yourself.
I knew I could, but I didn’t want to. For me to do the job I needed to do, there could be no softness about me, no humanity. Already some of my life before was coming back. Memories. And with those memories were feelings. They were diluted, faded so I barely even recalled the life I lived before.
But they were there.
I almost remembered their names.
“Enough!” I said out loud.
We were above the water, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Close to Australia. There was a fishing vessel out there; it had drawn my attention because it was linked to a sister line that was razing our oceans to the floor. They overfished, taking everything: whales and dolphins, sharks and dozens of others that were mine to protect.
One thing that hadn’t been stripped was my love for the water. The lava formed the landscape, but it was from the water that we all came. The water and the lava were the original magics, and when someone hurt my oceans, they would pay.
Hovering above them, I sent a wave across the ship, knocking most of the crew into the water, fishing nets tangled around them, trapping them, as they had done to so many creatures. I let the ocean do the rest, ready to welcome them into the watery depths. A part of me wanted to draw out their suffering, make them really pay for what they’d done, but there was too much work to do. The last action was to splinter their ships—not just this one, but every single ship they had or was connected to them, most of which were out in the water.
More of them would face the wrath of the oceans … and the animals within it.
“Why am I bothering with this?” I wondered out loud. The spirits twirled against my energy, sinking deeper. “Should I just clear the lot and start anew? Maybe the next world will be one with less greed and corruption?”
Less evil.
