Sickened, I search for Griffin. I need to know he’s safe.
Blond hair and familiar features are the first things I see when I turn around. Kato’s heavy arm slams into my chest from the side, knocking me to the ground. Stunned by the blow, devastated by its source, I expect his mace to swing down and crush my skull. Instead, it arcs around with a frightening metallic whistle and hits the crazed-looking man lunging at me with a dagger. The Sintan, one of our own—one of Kato’s—flies back, one whole side of his face shattered and opened to the bone. Before he even hits the ground, there’s no longer murder in his eyes. There’s nothing at all.
Still flat on my back, I gape up at Kato. His snake tattoo is racing all over his head. It slithers across his forehead and then dives into his hair before circling back under his jaw, moving up his cheek, straight through his eye, and then across his forehead again.
“Titos is protecting you! Mother can’t get into your head!”
Kato hardly acknowledges me, alert to the next threat. And that’s when I realize exactly what I’m in the middle of.
Armies clashing. Me in the center of a raging storm. Bodies strewn around me.
And they’re all Mother, just like I somehow knew they would be. They might not look like her, but theyare. Every last one of them is an extension of her.
My eyes widen in shock. I knew it would come to this. Iknew.
A strange mix of cold dread and detached calm washes over me as comprehension sinks in. Not a simple nightmare or embedded fear, then—one that wormed its way into my consciousness to plague my thoughts. This scene I thought I imagined was a vision of the future. After Griffin found out who I am and we fought, I closed my eyes, and I sawthis. I saw Mother looking at me like I betrayed her, because in her eyes, I have. For the first time, I came out on top.
My gaze swings to Mother on her pedestal, tripping over Griffin and Flynn just long enough to know they’re alive and still locked in combat. Mother’s concentration is unwavering, but her furious eyes hold mine.
Watching her wield her destructive powers, I want to rail against the Gods for giving me foresight without making anything clear. The vision didn’t come to me in a dream like the other occasional times I’ve been touched by the sight. I couldn’t place it as real. As coming. As something to avoid. What I saw wasn’t anchored in a setting. Besides Mother, I had no notion of the people involved.
My eyes jerk back to Kato. With tattoo Titos’s help, he must have stood guard over me, helping Griffin keep me alive for however long my battle raged on the inside, for those long moments when I couldn’t see or hear anything but Mother pounding away at my head.
Above me, Kato fights with the strength and skill of ten men. He takes care of all threats, and I stop looking. I trust him implicitly to watch my back while I make sense of this—and figure out how to fight back.
But I can’t block out the sounds of pain and rage and death. There’s an ache alive and blazing in my chest, a burn that will never fade. If only I hadn’t frozen up at Frostfire. If only I’d killed Mother then. We wouldn’t be here now. Everyone here would have been safe.
I do my best to set aside those useless thoughts. Regret is a part of life, andif onlyis a bottomless well where wishes don’t come true.
Closing my eyes for the briefest of moments, I force down a steadying breath. I’m ready to fight now. I’m ready to take my people back.
CHAPTER 21
I twist upright and spin to my knees, heartsick at the circle of death around me. Crushed skulls. Mace-imploded chests. Most are ours, those unlucky enough to have been closest to me.
“Stay down,” Kato barks. “You’re injured.”
But I’m already up. I look for Griffin again and startle when he appears next to me. There’s a flash of black hair. A flash of auburn. Angry eyes and blood.
I jerk back into Kato just as Flynn’s ax blade whistles past my ear. Griffin grabs the handle above Flynn’s two-handed grip. Snarling, they wrestle for the weapon, both injured, limping,mauled.
Being in physical contact with Kato is like getting hit by a lightning bolt of pure Olympian power. Titos’s magic jumps to me in a sudden rush, but I don’t hold on to it. I use myself like a slingshot and send it straight at Mother without a second thought.
She cries out and drops to her knees on her stone perch. She shakes her head, looking dazed.
For a second, Flynn stops. Everyone does. Griffin rips the ax from Flynn’s hands and flings it away.
Mother stands back up and her power strikes again, skipping over me like a flat stone on water. My defenses are shored up. Kato has Titos. Griffin is impervious. But Flynn bellows again. Scores of people do. The battle resumes, and those still standing fight like savages, many dropping their weapons to tear into each other with their bare hands.
Griffin and Flynn are just as feral. They’re too evenly matched and clash relentlessly. Griffin gains the upper hand, but he won’t kill his friend. Flynn is too skilled to be incapacitated easily, or fully, or even at all. They roll, growling and grunting, locked in a tangle, one trying to kill the other, and the other trying to keep them both alive.
Flynn lands a hard punch, and my gut clenches in fear. Griffin’s face is mottled with bruises, his upper lip is split, and his nose is swelling. None of that worries me as much as the gash at his hairline. Blood slides down his face, blinding him.
Flynn looks better than Griffin but wilder. He’s mindless, driven by violence and blind rage. In my heart, I know that Griffin could take Flynn down permanently if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to, and that’s going to get him killed, because right now, Flynn’s moral compass has been wiped out by the most immoral person alive. He’s not suffering from any form of honor or rational thought. He’s been utterly freed from the yoke of ethics. There’s nothing to make him hesitate, and if I don’t do something fast, Griffin will pay the price.
I whip around at the sound of Bellanca’s distinctive scream—furious, pained, and unhinged. Carver roars in pain as well, his sword arm singed. Their differing strengths are the only things keeping them alive. Carver can’t get his blade in close enough to kill her because Bellanca is utterly on fire and throwing off what must be a terrifying amount of heat. And Bellanca can’t burn Carver to a crisp because his blade is keeping her just out of reach. They circle each other, waiting for the chance to pounce.
Around us, people rip into each other. There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s just kill, kill, kill. And the killing needs to stop.
