His back stiffened. Maybe not, but he could try. “Be stronger than the hurt and rage that haunt you.” He all-too-intimately understood the havoc just one deep betrayal could wreak on a heart and mind, let alone hundreds over the course of lifetimes. “Call off your army, and humanity will forgive you.” Eventually.
Her mouth flattened. “It’s too late.”
“Too late for whom? You, or Atlantis?”
Hera didn’t answer, and Bel suddenly staggered into his peripheral vision. She half destroyed one more boulder that landed hard on Athena’s rooftop, then she turned to him, and dread punched into Carver. Drained of all color, not a spark on her and heartbreak flooding her eyes, she fell.
“Bel!” He sprang toward her as the final stragglers stumbled up Apollo’s stairs, dragging injured Atlantians with them. Something hot and powerful stirred in his chest as he bent, scooped Bel up, and raced her toward the altar, dodging falling rocks and speeding over rough and jagged ground. Spiro opened his arms, and he half threw Bel into them, boulders still pounding down. Spiro started pulling Bel under the tabletop with him when her eyes snapped open, and she grabbed Carver’s wrist, holding on hard.
“You’re my shard.” Whipping her head around, she aimedher free hand at Hera just as a current rushed through him from his chest to his arm. A scorching pulse of magic poured from Bel’s fingers. White-hot incineration and deafening heat thundered toward Hera and blew a hole straight through her abdomen, letting in bright daylight from behind. Hera’s eyes shot wide. Pain crashed over her features. Her footsteps scraped backward as she clutched her middle, her strangled gasp sucking air across the temple square like a sudden wind.
Carver’s jaw dropped. “Again!” He consciously pushed whatever lived in his tattoo toward Bel, and she blasted Hera a second time, gouging a bigger hole.
The metal harpies stopped dropping stones as Hera lost focus. Reeling, the goddess shot off a burst of glacial magic to try to freeze Bel’s heat, but her strike was off target, and her daggerlike chips of ice hit a big, upturned piece of marble to the side.
“She can’t see,” Carver said urgently. “There’s something wrong with her eyes, but it only lasts a second. Hit her again before she finds us!”
Still gripping his wrist, Bel let off a hasty surge of magic and hit Hera’s shoulder before the goddess turned. Hera’s skin disappeared, leaving oozing flesh around a gaping wound. She staggered, hissing through her teeth and violently shaking her head.
Carver’s heart hammered. They were about to kill her. Theycould. They were going to end Hera and avenge their island. Theyweregod killers together, soulmates joined.
“Her head this time!” he said just as Hera banged a hand against her temple. Her eyes sharpened and landed on them just as the current rushed through him again, heat exploded from Bel’s hand, and their sun-flare fire bolt raced toward Hera’s head.
Zeus popped into the space directly in front of Hera. Hetook the hit in the upper chest and lurched back. It didn’t go all the way through him, but he burned.
Bel let go of Carver’s wrist. “Oh my gods.” Blanching, she scooted backward under the altar, crowding into her friends. Carver scuttled back with her, panic icing his veins.
Fire sizzled in Zeus’s beard. Huge, stern, radiating power, he was unmistakable. Too striking not to recognize. Too frightening not to shrink from. Too awe-inspiring not to both dread and respect. A god to build or end worlds. His lightning-hot eyes flashed, blinding white their only color. Thunder rumbled. He glared at them and gave one awful shake of his head. Carver understood instantly. Hera might be causing terrible damage, but he didnotwant her dead.
Carver swallowed roughly. Would Zeus’s next punishment be theirs now? Had they saved Atlantis only to doom it again?
Zeus stayed in front of Hera, guarding her as she healed. His magic-heavy gaze bored into them, leaving a prickling sting on Carver’s skin. His tattoo hummed, seeming to soak up residual magic. He knew he couldn’t access it, but Bel could—if they survived.
Zeus’s wound disappeared, and he crossed his arms, looking them over with what could’ve been great interest or deep, frightening concern. “The power of soulmates.” Carver’s insides hollowed out as the king of gods spoke directly to them, his voice deep and weathered like eons of erosion over endless canyons. His glowing eyes narrowed. “Something to be wary of, indeed.”
Carver inhaled shakily, his lungs screaming for air. A dry swallow clicked in Bel’s throat. Zeus stared at them, fully healed. Behind him, Hera must’ve somewhat healed, too, because she whirled and ran, leaping for the sky.
Zeus whipped around and caught her by the ankle, yanking her back down. He hauled her close, chest to chest, and Heragasped, struggling against him. “You have explaining to do,” he growled.
“I owe you nothing!” Her eyes blazed with anger and magic, but she couldn’t tear herself free. Her wounds healed slower than Zeus’s and slower than they had the last time they’d fought Hera, proving everything Persephone had told them about worship and the power of the gods. Right now, all around her, Hera wasreviled, and her strength visibly suffered for it.
“You owe Atlantis,” Zeus rumbled like a storm. “Did it rise again only to fall? How much more damage would you have caused? Floods? Fires? Poison? Plagues?” Still gripping Hera by the arm, he looked up and shot lightning bolts into the sky, picking off the circling automatons. Thunderclaps shook the island, and the metal harpies exploded, their shimmering remnants darkening the sky.
Hera snarled in outrage as her last automaton shattered before her eyes. “I will have my throne!” Snakes slithered down her arms. Her hands turned into heavy lion paws, and she twisted in Zeus’s grasp and swiped at him with vicious claws.
He dodged her strike, but the serpent bit him. Hissing, he ground out, “You alreadyhavea throne. And those snakes aren’t allowed on the mortal plane anymore. You know that.”
“I’ll haveyourthrone! And end hers!” In a flash of fury, she launched an arrow-fast snake at Bel. Bel’s magic spluttered, still drained, and Carver threw himself in front of her before he even knew he moved. The serpent clamped down on his neck, and agony shot from its fangs. He gasped as poison raced through his blood and burned through his veins.
“No! Carver!” Bel caught him as he slumped to the side, and Zeus dropped a ring of lightning bolts around Hera with a hot boom that rattled the island. Hera slashed at the crackling cage, ripping a tear in it with her lion claws as Carver groaned, painalready slithering its way into every limb. Her hands shaking, Bel lowered him to the ground. He stared up at her, fear and loss churning up instant nausea as death took a giant step toward him, its shadow already darkening his eyes.
The snake unlatched, dropping beside him. It coiled to strike again, and Spiro slammed his huge fist down, pinning the head. “Knife!” he yelled.
Theophania crawled forward with the knife she’d used to untie her daughter and sawed through the serpent’s neck. They both darted back under the tabletop, crowding in with Dimitri and Lilika again.
Carver started to shiver, chilled to the bone. How could searing torment be so cold? Bel leaned over him and grasped his face in her hands. She blurred, but it didn’t matter. He knew her by heart. Every contour. Every freckle. Besides, he couldn’t stand the terror in her eyes coming into any sharper focus. It already ripped out his heart.
“No.” She gripped him hard, as if she could anchor him to life. “Carver, you idiot. Why?”
