Breathing suddenly felt easier. When I observed that my joints ached from the stress of pulling against the crown, my power rose up inside me to soothe the pain. My muscles felt newly supple, even gilded, like I was now made of unbreakable light. I stared at myself and my sisters in wonder.
For the first time since learning the truth about our mother, I felt like I deserved the title of demigod.
Another bellowing roar from Ryder jarred us from our reverie, and quick as a shot we were back in the ruined attic, the floor heaving under our feet. We raced to the door and found Talan leaning heavily against the wall, holding his head. The three knots of glittering scar tissue on his forehead—remnants of the crown—stood out like beacons against his pale skin.
“There are fuckingvines, or trees or something, trying to tear the house apart,” Ryder shouted. He stood at the top of the stairs, firing his crossbow at something I couldn’t see.
Gemma, who was helping Talan stand, suddenly froze, like she’d heard a distant chime the rest of us couldn’t perceive.
“It’s Caiathos,” she whispered. “He’s panicking, and the elements near him are responding accordingly.”
“What does he have to panic about?” Ryder fired another shot with a snarl. “He’s a god, isn’t he? Gods shouldn’t be allowed to panic.”
I grabbed Talan’s abandoned rifle and joined Ryder. He was right; downstairs, the Lower Army soldiers were battling a writhing knot of serpentine roots.
“I’m getting tired of fighting trees,” I muttered.
“We don’t know how long he’s been in that body,” Farrin pointed out. “Maybe he’s not strong enough yet to overpower his host’s human panic.”
Ryder grunted. “Oh, wonderful. He’ll be of great use to us, then.”
“Isn’t your mother with him?” Talan said, already looking stronger now that Gemma was nearby.
“We’ve got to subdue him,” I said, “get him under control. Otherwise he could end up doing even more damage than Kilraith. Gemma—”
“I’ll take care of it,” she said at once. “Mother might be too deferential with him.”
Farrin unclipped one of the weapons belts from Ryder’s waist and slung it around her torso. “Ryder and I will go with her and then head for the library. Maybe Gareth will let me try to help them along with music.”
The sound of his name was like cold water crashing down on my head. In all the chaos, I’d forgotten to think of him, which logic told me was perfectly reasonable. Not thinking about one’s lover while one is dismantling an evil crown was hardly some great betrayal.
And yet something about the lapse seemed ominous. My body prickled with foreboding. Suddenly it felt essential to see his face, if only for a moment.
But then another explosion shook the house, this one the largest yet. I darted back into the attic and froze. The shattered windows framed an orange sky and a lawn swarming with enemies, and thewards—the wards were gone. Columns of white smoke marked where the shivering shell of magic had once stood. A few tiny bolts of blue light skittered along the perimeter before snuffing themselves out.
I hesitated, my heart screaming that I must go find Gareth even as the rest of my body roared with battle fever. But I couldn’t ignore the disaster unfolding in front of me; my training wouldn’t allow it. I hurled a frantic burst of love in the library’s direction—he’ll feel it, I lied to myself,and it will keep him safe—and then dove through the nearest window.
Chapter 40
As soon as I cleared the house, my wings snapped open on either side of me, and I plunged into the fray at such speed that the wind pulled tears from my eyes.
I bolted straight for a quartet of Upper Army wind elementals battling the same titan I’d seen ram into the wards. They were at an impasse, wind buffeting against wind as a cyclone of dirt and stone spun up around them. The soldiers quaked with effort, their knees close to buckling; the titan’s eyes flared with triumph. Knots of lightning brewed in its fists.
I put my head down and picked up speed, aiming my body right at it. Even the gossamer-looking wind titans had some physicality to them. They weren’t the four Olden Winds themselves; they were simply beings who embodied their elements and could manipulate them. Though they were admittedly better at it than any human, they weren’t infallible. And this one was brittle with age; when I rammed into its chest, all its bluster evaporated, and it crashed to its knees, reduced to a heaving, pale creature with a gaunt face and bones like white twigs.
I raced on, the cheers of the soldiers I’d saved quickly swallowed up by the sounds of chaos all around me. A hundred smaller battlesmade up the whole, pockets of soldiers engaging Oldens with magic and gunfire everywhere I looked.
A knot of swarming chimaera caught my eye. They’d killed two Lower Army soldiers and were now fighting over their corpses. Fury licked hot through my bones. I sped toward them along the perimeter of the battle, dodging and ramming into and punching through any hostile that barred my way, and when I finally drove into the chimaera, they scattered like a pile of dead leaves.
I immediately spun back to dispatch them properly, my power roaring like fire in my veins and my body responding with lethal swiftness. A jab, a kick, a brief tussle with one of them that ended when I slashed through its throat with my talons, and soon all five of them were dead. I couldn’t linger over the slain soldiers and honor their deaths as they deserved, but at least the chimaera who had killed them wouldn’t be able to kill anyone else.
Suddenly the ground jolted. A shock wave of power knocked everyone, human and Olden, off their feet. Only I remained standing, but I swayed to recover my balance. Cracks in the earth raced down the lawn, some finger-thin, others so large that several Lower Army soldiers near me dropped into the chasms and disappeared.
I followed the cracks up the lawn in horror. They originated at the house, which had split in two; a jagged break sliced from roof to foundation, right through the entrance hall. The west wing and much of the house’s center remained relatively intact.
But an entire section of the east wing had crumbled.
My body turned to ice.
