Marina’s stomach dropped as she spun.
Nothing was there but the forest line. Why couldn’t she see him? Or better yet, sensehim?
What if Ash wasn’t really seeing Soren, but just another illusion?
Or Soren had truly anticipated her bold move and intended to snipe the child. Maybe he wanted them here all along.
She dipped her chin, sharpening her glare through her hooded eyes in the space that the High God supposedly stood. An inky, sage-colored smog seeped onto the ground around her legs, curling around her and dancing like fire.
“Stop being a coward and show yourself,” she demanded.
Soren emerged from the mist, quickly followed by another replica of his body, and then another. Soon, dozens of copies surrounded them, slowly walking a circle in synchronous steps.
Marina readied her Night as the first one jumped for her.
She formed a cage around her and Ash, sending crescent waves of her ebony power through each attacking duplicate of the High God.
They charged her one at a time, then two, then three, as she scrambled to preserve her focus. He would not wear her down with these games.
The fading frames of his mimics melted into the wintry ground.
Marina’s palm rose and her darkness gathered in a phalanx of spikes around her and the child. In a harsh motion, she sent them out, catching the rest of the replicas and trapping them to the trunks of the faraway pines.
The copies all evaporated and left only one Soren in their wake.
The High God strolled toward them, unhurried, as if his victory was inevitable.
Marina’s heartbeat ricocheted in her throat. “Hold onto me, and continue to take deep breaths, okay?”
Ash nodded against her collarbone, tightening his arms and legs around her torso in a secure grip.
She materialized across the clearing behind Soren and reared her hand up. Ribbons of her Night sped forward and pierced through the back of Soren’s ribcage, throwing him forward and pinning him into the bark of a tree.
Marina’s vision flickered, and the sight of the snowy forest transformed into a cove. Palms and island greenery blossomed up from the sand, casting shade over the tombstone in front of her.
A plumeria wreath hung above Father’s name.
Her breath hitched, and she spun around, searching past the sea and the island flora.
A collection of nimbus clouds collected above her, instantly churning out a torrent of rain. It began to pelt the sand, slowlyeroding away her father’s grave. The level of silt lowered and exposed his lifeless body in an infinite slumber, still adorned in his elegant, verdant robes. Then the rain melted away his clothes, his skin, into an amalgam of bones. They quickly washed away into the sea, leaving only a handful of magnolia blossoms that decayed before her eyes.
This isn’t real.
Her skin prickled.
She closed her eyes and focused outside of her mind on the physical sensations surrounding her—Ash in her arms, the frigid crisp of winter, the crunch of snow beneath her boots.
She opened her eyes as something hard struck her side. The impact knocked her off her feet, and she rolled across the icy ground. During the fall, she tensed her arms to keep the child in her hold, while keeping the hit from crushing his fragile bones.
The back of Marina’s head hit the ground, and a violentcrackechoed in her ears. Pain lanced down her skull. She winced, rushing to sit up.
“Let me go!” Ash squirmed to climb out of her hold, gasping on choked breaths. “Let me go!”
Marina gawked down at him, baffled by his outburst. “Ash, wait!”
He crawled away from her. “Wipe it off!Hurry!”
Her vision blurred.
