He stumbled back a few steps, his severed hand falling next to Marina’s boots. Crimson seeped down his forearm and soaked the fabric of his rolled-up sleeve. A river spilled onto the concrete floor. Her chest clenched as it sprayed across her forearms. Luckily, she wore lengthy gloves.
Relieved that none of it managed to get on her skin, she watched Acacius as the bastard glanced down at his gushing wound and back up at her with a deranged grin, chuckling.
“Neat little trick.” His limb grew back together from the wrist up, quickly stitching each of his knuckles and fingers how they were just moments prior. “I wonder who taught it to you.”
“Just an arrogant god that I once met.” Marina pushed off the wall using her elbows. “He’s fucking deranged now.”
Thick, wraith-like shadows fabricated like fog across the pit.
She extended her arm. A dark mass gathered in the air and took the shape of a saw, thick with jagged edges, and she swiped upward.
Acacius reared back on his heels, missing her attack.
Marina teleported into the shadows surrounding them, breath shallow, lungs burning for more. Her pulse pounded in her skull, adrenaline hot in her veins. It was the most alive she’d felt in the last four months.
This was nothing. Acacius was more powerful, but she was smarter.
You know there is an easier solution.
The impulse to conjure her nightrazers swelled in her fingertips.
Her stomach dipped at the thought; she was uncertain what the outcome would be.
No.
Tension twisted behind her ribcage.
I can do this on my own.
Let him get close.
Let him think he will have his way.
A hand caught her from behind, wrapping her hair around his fist and yanking. Pain ruptured across her scalp as her feet lifted from the ground, and like a river stone, she was thrown across the ring.
She crashed through the wall, the impact crumbling the rock like an explosive detonation, and threw her out on the other side. Her vertebrae cracked.
Deities jumped around the room in tufts of smoke to clear out of the way.
Something sharp pierced her skin down to the bone, and her back met a solid structure. Wood shards of furniture penetrated through her shoulder and into her tailbone. Agony wailed up her torso and screamed in her chest.
She gasped, her breath sputtering in her throat as thick liquid filled her lungs. The strong taste of iron invaded her mouth. She coughed, attempting to clear her airway, curled in a ball on the floor of a dark room. Through the commotion, Marina made out the distant sound of jazz under the ringing of her ears.
Silky, low lights danced around the walls. She recognized the sparkling light fixtures and the leather settees. A continuation of the elegant atmosphere ofSalon de la Rose Rouge.
She pushed up on her palms to a sitting position, rushing to assess the liquid oozing down her temples. The flesh under her breast quickly stitched back together. Exposed muscle and tissue rubbed against the torn fabric of her body suit, the skin attempting to close around the object that jutted from her shoulder blade.
She ground her molars in response to the burning, drowning sensation seizing in her lungs, wet and flooded with blood, and reached back to wrench the wooden stake from her ribcage.
The release poured a fresh stream of blood down her spine, and a surge of it filled her insides. The copper-tasting liquid welled in her mouth, and she choked, spitting it out onto the floor.
Acacius was a High God, which meant he could easily inflict damage to her beyond repair, the same way Mother had with Finnian. Marina would need to tread with caution and try to avoid his strikes as much as possible.
She crawled up on her shaky knees. Her breath caught from the jarring of her spinepoppingback into place. Pain lanced through her insides like a sword slashing down her chest, convulsing the muscles in her arms.
She rolled her neck and let out a long breath through her nose, assessing the condition of her lungs. The blood was draining back into her veins where it belonged.
Dust from the crumbled stone drifted in the air, and in its ominous fog, Acacius emerged from the jagged hole in the wall of the lounge, grinning like the masochist he was.
