“I just did, little prince. You know the needed Elikesh. You know how to summon me from this pit of an existence. Do it. And bleed that king. His blood will be my blood. He will give me life like rain for a thirsty tree. Do it!”
I sit back on my heels. My soul feels broken. After a moment, I glance up into Colden’s black eyes. He watches me closely, a weak smirk curling the corner of his mouth, as though saying I told you so.
I can do many things, I’ve learned. But I cannot do this.
Even as Thamaos whispers like a demon in my mind, I set to work. This isn’t complex, not as complex as it should be. A thousand years of change have rendered such innocence enviable, in truth. That Loria ever believed all the gods would deserve a living monument, and that she provided a way for resurrection if a god were needed. She believed humanity would be good stewards of dead power, and yet here I am, restoring power that we might conquer Tiressia.
Something inside me screams at this. It screams and rages and rattles like a monster in a cage. It feels like when I vaguely remember the man I used to be. As though he’s trying to get out. To stop this. To remind me who I am.
And yet I cannot listen.
I drive the God Knife into the ground between two roots, returning Thamaos’s bone to the soil that binds him.
Then I drag a ritual blade across my palm and begin the summoning.
73
RAINA
Mount Ulra trembles.
I grip onto the tree we hide behind, a chill crawling over my skin, even as Alexus’s hand on my back steadies me.
The prince is doing it. I know he is. He’s awakening Thamaos.
With the others’ attention diverted by the prince, Neri prowls toward us, joining us behind the tree.
“I’m going to end this,” he says. “I don’t know how, but I am.”
Alexus steps up onto a root beside Neri. “I’m coming with you.” He turns back to me, faceless in the darkness. “I love you more than life. Please stay here.”
My breath catches in my throat as they take off across the expanse of roots before I can stop them.
Nephele grips my hand, as though trying to hold me back. But then she sighs. “I know you’re going after him regardless,” she whispers.
And she would be right.
I don’t know what I expect of Neri and Alexus. I never imagined them fighting on the same side willingly, but here they are. Still, I can’t fathom anything they can do to stop the moment, other than kill the prince, and I don’t know if a man made of shadows, souls, and sin can be killed any more than a god spirit can. Alexus can obliterate anything, but with Colden and Fleurie so close and in his line of sight?
There’s a sudden groan through the earth, a great bellow that swells across the night, stretching over the City of Ruin. If a mountain could cry, this sound would be its pleading wail. It’s as though it’s being asked to give up something it doesn’t want to lose, and I realize it probably doesn’t. This land knows what happens if this is allowed. It knows it’s re-birthing an enemy.
Nephele and I move quickly, but we’re stopped in our tracks when a flash of white light and an unholy lament splits the air. We shield our faces with our arms as dirt and rocks and wood rain down around us.
That wasn’t Alexus’s power. I would know it anywhere. And it wasn’t Neri’s. I’ve felt it before.
This power is new—
No. I’ve felt it too. Just a shadow-kiss, in the wood when Alexus summoned this bastard.
Thamaos is here.
In the next breath, the light dims, but there’s a constant glow spilling from the earth beneath Thamaos’s tree.
It’s enough to illuminate several hundred feet in all directions, meaning we are no longer concealed. Fleurie has fallen to her knees next to the prince, panting. Colden is on his knees too, a few feet away. Vexx is leaning against a tree for steadiness, chest rising and falling fast, his eyes on me and my sister, as though he’d already found us in the dark moments before. Neri and Alexus stand in bold form, only a matter of strides from the prince.
But most importantly, the bones of a long-dead god lie in a berm of upturned soil, and they’re moving in odd little twitches, like his skeleton might rise any moment.
Without hesitation, Alexus lifts his hand to call forth his power in the night. To destroy Thamaos’s bones or to destroy the prince, I can’t be sure, but…
