A tear slides down his cheek, his face a mask of betrayal and pain as he collapses against me, his transmitter blinking in his ear. I drag myself out from under him. Noelle’s on her knees, her knife in his back. She stares at his blood on her hands as his magic flares and soars away.
The sky peels open, unleashing hot rain and filling the valley with fog. Feet sprint from the road, surrounding the lake and the hills. Shouts echo from the woods, the smack of fists and the clatter of steel. The smell of blood and Seasons is everywhere, balls of light whooshing through the trees as bodies and magic are swept home through the ley lines.
Noelle wipes her eyes. She points at the lake. “There!” Julio and Chill break the churning surface, struggling to hold Jack’s weight between them. “Go!” she says. “Go to him!”
I tear my eyes from Jack to thank her. There’s a flash of silver behind her. “Noelle!”
Chronos’s scythe catches her around her waist. Her mouth falls open as he jerks it free. The frost fades from her eyes. Her light drifts into the sky, and I back away, unable to breathe, as her body crumbles in the wind.
Chronos wipes the blade with a look of disgust. A muscle in his cheek twitches as he stalks to the water’s edge. The last of his Guards stand sentry beside him as Julio and Chill drag Jack’s body ashore.
The sight of him stops my heart. Three arrows protrude from his back, the first pinpricks of light already shimmering through his skin. I crawl toward him, but Chronos swings his scythe into my path, anchoring the blade in the ground in front of me. “His death has been written in the eye all along. There’s nothing you can do to change it now.”
No. No, no, no, no!
Julio works fast. He snaps the arrows close to the skin. Jack’s head rolls, water spilling from his mouth as Julio lays him on his back and starts compressions. Jack’s face is ghost white. Amber and Marie skid to a stop beside them, taking up defensive positions around them as Chill feels for a pulse and puffs rescue breaths into Jack’s mouth.
“Fleur?” Julio’s voice breaks on my name as he leans on his hands, pushing them into Jack’s rib cage. Jack’s glowing, the light fighting to leave him as Julio and Chill double their efforts. I call out his name, and Chronos jerks his staff in warning.
“Don’t you dare let him go!” I shout to Julio over the scythe.
“I’ve indulged this nonsense long enough.” Chronos sweeps up his staff, and I scramble in front of him, blocking his path as I summon a root. It slithers like a viper toward his ankle. Just before I strike, Chronos swings his scythe, slicing deep into the root.
My ankle gives out. The sharp sting rings through my leg. Warm blood spills into my shoe as he presses toward me. I call another root. It lunges for his back. Chronos swings the scythe behind him. I feel the bite of the blade and yank my mind free before the scythe slashes clean through it. I draw my bleeding arm to my chest.
“Dammit, Jack! Breathe!” Julio shouts. Chill pinches Jack’s nose, puffing air into his lungs. But Jack’s magic glows brighter through his skin with every compression.
“Leave him!” Chronos bellows.
I tumble sideways, pain shooting through my chest as Chronos knocks me out of the way with his staff to get to them. With a savage yell, Amber hurls herself onto Chronos’s back and locks her arms around his throat. As if she’s nothing more than a pest, he reaches back with his scythe and brushes it across her shoulders. She screams and falls away from him, cradling her injured arm.
“I said leave him!” Chronos’s cheek twitches violently. Julio counts out compressions between Chill’s breaths. In a rage, Chronos drives the handle of his staff through Chill’s shoulder like a spear. A distant cry echoes across the valley as Poppy calls out for him.
A sob takes hold of me. Jack, Chill, Poppy... how many more of my friends will Chronos take? I can’t fight him. He’s too strong.
He shakes Chill’s blood from the handle. Then shakes his head. “It’s a shame your lives have come to such a tragic end.”
A tragic end. I once told Jack there was no hope for people like us. That stories like ours were called tragedies for a reason. I hate that I was right.
Of course there was hope! They just had a shitty plan.... They should have gone down fighting!
I lift my head.
Jack always had a plan. He knew this might happen, that he might not make it. And he told me to be strong. To fight. That’s the only thing Jack ever asked of me. To choose what I want. To fight for it.
And I want to live.
I pick myself up off the ground.
Chronos may have taken Jack from me, but I’m still here. I am the girl. The girl in the fable. AndIhave the power to choose how this ends.
I dig my mind into the soil, deep into the dirt, into the dozens of twisted roots from the line of cedars at Chronos’s back. With a snap of my wrist, I impale his Guards, their screams lost in a crack of thunder. I snare Chronos by his arms and ankles. By his elbows and wrists and throat. I haul him down, pinning him like an insect to the ground.
A vine snakes around his staff and I jerk it away from him, into my hands. The long, slender handle is heavy as a lance, balanced like a sword. The razor-sharp tip’s already dipped in blood—blood he never should have taken. I stand over him, aiming the point at his throat.
“Give it to me, girl.” Chronos fights against the roots. I shake with the effort of holding him down. Through the earth, I feel movement. Two sets of feet approaching, running. I don’t look up or let down my guard as Gaia and Lyon run breathless into the clearing. Rage and relief battle inside me. Rage because they weren’t here soon enough. Relief that they came at all.
Professor Lyon slows as he approaches, taking us all in. His gaze falls on the staff with an unmistakable hunger. The ground trembles when he reaches for it, and when I growl, Lyon takes a wary step back from me.
