Kill them.The scream was a dizzying reverberation, but Menon located its source, a dark-haired man in finer robes than the rest.
Menon raised Her arms, the water reacting in kind.She would drown them.
She would drown them all.
Wake up.A hand on Her shoulder, gripping.Wake up, you idiot.Fearful eyes widened as the man dodged Her responding spear of ice.
“Do not interrupt,” She commanded, and smartly, he retreated.
Turn him off, someone cried.
I’m calling it, this is getting out of hand.
Mam’s gonna be pissed.
“Kai!”
Another face appeared before Her, a familiar comfort, a light in the dark.This one, She recognised.This one was important.
Gentle hands on Her cheeks.This man’s eyes bored into Hers, and She had the distinct sensation of being brought down from a high, frightening precipice.
“Kai,” River –River– murmured.All else faded to incomprehensible static.“Wake up, Kai.”
Menon was losing.“Riv,” She said in a voice that wasn’t Hers, and River smiled so prettily She nearly forgot where She was.
But – movement, behind him, a furtive little mouse scurrying away amongst the din of confusion and the endless, numbing vibrato of magic.
And with this little mouse –
“Sowelan,” Menon roared, Her power roiling to the surface.“Don’t you run.”
Sowelan hesitated, glancing back at Her, but the little white mouse pulled and pulled until they were both through a shadowed, hidden doorway.Menon slammed to the ground, countless hands wrapping around Her arms, pinning Her in place, forcing Her down.
“How dare you,” She shrieked, weakening.She bit something, a shoulder; She tasted blood.A howl of pain pierced Her skull.“Release me.”
There was the River one again, and Menon seethed, determining to kill him and anyone else who would stand in Her way.But Her feeble human shell refused, and feeble and repulsive though it was, its refusal was enough to restrict Her.
River looked sorry, and just as Menon wondered why, his hand shot out in a swift blur.Pain, sharp and sudden, ricocheted through Her temple.
Blackness bloomed, and weary and despairing and battered, Menon slithered back into the dark recesses of this despicable human shell.
Heat and noise and movement, a scuffle, his limbs swinging uselessly.Etan’s voice was louder, nearer; Kai lifted his head once, understanding that he had been slung over Etan’s shoulder, before giving in and letting it droop.He heard a shout, River, calling Ione’s name – then a lowoof.Kai cracked one eye open: Nalu had punched River in the stomach and folded him over his shoulder.
“If she wants to stay, she can fucking stay,” was all Nalu said.“Anyone else got a complaint?”
Hilo swam into view, burned and exhausted.Somehow they had gotten outside; now they were running, sprays of water and ice fending off bolts of flame.
She escaped.He felt his lips move; he might have been speaking.She went through that door.We have to go back.
Etan cuffed him in the side of the head.
The sun priests didn’t chase them, not for long.Not while they had more important matters to tend to: a new weapon, a god reborn.
Ione escaped, he told himself, over and over and over.
But thinking it didn’t erase the truth: his brothers had left her for dead.
Chapter Twenty-One
