“They’ve realized we have no defenses,” Silas said. “Our wards are down, so we are completely vulnerable.”
“Who’s they?” I asked.
Silas didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. His stony eyes locked on the sky.
Three creatures carried three women through the sky.
“Whatare they?” I whispered.
The creatures cutting through the sky had bodies a shade of black so deep it was as if they were not a color at all, but an absence of color. Like these monsters represented the absence of life and hope and good. Their thick, ugly bodies were scaled like fish, and they flew through the sky like cursed eels on massive wings. Darkness trailed after them like a poison.
Each of the monsters had two slender horns atop their heads, and holding onto those horns were wild women. They looked like witches dragged from the depths of the sea. Terrors with hair like stringy seaweed and fingers with nails like brittle screws. They whipped through the air with a malicious glee, their yellowed teeth visible even from our perch.
“The Furies and their Sky Serpents,” Silas said to me, his teeth gritted. “Sent from the Underworld. It is as I suspected. The Darkest King has sent them.”
“You talking about…” I paused. “Hades?”
“The King of the Underworld.”
A beat later, a huge, glowing dome appeared below us at the center of the island.
“That’s Atlas,” Silas said. “He’s put up shields over the islanders gathered around the portal.”
“I thought he was going to Phase out of here the second we broke the crystals?”
“Maybe his heart isn’t as black as he’d like us to think.”
“Didn’t you say your brother has ties to Greek gods?” I asked. “Can’t we call for help now that the portals are open?”
Silas barely looked at me. “Nobody’s coming from Olympus.”
“But innocent lives are at stake!”
“Olympus won’t interfere. To do so would risk a full out war with the King of the Underworld,” Silassaid. “The gods have witnessed lots of death over the centuries. A few hundred lives on a small island is but a miniscule sacrifice in their eyes. They prefer greater world peace.”
As we spoke, my eyes were drawn to the attack of the Furies. The women were sending streak after streak of magic at the dome Atlas was holding up. I could picture Atlas’s bronzed body quivering beneath the shield, holding up such a huge defense at great cost to himself.
“They’ve been alerted to the fact that the crystals have broken,” Silas said, “and the curse has been set free. The curse will die before the moon rises tonight.”
“So they’re here to finish us off?”
“If they must.” Silas sighed. “They’re really only after one thing, Alessia.”
I gulped.
“You.” His gaze met mine. “By destroying the crystals, you’ve made it apparent to the Darkest King that a full-blooded Fae remains.”
“I don’t want anything to do with the underworld.”
“I know that. You know that. He does not.” Silas paused. “The Darkest King will be concerned that you’re out for vengeance.”
“Because he killed all my ancestors?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want vengeance. I just want to live in peace.”
“That, Alessia, is a sentiment the Darkest King cannot understand. All he knows is that a Fae has returned, and he can’t let that happen—your mere existence is a threat to his reign.”
