The godsire was bound before he could blink.
“Kill him,” Calvin ordered, his voice snapping into a calm, controlled line so abruptly it felt like a mask locking into place. His expression smoothed over, eyes steady, jaw set.
Noctis faced his father, and for the first time since Throk’nawan arrived, he looked at him without flinching, radiating a quiet energy.
“Killing him isa mercy he doesn’t deserve.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The wind stripped the storm clouds from the sky, the pelting rain dissipating with them. It didn’t matter, though, because the Ocean Mother’s hypnotized troops still stormed toward the peninsula separating the soldiers from the civilians.
The godsire slept beside the children under the order of Raveeka. Calvin and Jun mourned in silence, both clinging to the icy fingers of Zahara’s remaining hand as if letting go would mean losing her all over again.Tears didn’t fall anymore, only the silence that followed death, the memories of the fallen and the ache of what should have been.
They wrapped their tunics from under their armor around her, granting some sense of privacy in her passing. Her son’s faded blue shirt draped across her chest.
Jun wrapped an arm around Calvin’s violently trembling body and hauled him upright beside Zahara’s lifeless form, neither of them able to fully comprehend that she was truly gone. Mud clung to their bare skin in thick, freezing layers, their discarded armor half-buried nearby like something left behind by men who hadn’t survived. Calvin’s broken leg dragged uselessly through the dirt, forcing him to hop unevenly on the one that still worked while Jun carried most of his weight. Step by step, they pulled themselves away from Zahara.
Jun turned without a word and raised an unsteady hand. Flame spilled from his palm the way it always had so easily before, but this time it shook, weak and uneven, as though even the fire itself didn’t want to touch her.
It spread across Zahara’s body in slow, merciless waves, turning the last thing they had left of her into ash while Calvin stood beside him, silently breaking apart.Smoke billowed toward the sky, and I jerked, worried at first that it would be a beacon calling the opponents to us, but then I didn’t care. If the Ocean Mother wanted to hunt us down, I would relish in tearing the skin from her body in a gory, brutal death.
Noctis held my hand, his thumb trailing mine in a gentle caress. I couldn’t watch Zahara’s body crisp and crumble into the earth. Every time Calvin and Jun sniffled, my heart shattered all over again.
“What do we do now?” I asked Noctis, the words barely making their way from my mouth.
“You grieve. Whatever that looks like for you.”
“I want to destroy them all.” My hand tightened around his, a minute outlet necessary for my fury.
I didn’t want to stand there any longer. If it made me seem uncaring, I would apologize later, but I wanted to fight. I wanted vengeance—for Zahara, for myself, for the people that endured any harm at the hands of both the Terraguard and Oceanwrought villains.
Jun and Calvin stood motionless with their weapons hanging at their sides, fury radiating from them so violently it felt dangerous to breathe too close. Red blotches peppered their faces like perfect portraits of rage. I watched as the pain transformed to wrath. As the realization set in, the battle that surged around us, the goddess that started it all, the godsire that took our leader.
My attention trailed to Calvin as his grip tightened until his knuckles blanched white as his eyes searched the distance like he was begging for something else to kill.
Jun took off first toward the marching troops. Calvin screamed until his face was red, cocking an arrow on the bow and pulling it back. The pointed weapon soared through the air, finding its target in the throat of an Oceanwrought commander. The platoon continued to march, controlled by the Ocean Mother instead. Jun pushed through the rows, none of the soldiers caring that he shoved into them, eyes and bodies only focused on marching forward at command. His blade cut cleanly through the abdomen of the next hovering commander. Again, none of the soldiers were released from their mental hold.
“Keep them safe,” I ordered Raveeka, who jumped over the hill on my command.
I turned to take off toward the back—towards my primary target from the beginning.
Thal’Maruun. The Ocean Mother.
“Caelyn,” Noctis’s worried voice hit my ears.
I turned to face him mid-sprint, knowing he would attempt to stop me—he would attempt to prolong the fight to plan. But I didn’t want to plan. I wanted to fight. I wanted to win.
“Something feels… weird.” He lifted his palms, staring at them in confusion. His eyes lifted back to me, eyebrows drawn down.
Then, his face fell in a complacent stare, looking forward with no emotion. His hands dropped to his side.
“Noctis?” I asked, but he stared forward in silence. “Noctis?” I tried again, but no answer.
The god lunged, tackling me into the ground. We rolled, Noctis’s weight crushing me as we slid across the land. Skin ripped from my bicep as we tumbled, slabs of flesh hanging frommy arm as blood pooled along the mud. It was the only thing I could see from my position.
Noctis ended on top, a blade resting against my throat.
A surge of ancient power flitted through my body, leaching onto the bond between the god and I. It felt putrid, foul as if it didn’t belong to me or Noctis. His power was warm and light like a summer breeze through lush trees. My own—now that I wielded it once—felt like a bottomless pit of energy, fresh like the needed rainfall after a drought.
