“I-I’m almost done! Be back in a moment!” I called in return as I scrambled to put everything back in place. I stuffed some hastily written notes into mycapsa portatilisbefore closing the top and flicking the lights off. “I need to talk to Endymion, asap. This goes way beyond what I expected.”
“Then get your ass out of here and do so,” Callaway barked.
Chapter thirteen
Standing at the Edge of the World
Atlas
Iraced across Odrikius’s campus with a Gehenna-bent fury, nearly floating above the ground because I could barely handle running. Endymion was sitting in the old library, flipping through pages of what I presumed was the book I asked him to bring with him. His all-white hair was sprawled down his shoulder, and he was twisting the ends around his finger to soothe himself. Seraphine sat beside him, her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to decipher the pictures I’d sent her, while Erasmus and Ashlynn read over her shoulder.
I flung the door open, scaring the absolute shit out of everyone in the room, and stormed up to Endymion with my eye twitching. “Some great freaking fail-safe you created!” I boomed as I grabbed a spare magazine from the bookshelf and whacked him upside the head with it.
“Oww! What the Gehenna did I do now?” he bawled as he rubbed the tender spot.
“How about making an unstoppable force that can eradicate the whole planet? A second time, might I add, as your first test subject was my fucking son!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down a moment here. You knew about the Horsemen well before you made the pact. How is any of this my fault?”
“Because you made it so we would activate once every thousand years!”
Erasmus turned to Endymion with fury-filled eyes. Endymion threw his hands up immediately, knowing Erasmus was going to unleash Gehenna on him. “Now wait just a minute before you bite my head off...!”
“You didwhat?” Erasmus snarled.
Endymion huffed on nervous breaths. “This was a time where plague and famine were already taking over the world. I figured that, if the Horsemen triggered every thousand years, it would calm the overwhelming wars and disease plaguing the planet. It was meant to be a method to keep things under control!”
“But why didn’t it activate when he turned a thousand?” Ashlynn asked. Her gaze had been fixed on my exposed neck, which showed the bite marks from Ambermourn. I swore to myself for not covering them better in my rush to get here.
“That’s a good question, actually.” Endymion flipped wildly through pages of his journal. “Is there anything special that happened during your thousandth year?”
“Not particularly, no.” I shrugged nonchalantly. “We were busy with the Byzantine Empire’s war, but beyond that, Humans were moving in the right direction. Religious expansion made many modern kingdoms spring up, but the world was turning for the better, overall.”
“Maybe, because the year changed to a new decade, it threw off the balance of the activation?” Seraphine inquired.
“That wouldn’t make any sense, though. I turned a thousand in 1020, not 1000.”
“Close enough?” Erasmus attempted weakly.
“We cannot base things on a ‘close enough’ basis,” Endymion childishly disputed.
Ashlynn rounded the table and subtly used her energy to start healing the bite marks on my body by pressing her fingers into my back. She was obviously displeased with them but was hiding this fact by doing it secretly. “Whatever the reason, Atlas is now well past the point of activation. With his rise in powers once more, we are facing some serious issues if things were to go as planned. Endymion, is there any way to nullify the activation for longer?”
Endymion tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “I have a theory, a weak one, but a theory. I wonder if, because the archaic and medieval ages were so riddled with disease, war, and famine, that maybe the Horsemen were using their powers enough to nullify the side effects. Like, they were tiring themselves out too much, so their powers weren’t at their peak performance.”
“I questioned that myself. I figured, when I turned two thousand, that we didn’t activate because my powers were so weak,” I interjected.
“The issue with this theory is that the Earth has not been subjected to medieval-like conditions for quite some time. Atlas does not exercise his familiars often, so they are slowly brewing into unstoppable monsters. Add in his power restoration, and really, he is a ticking time bomb that Ambermourn or Pandora could certainly take advantage of.”
Erasmus cut in. “But why would he want Pandora? What could she grant him that is worth the risk?”
“She can restore his powers with that blade of hers if he helped her recreate it,” I reminded. “Surely, for a four-thousand-year-old Elemental, this sounds like a wonderful deal. Ambermournhas lost a lot of his touch. He's reduced to making books with his free time. Imagine if an all-powerful God grants you new powers, and probably a slice of her new world for yourself. Wouldn’t you take the deal?”
“We are so royally fucked!” Seraphine sobbed. It was odd to hear her curse, but she was right after all. There was no denying the fact any longer.
“Thanks to someone, who seems to like doing all the fucking around here!” Erasmus roared, as his anger had begun to boil over.
Endymion rolled his onyx eyes. “Please, Erasmus, don’t start with me. I didn’t force Atlas to make the deal. I was able to control the Horsemen when I was the God of Death, so it’s not my fault that he can’t.”
