Keko wrenched one of her legs free and slammed it up between his. He groaned and closed his eyes against the searing pain. His grip on her loosened, just a little but enough for her to wriggle out from under him and get one elbow into his neck, then another into his side. She kicked him off, then flipped to her feet over him, daring him to recover, daring him to come after her. Because she was fucking ready.
She didn’t get to be general for nothing. They hadn’t just handed her the title. She’d fought her ass off, made challenge after challenge, and she’d won them all. Against men and women who were far bigger or older or had more wins under their belt. She’d beaten them all. And now she’d beat Griffin.
Skirting away from the edge of the cliff, going deeper into the open space between the trees, she wanted to give them enough safe room to go at it.
On his knees, Griffin’s teeth were bared in pain, his hands cupping his injured junk, his eyes squeezed shut. Keko dove, going in for another attack, not wanting to miss this golden opportunity. Griffin popped alert, all show of pain instantly gone. She saw his trickery too late. His leg swept out, taking her down, smacking her skull against the ground and laying her out all over again. She saw his stars, winking there above her consciousness.
Then he was standing above her. She glimpsed a knee of his going back, a cocked foot ready to spring forward, ready to get her right in the ribs. With a jolt of power she rolled. Not away but into him, taking him out at the ankle he balanced on. He toppled forward, but true to his training, he didn’t just fall. He used the momentum to drag her with him and they rolled together.
She took an elbow to her cheek. He absorbed a punch to the chin. A heel crunched into her knee.
“You done?” he gasped. “I’m not . . . taking . . . you . . . to the . . . Senatus.”
The lies. The lies! She had to stop them, to make him choke on them. She thrust out her hand, preparing for another slam. The soreness fed her, the adrenaline kept her going. There was no weakness to succumb to. Only purpose. It’s what she was born into, what she’d been given. And to turn her back on that was an insult to her people, to her Queen, to the very Source that pulsed somewhere beneath her feet.
She flipped on top of Griffin now, clamping his waist between her thighs, fist descending again to his face. Blood glistening from cuts beneath one of his eyes and his lower lip. She’d done that. She’d done that, giving him what he deserved.
He caught her fist in his crushing grip. Fuck. Despite her best efforts to stamp it down, the weariness was finally starting to eat at her. She couldn’t give in. Not now. Not when she was so close to finishing him. Finishing this.
With a sharp twist of her arm that had her screaming, he wrenched her body down, her chest flush against his. Sweat and blood sealed them. Fire and water repelled. His closeness, the smell of him and everything he’d said and represented, made her fury burn brighter and hotter than the sun.
He spun her, rolling her again, encasing her in the vise of his legs and arms. He didn’t stop. Just kept rolling her over and over. Body over body, pain over pain. Until she didn’t know which way was the earth and which way was the sun. There was no leverage for her to go at him. There was no way to control the momentum he’d created. He just kept going and going, the ground eating at her body every time he rolled her over, his grunts coming out every time he threw her over his body.
And then there was no more ground.
It took her a mere second to realize what had happened. Where he had taken them. Their intertwined bodies had rolled off the edge of the cliff. Hundreds of feet down before the white, angry water far, far below. No safety net. Nothing but death.
Nothing her magic could ever save her from. Nothing she could do but flail. Powerlessness was the worst kind of weakness.
They fell and fell and fell, her stomach trailing feet behind.
A terror like nothing she’d ever experienced ripped through her. She let go of Griffin out of pure fear. Nothing around her. Nothing but warm air. Nothing between her body and the ocean. She saw Griffin’s face then, floating above hers, just inches away but feeling like miles, like universes, and he wore fear, too.
He was saying her name. She couldn’t hear him but she saw the letters form on his tongue, the shape of her name on his lips. His fingers grabbed her, finding her waist and shoulders. Though they were still falling, falling, falling, wind whistling all around, he managed to pull her to him, wrap her up in his limbs.
Still she fought, because he’d trained her to do that. To push him away. To hate him for how he was killing them. How he was taking away her dreams even now. How he preferred death over letting her beat him.
“I am yours,” came the whisper in her ear. But of course that was just the wind, pushing them toward the sea, into her death.
Death came with the implosion of the whole world against her skin, a great crush and wet suffocation, and the sound of a mountain being thrust into the sea. She went deaf with the power of that sound, and blind from the brightness of the dying sun. Then blackness took over her vision.
To her surprise, the crush lessened. She was being cushioned, bouncing in something unseen. Floating again amongst an undulating black.
Death was surprisingly peaceful. She waited for the Queen’s greeting, for her forgiveness, for her welcome into the afterlife.
And then Keko breathed.
Her lungs contracted, gasping. There it was: Damp, sweet air flowed between her lips and into her throat. It filled her lungs and pumped her chest in and out, in and out.
What the—
Her eyelids flew open. She was floating in a bubbling, frothy world—a water world made of a million shades of blue and green. Water flowed all around—above, below, on all sides—but it did not touch her because she was balanced in the middle of some sort of giant bubble. Her limbs were weightless, her hair swirling around her head.
The foam and bubbles racing around her incredible cage of air popped and fizzled, clearing away the murk, finally giving her a view of the ocean below the waterline. The ocean, as far as she could see.
The water cage shivered, and she knew this was Griffin’s doing. Indeed, the bubble itself was Griffin. Him. All around her.
She was alive but trapped.
The cage began to move. It pushed through the water, slowly at first, dragging her with it. Then it started to pick up speed. Unable to control anything, she panicked, trying to throw her fists against the walls, still wanting to fight the man who’d taken her, but her movements were waterlogged and ineffective.
He was pulling her back to the mainland. She just knew it. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to allow it, to just let him throw her from a cliff into the ocean and drag her back to the Senatus in a cage made of fucking water.
She screamed at him, her voice sounding muffled and wimpy.
She squirmed, her limbs and threats coming off puny and slow.
She reached for her magic, but the fire died on her tongue the second she opened her lips. It was still there, not dead, not diminished, just unable to be released within Griffin’s confines.
Fuck him. Just . . . fuck him.
The bubble cage was zooming now, the parting water churning past, rolling off the sides of Griffin’s magic. Off Griffin himself. He shot them through the ocean, in and out of pockets of shadow and sun, light and dark. Schools of fish darted out of their way. Reefs stretched out their hard fingers, trying to pop the bubble, but Griffin deftly steered around them. The great looming shapes of migrating whales passed in the distance, their eerie, sorrowful sounds amplified in her watery prison.
Keko continued to fight. Her mistakes would haunt her forever, but perhaps no mistake bigger than the one holding her now.
Minutes, or maybe it was hours later, she felt them start to rise, to slant diagonally up through the water. Outside the rounded walls of her cage the shades of
ocean blue paled. Rolling onto her back in sluggish, delayed movements, she watched the glitter of the sun lay itself over the top of the water. Long beams of light tried to make their way down to her. Then more and more. They pierced Griffin’s magic, striking her, blinding her.
He was bringing her to land again, and when they popped out, she was sure they’d be surrounded by Ofarians. Griffin—and all of them—better be ready for one crazy fight. She steeled herself, preparing. She expanded her chest and took in all that godforsaken damp air. She liked that—using the very oxygen Griffin gave her to prepare the weapon she was about to use against him.
The light above, twinkling in the water between the bubble and the surface, grew and grew in intensity. The pressure in her ears and body lessened. She could see the waves now, tipped with choppy white.
The bubble cage burst free from the ocean. It tumbled across the surface, spinning and spinning. Land appeared below—a harsh, jagged shoreline. They sailed up and over it, then the cage was no longer water, but a fine mist, swirling all around her in a dizzying, solitary tornado. She was nauseous and disoriented, and when she felt that mist coalesce back into Griffin’s body—his arms and legs still wrapped tightly around her—she felt furious.
They hit the ground, rolling again. With an “oof” and a moan, his clamp on her loosened, and then released her completely. When her body stopped jouncing over itchy dry grass and rocky soil, she somehow got her limbs to obey and pushed herself up to hands and knees. The world seemed determined to pitch her back into helplessness. All she could focus on without heaving was the spinning ground.
A large male hand rested on her back. It calmed her, though she didn’t want it to. When the hand skated gently up her spine to hook her hair off her neck, and a smooth current of refreshing air hit her skin, it jolted her back into reality.
She shook Griffin off, scrambling away and shoving to her feet. He remained kneeling, letting her go, merely looking up at her with oddly resigned eyes.
“Get up,” she snapped. “Fight.”
He dabbed at his cut lip and flicked a glance off to one side. “Look around you first. If you still want it, then I’ll give it to you.”
It was difficult to look away from him, but that’s exactly what she did. And took in a completely unexpected sight.
They were on a tiny island whose entire, uneven shoreline could be seen from their vantage point. Hard, pitted earth rolled in all directions, and beyond that, the vast, endless ocean. No other land in sight. In the center of the island jutted up a flat-topped rock, split raggedly down the middle, looking like a petrified giant clam. From that crack spewed a river of magic that Keko could feel in her chest and in her soul. She knew that magic. She’d wanted it and had made it her prey.
Griffin hadn’t brought her to the mainland. He’d taken her right to the Source.
She swiveled back to him, her jaw working but no words coming out. Maybe there was nothing he could say that would prove his loyalty to her, but apparently there was something he could do.
Another dab at his split lip. “I tried to tell you. I—”
His pupils dilated. His eyebrows came together and he looked far past her shoulder. Just like the day in the canyon with the Queen’s prayer.
And that’s when the Son of Earth burst from the ground and attacked.
NINETEEN
No tree to possess this time. The Son of Earth unfurled from the ground in a tumble of lava rock, his black craggy body splitting away, reversing gravity as he grew taller and wider. The chunks of his arms shot out from his sides, his head coming together in a clatter of stones, fitting together in a horrifying puzzle. A small earthquake shook his lower half, and the massive chunk of rock severed down the middle, forming legs. The whole thing took less than two seconds.
He took a pounding step toward Keko and Griffin. Then another. And then the fight began.
Griffin had been warned. He knew this was coming. He’d even agreed to this, to letting the Children have Keko if she got within reach of the Source, but even as he’d taken both their bodies over the cliff on the Big Island and plunged them into the ocean, he’d clung to the belief that he’d somehow find a way around Aya’s ultimatum.
He still believed he would, if only now because he had no other choice. It gave him something to fight for. Something worthy.
As Griffin rocked to his feet, Keko fanned out wide, wisely splitting the Son’s attention. If she could maneuver to the stoneman’s back, Griffin could attack from the front. Except that Keko never got that far, because the earth gave a giant lurch under the Son’s rocky feet, levering him into the air and arrowing his massive body right at her. At the same time, the earth below Griffin belched, throwing him airborne in the completely opposite direction.
A point of lava rock got him in the shoulder as he came down. No time for blood. No time for pain. He scrambled to his feet and found Keko across the minefield of upset earth.
She’d fallen, too, the roiling ground continually moving underneath her, and she couldn’t find her feet. Her defensive position was terrible. Griffin could see her trying to stand, to get up and fight back, but her balance was being constantly tossed about. That said a lot, considering what Griffin knew her capable of. Fear for her grabbed hold of him with tight, shaking hands.
The Son went at her, obliterating the space between them, hitting her squarely on. The sound was ugly, terrifying. Rock on skin and muscle. She went down, blood spattering from where the rough edges of his body had snagged and stabbed at her.
As in the canyon with the prayer, the Son was intent on destroying Keko alone, Griffin nearly invisible. Griffin had to use that, so with a roar, he sprinted toward them.
A scream cleaved the daylight. Keko. The Son was winning and Griffin’s heart nearly exploded with worry.
He hopped from tilted rock to tilted rock, coming around the mound formed from the Son’s entrance. Griffin had no knife this time, but it didn’t matter. The blade would only shatter against this body. And rock was not skin; he could not burn the Son with ice as he’d done to Makaha, and the Son’s movement would break apart any freeze.
At last he reached Keko, and he realized he’d been a fool to ever doubt her ability or consider her lost. She was on her back, the Son above her. Her knees flexed between their bodies, her feet planted on his chest, strong thighs holding him at bay. She was pummeling his face with her elbows and fists, little rivers of silvery crimson trickling down his cheeks from the blows. The Son’s exterior was more skin than rock now—a smooth, taut charcoal gray lined with veins of red, like lava rock that had been reignited and flowed again.
Keko screamed at her attacker, but not in defeat. No, his Keko was far from finished. She gritted her teeth, bent her knees just a tad more, and kicked the Son off with a mighty yell. All power, all strength, more than Griffin had ever witnessed in her. The Son’s body flew to one side and he hit the ground with a yelp. He’d landed on his left leg—the leg bearing a giant, festering gash down the length of one thigh, the leg Griffin had injured once before. He gripped his thigh and snarled up at Keko, his agonized eyes a strange, haunting silvery gold.
As Griffin finally reached them, the Son released his leg and lumbered to his feet.
Keko rose, too, eschewing Griffin’s helping hand. If she felt pain, it didn’t show. With a nod he moved out wide, keeping their dual position strong. Her chest expanded, creating her fire. She lit both arms, holding them out toward the Son in a frighteningly beautiful warning.
The warning was not heeded.
The Son growled and lunged. Keko arrowed her fire at his feet, igniting the ground around his body in a tight circle, encasing him. Brilliant, his Keko.
The Son laughed at first, the sound half human, half gravel. Then he tried to power through the wall of fire surrounding him. The smell of burned skin and sulphur, and the shriek of unexpected pain filled the
air. He looked down at his hands in shock and then in fury as though he hadn’t known about the damage fire could do. His chin rose, his lip curled in a cocky sneer.
He went for Keko again. This time through the earth.
The Son’s feet and shins shifted from skin to rock, his body shrinking as he tried to go under, to let the earth swallow him. It didn’t work.
Keko’s fire flared in the ragged piles of upturned rock on which the Son stood. Chunky, sharp lava rock cradled her element, spitting out flames under and around his feet—his own personal section of Hell. It rendered his escape and transformation impossible.
The sight of her beaten and bloody body, coated in waves of flame, made her fearsome. Made her invincible. She moved closer to the Son and asked in an eerily calm voice, “Who are you?”
The Son glared at her through the flames.
“Who are you?”
At great length he finally answered, “I am guardian of the Source. And you have violated our boundaries.”
She took another step closer, increasing the blazing circle around him. He cringed, throwing up a useless arm.
“Your name,” she demanded.
Though the lower half of him remained as rock, keeping him locked into the fire cage, the charcoal skin on his torso and arms ran with lava-red veins. His short hair glistened strangely silver. Half human in shape, but not anywhere near human in appearance.
“I am Nem.” The pink of the inside of his mouth stood out in sharp contrast to his skin. “But my name doesn’t matter. If you destroy me, another Child will come to take my place.”
“Did Aya send you?” Keko’s voice hiccuped over the Daughter’s name.
Interestingly, Nem’s face also darkened.
The fire circle crackled and hissed. His skin broke out in droplets of sweat that shone like quartz, and then plinked to the lava rock in solid form. “She didn’t have to,” Nem said. “This is the purpose of my line, to protect the Source.”
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