Divine Destiny

by Hayley Todd

  I leaned aside, leaving my legs planted. Valeria crashed into my shin and spun into a ball of flailing limbs as she stumbled between Anton and myself. Her shoulder slammed into the trunk of a tree behind us and it echoed a crack as loud as a gunshot.

  “Kyra!” It was Carson instead of Anton who warned me this time. I turned, immediately letting loose some of the abundant energy within me. Another crystalline bolt of lightning arced between us and slammed into Kenos who had run toward us.

  She was unprepared for the blow and it roared across her chest like fire incarnate. Her shirt licked with flames that she frantically slapped at. She hunched over, breathing heavily, but she didn’t lose her feet.

  Then, her not-eyes shot up to me and she thrust her hands forward. Liquid threads of black whirled into existance from each of her fingers. They zoomed toward us, but they weren’t aimed at me.

  Three of the dagger-like tendrils connected with Anton. They stabbed through his chest and protruded from his spine. I could smell his blood within an instant. The remaining weapons collided with Carson on my other side, throwing him from his feet. The sweet scent of his lifeblood mingled with Anton’s.

  “No!” I shrieked. I hadn’t even been aware that the word was coming. It was echoed from behind me as Valeria staggered to Carson’s side. He had fallen flat on his back, the energy speared through his abdomen. She slid beside him, coming to a stop and lifting his shoulders from the ground. She cradled him against her chest, sobbing.

  Anton fell to his knees on my other side and I went to him. I had no desire to be anywhere near Carson and knew I could do nothing for him right then that she could not. I caught him before he fell but he leaned heavily against me, his eyes staring but blank.

  No. No. Seira, please. I can’t lose him. I can’t lose either of them. Please, help me! I begged Seira from within and I felt her stir against me. She was resigned and I knew it without words. I could feel the heavy acceptance in her spirit. They were but mere casualties in a greater war.

  Her lack of response was like a slap to me. I was putting my life on the line for her senseless feud and she did nothing to aid the men that I loved.

  I brought my wrist to my lips slicing through my flesh with pointed teeth. I knew this too should have hurt but I felt nothing but anguish. I pressed my bleeding arm to Anton’s lips but he did nothing in response.

  I suddenly felt strangely calm. My body went rigidly still. I rested Anton on his back and stepped away from him, facing Kenos. I could see Valeria doing something similar with Carson on my other side but I ignored her. I wasn’t afraid of her anymore.

  Kenos laughed and the sound grated along my being. Her twisted version of merriment echoed through the forest. At last she straightened, wiping tears of joy from her eyes with one hand. “I may not be able to get to Seira, I may not be able to get to you, mortal. It seems I have no issue getting to those nearest you, though.”

  I had never put much stock in hatred. I had felt uncontainable rage but never in my life had I felt the cold fury that filled me then.

  “I will fucking kill you,” I swore, not caring that I was staring down the powerful embodiment of the spirit of creation. I didn’t care if it killed me. I would stop her. I would put her down like the rabid animal she was.

  Kenos smiled, though there was no humor in it. She lifted her hands to the air and closed her eyes. The glow was still there, though diminished as the only evidence of the gesture. Inky black energy soared into the sky above her. In an ironic display, a bolt of black power surged back down from the trees. It mirrored my lightning in every way but color.

  Kenos spasmed as the thing crashed into her chest. Her entire body shook with the power.

  And then it happened and it was as though there had never been a human girl in the creature.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Tempest’s body was blown away as darkness exploded from her skin. Her figure twisted and broke as two long spindly legs erupted from each of her limbs. They stretched out into the air across the clearing and planted themselves in the dirt. They were thick, hairy things, reminiscent of a spider’s legs.

  The center of her form shuddered as her skin melted away, revealing a bulbous arachnid body beneath. Her face twisted into a multi-eyed mask, long venomous fangs pressing out from her mouth.

  What remained had the general appearance of a spider, though the size of a building. All eight of its eyes glowed with that same violet-black power. The liquid dripping from its mouth seared through the grass and dirt, leaving pockmarks across the forest floor.

  “If Seira wishes not to speak to me,” she growled, though the words were anything but human, “then I will make Seira’s decision for her. I will eat her yummy little host and along with it, all the power that Order has left.” Her speech was twisted with pleased laughter, though I had no idea how that thing could laugh.

  Its body towered over my head, its legs arching off into the shadows along the clearing. From my perspective, I could just see the shimmering outline of an amethyst gem implanted in its chest. It mirrored the Order Amulet in every way and cast flickering black light from its surface. Unlike the amulet hanging from my neck, light did not come from within the jewel. Its content was emptied, its power thrown into the night in the form of this monstrosity.

  The spider swept one of its massive legs up before stabbing it toward me. It impaled my shoulder and this was pain I finally felt. My entire body seized as the hairs along the spindly limb seemed to inject poison into my veins.

  Kenos’ body snapped foward, fangs the size of my forearm whizzing past my face. They would have connected and I would have been injected with whatever caustic liquid dripped from them had Valeria not chosen that exact moment to slam into my chest.

  The spider’s leg that pierced my shoulder snapped, bending awkwardly beneath the strain before it disconnected from its joint. The shriek that the thing made was an animalistic roar.

  I landed on my side, half of the leg protruding from my back, the other half sticking out of my skin. Valeria stood over me, her eyes furious. I was stunned when she didn’t continue her fight. She knelt beside me and took the leg in one hand. I could hear her skin sizzle along her palm.

  She yanked and the thing flew free with a wet sound. She turned to the giant spider with its leg still gripped in her fist. “I told you, she was mine!” she shouted, not bowing beneath the overwhelming presence of the monster. “That was our deal!” She drew her arm back and hurled the leg forward. It zipped through the air so fast it was difficult to see and sank two-thirds of its length into the spider’s belly.

  The thing screamed in fury and snapped its open maw down at Valeria, catching her forearm in its teeth.

  I grimaced as the snap of bone echoed around the clearing. Valeria cried out, falling to her knees as the thing pulled its mouth free, taking her arm below the elbow with it. Black liquid seeped up Valeria’s remaining limb, burning and eating away at her skin. Blood poured from the wound and soaked into the dirt at her feet.

  I needed to get higher ground. I needed to get away from this thing’s teeth and away from Anton and Carson who still hadn’t moved. I didn’t take the time to consider that it may not work and launched myself into the air.

  I focused on the feeling of wind sweeping around my form and was pleasantly surprised when, with the sound of crackling like a campfire, I remained airborne, hiding beneath the canopy of leaves but just above the thing’s highest leg joint.

  I glanced over my shoulder, making sure I could still see Valeria and the spider from my peripheral vision. There, growing from the skin of my back, seared through my shirt, were two long, delicate-looking wings made of electricity. They seemed solid but they were still opaque enough that I could see Anton and Carson’s limp bodies through the spinning web of lightning.

  They weren’t the same as Eris had wielded in my last vision of Sage but they would work just fine.

  Valeria was on her knees, her wounded arm cradled again
st her belly. She lifted her other arm and shot one bolt of magick after another up and into the spider. It flinched and shuddered with each shot but didn’t stop as it stepped closer to her.

  “Get up!” I shouted down to Valeria whose head snapped up to me in surprise. She stared blankly at me and peered at the blue wings arching from my back.

  I had no love for Valeria but she was fighting this monstrosity too and I wasn’t sure if I could take it on my own. I wouldn’t stand idly by while she got eaten like a delectable meal.

  The spider lurched forward, its mouth coming down on Valeria again.

  I acted on instinct. I hurled myself toward the ground like a rocket, the wings at my back tightening and closing together to increase my velocity. I clasped my arms around Valeria’s chest, avoiding the caustic liquid still dripping from her skin and tightened the muscles at my back.

  The wings snapped once and threw me back into the sky with Valeria dragged along in my embrace like a toddler. They sounded as I would have imagined any feathered wings would as I hovered above the creature. They beat the air, holding my and Valeria’s weight.

  The spider erupted in a furious chittering noise and forced its body upward, reaching its maximum height. It teeth snapped through the air as I just barely managed to skirt its attack, dragging Valeria with me.

  “Why are you helping me?!” Valeria shouted, sounding angrier than I had expected.

  I considered it. In a way, part of me thought Valeria deserved whatever she got. But there was a stronger part of me that made me who I was. That part knew that I could never watch as she was eaten like bait, especially when she may prove to be a powerful ally, even if only for a moment.

  “If you’re fighting that thing, then, for now, we’re on the same side,” I replied.

  Valeria went silent for several long seconds while I dodged snapping bite after bite, just barely managing to keep her legs from being gnawed on. Finally, she touched my arm with her remaining hand.

  “Let me go,” she said and the sound was soft. I glanced down at her and wondering if she had entirely lost her mind. Her eyes flicked to the back of the creature, then back to my face. She had a plan.

  I nodded to her and sped through the air until I knew she would land on the thing’s back. Then, I pulled my arms out from their bracing posture and let her fall. Valeria went down hard and fast and I saw a familiar bladed shape arch out from her remaining arm. Instead of blue-white flickering energy however, her’s appeared in violet. She slammed into the spider’s back, thrusting the blade down into its spine.

  It shrieked in pain but she didn’t stop. She stabbed into the thing again and again and again until its entire back was covered in strange green blood.

  “Tell you when!” I shouted to Valeria from a safe distance. She glanced up at me, pausing her furious onslaught and nodded. I would’ve sworn I saw the bare image of a grin on her lips.

  I slammed myself into the ground, leading with one fist and letting the wings flatten so my fall was faster. As I crashed into the grass, I called all of the energy I could manage from the air, from the sky, from the amulet around my neck, and from my own soul.

  I had managed to use the raw energy of the sky to kill Henrick Von Murg and I had never been as powerful as I was right then. Not one, but a dozen waist thick bolts of blue-white lightning ignited from the sky above. Each of the spider’s limbs were pinned to the dirt with raw power.

  “Now!” I shrieked. Valeria hurled herself off of the spider’s back and landed awkwardly on the ground, stumbling forward without her other arm to balance herself.

  The thing that exploded from the sky could barely be called a lightning bolt. It was massive, at least the width of a car. It carved through the air before crashing into the spider’s spine. Its gargantuan arachnid body exploded into ichor that covered every surface.

  I hadn’t anticipated the backlash of a bolt that large as a deafening crack erupted from the morning sky. It echoed all across the forest and centered in the clearing. I wouldn’t have been surprised to have been able to hear it from miles around.

  It was so loud that blackness enveloped me as the sound pierced my head in percussive cacophony. I tried to speak, but I heard nothing. I felt nothing. It was as though I had dove head first into an endless void.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  My unconsciousness didn’t last long and I blinked hard as light and sound returned to me. The spider was gone, though green ichor spattered every surface, including my skin. It smelled putrid but it didn’t burn. That was a small blessing at least.

  Though I didn’t have time to think about it, Carson and Anton still hadn’t moved.

  Valeria was in the air, lifted by her shirt collar in an almost comically small fist. Tempest or Kenos--I wasn’t sure which at that point--hefted her high in the air and had delivered more than one blow to the woman’s face. Her skin was speckled with blood and ichor and already purple bruising.

  I didn’t know how Tempest had survived that if she had been the spider, but still, there she stood. And around the clearing, also stood dozens upon dozens of cloaked figures. They were chanting and I was horrifically reminded of the ritual Sage had witnessed centuries ago.

  Valeria, Tempest, and myself were the only beings within a large circle of black energy. Just as it had with Eris, the power emanating in a circle arched up overhead in a dome. We were trapped.

  “--all I have done for you! You had a pathetic need for power and for whatever reason you were obsessed with the host and that boy. You could’ve had everything! Your single-minded focus has doomed you!” Kenos--definitely Kenos--roared between blows. She accented each sentence with another cracking connection of her fist to Valeria’s face. I actually felt bad for her.

  I climbed to my feet and without thinking, threw my hand forward with a bolt of lightning.

  Or so I had tried.

  My arm lit with power but nothing came. Icy horror seeped into my veins as I realized that whatever spell had prevented Eris from casting her magick was now doing the same to me. I was still faster and stronger but my internal energy was trapped within me. I felt infinitely weak despite all I knew was housed inside me.

  Crack. Crack. Crack. One blow after another rained down on Valeria. She was conscious, but only just.

  “Your time has come, Valeria,” Kenos said and I watched helplessly as she twisted her hand into a claw, her fingers like daggers. She stabbed her hand forward, into Valeria’s chest and with one final breath on Valeria’s part, ribbed her heart from her ribcage.

  I had reached my feet but not with enough time to save her. The wet sound made my stomach turn.

  Kenos glanced at me, dropping Valeria’s dead body. Valeria’s violet eyes stared emptily at the leaves above. I felt sick.

  Valeria’s bloody heart was still clenched in Kenos’ grip. She smiled sweetly at me and my stomach heaved. I twisted to the side as all of its contents upended into the grass.

  “Wow,” Kenos said on a sigh as she walked across the circle to one of the cloaked figures, handing them the heart. I was stunned to see the thing still beat. “You’re a pathetic one too, aren’t you?” she asked.

  The figure in the cloak lowered his hood and revealed a man in his forties. He took the heart from her and leaned over a stone bowl at his feet. He squeezed until the organ melted into blood and gore in the bowl.

  Kenos approached me casually, as though we were headed to Sunday brunch and she hadn’t just brutally murdered her ally in cold blood and ripped her heart from her chest. Despite having emptied the contents of my stomach, nausea still overwhelmed me.

  “She knew, you know,” she continued.

  I groaned as I tried to speak but forced the words out anyway. “Knew what?” I asked. My voice was a hiss of fury and anguish and pain.

  “About your current...situation,” she said, not clarifying at all.

  I glared up at her. I didn’t know what she meant but I wasn’t willing to play into her plan to find o
ut. If this was the end, I would go out being as much of a nuisance as I could manage.

  Kenos shrugged and glanced over her shoulder at the man. She stepped close enough that I could smell the blood all over her. There was a sickening, dead scent in it. She reached forward and I was sure she was going to hit me.

  But instead, she grasped at my neck and the chain at my throat snapped. Agony erupted within me as the gemstone was ripped away. All of the numbness and aversion to the pain I had felt melted away and every iota of agony exploded within me. My head throbbed, my chest burned, my shoulder felt as though it had been ripped off of me.

  I fell to my knees, unable to keep my feet without that extra energy. I was empty without it. I had burned up too much energy with that final blow on the spider and without the enhancing power of the amulet, my body was letting me know I’d gone too far.

  I didn’t understand how I maintained consciousness until Kenos spoke again.

  “I need you awake for this next part, so my friends out there are working a spell. When I’m done with you, you’ll wish you’d just laid down and died like you should have.”

  My head spun but I tried to watch her through ebbing vision.

  She reached up to her own neck and plucked the amulet that had hung there. She had lost her outer layer of clothing which had hidden it until she’d taken the spider form. She handed the man both of the gemstones and turned back to me.

  She crossed the circle again, forcing me to look up at her with one finger, whose nail cut into my flesh. “I wish I could’ve waited longer and given you time.” She glanced down at my body before locking eyes with me again. “I am sorry for that but it couldn’t be helped. This morning marks the same morning that my favorite host lost her power. Four thousand years ago, Eris carried my power how it was meant to be carried.” Kenos sighed and released my head, pacing around the circle.