The three of them draw toward us, condensing Beta Team into a line with our soldiers behind us. When there’s nothing but empty space and crushed bodies between Mother and me, I look her up and down with disgust.
I have no Dragon’s Breath left. I let out burning words instead. “I spit on you and everything you stand for.”
No one moves. Nothing does. The collective stillness is the result of fear. Mother’s soldiers fear her wrath. Our soldiers fear for us.
“I stand for me,” Mother answers, something defiant in her tone.
Is that really what she wants? What anyone would want? That’s the most unfulfilling and lonely life I can think of. “It’s too bad you can’t see beyond yourself. You’re a dark hole, and the world is full of color.”
Mother’s expression seems to turn even more brittle as she stares at us. She looks at me, at Griffin. At Beta Team on either side of us.
Her chin lifts. She barks a command, and more Metal Mages pull hard on our weapons, making them shudder in our hands.
“Secure your weapons!” Griffin orders.
We’ve trained for this. Our people slam their swords and knives back into their sheaths. The blades still rattle. Gods damn it! We’re surrounded by them—Metal Mages everywhere.
Weapons are no longer an option. We’re down to fists and what little magic we brought with us. I could steal a Metal Mage’s power, but it wouldn’t do us any good. I could grab a weapon, but one of them would just take it right back.
I search the air for something else, something more useful, but Bellanca’s fire is the only other combat magic I sense. I ignore the few healers I feel, and from Frostfire, I already know that Mother’s telekinetic magic isn’t something I can use.
Turning inward, I probe myself hard, and the best I can say is that I feel my lightning lurking somewhere. It doesn’t leap to the fore. In fact, it doesn’t leap at all.
Mother smirks knowingly. “Still need that potion?”
Somehow, I smirk back. “I’m very effective with my bare hands.”
“Ah, I taught you something, then? I did try, you know. If you hadn’t been so poorly influenced by your sister, I’d have made something of you.”
Poorly influenced? Fury boils inside me. My hair starts to rise. I recognize this feeling, this storm inside, and grab on to it. A current coils down my arm and snaps between my fingers. Ha!
I throw out my hand and let a bolt fly off my fingertips.
Mother ducks. “Touched a nerve, did I?”
Despite her flippancy, she sounds rattled. I’m sure she is. And when she’s rattled, she—
Ah! Power punches my brain, and I gasp. I grab my head, just like everyone else except for Griffin. His eyes widen, and he reaches for me.
“Cat?”
I groan. It’s excruciating. I almost rip the pearls from my belt and slap them over my forehead, but I can’t do that. They’re for Little Bean, protecting her from this. I grit my teeth, fighting back.
Mother batters me—batters everyone. Is this what she’s capable of when her magic isn’t already depleted? Or when she’s not wielding it from a distance? The power is staggering. Her compulsion is a chisel pounding away at my brain, shaving off layers, each hit separating me from my will, separating me from who I want to be. I hear her over and over again in my head. She’s telling me to kill. Kill everyone around me. Kill now. Kill until there’s no one left.
Soldiers—hers, ours—turn on one another like animals. They have no hope of fighting off her horrific command.
Next to me, Flynn raises his ax, his face contorting with bloodlust and rage. The blade glints above me, and I stumble back, still clutching my hammering head.
Griffin slams into Flynn, knocking him down to protect me. The two men, fast friends since childhood and alike in size and skill, grapple with each other on the ground. Flynn rears up, still trying to attack me. Griffin’s fist collides with Flynn’s jaw. Flynn shakes off the blow and then changes target, sinking a brutal punch into Griffin’s stomach. They beat on one another again and again and then drag each other down and roll. Griffin on top. Flynn on top. The world spinning out of control.
I shake my head, trying to dislodge the terrible pain and the even more terrible command to kill. My mind throbs, and the desperate struggle against the onslaught of violent urges makes vomit surge in my throat. I’m the only one still fighting her. Griffin is immune, and he and Flynn battle in the stones and dust. Carver and Bellanca battle each other. Flames. Blades. He strikes hard. She just barely dodges, screaming savagely, completely on fire. I don’t see Lukos anymore. Where’s Kato?
I spin, and blood sprays in my face. I jerk back, my vision pulsing like a fading heartbeat. But I can still see soldiers fall, cut down by comrades, friends, and family. Brothers and sisters who came to us together, who trusted us to lead them, rip at each other’s throats, turned into vicious, mindless killers with no free will of their own.
A knife lands in my left shoulder. I grunt in pain and shock. Heat flares out from the wound. I recognize the blade. The Metal Mage must have thrown my own knife back at me. This is Fisan irony, otherwise known as vindictiveness. At least it always gets me my weapons back.
I pull it out and feel blood wash down my side. The sting in my shoulder is nothing compared to the agony in my head. If Mother didn’t have everyone else to control, I think she would have already vanquished me. I don’t know how much longer I can fight her.
Warring splotches of light and dark overwhelm my eyes, and I can’t find her anymore in the chaos. I hear Griffin roar at Flynn to snap out of it. There are grunts and hard punches. There’s Flynn snarling like a wild beast.
Where’s Kato? I can’t see!
I battle for control of my mind while fighting rages all around me. I don’t have to see it to know what’s out there—blood on hands, hate in hearts. Mindless and corrupted.
“Give in!” Mother’s ruthless command hits me with the force of a thunderclap between my ears. It’s shattering, invading, bleeding into all my edges and forcing me down the wrong path—the path I’ll never want.
Crouching down, I wrap my head in my arms. Sykouri and I are one—razed, wrecked—and Mother’s voice is the most terrible of Siren calls as it pummels me over and over. Pounding. Pounding. Pounding.
This has to end. The promise of no more pain seduces my imploding consciousness like a mirage in the desert. But that’s just what it is—a lie. Every instinct tells me that I have to fight for all I’m worth, fight for my life. I hammer at my head with the palms of my hands, trying to beat her pollution out. The darkness is too close. It’s overtaking me, inside and out. My heart resists. It’s too filled up with better things to flood with malice and hate.
I rock. I’ve been here before, and I lost myself. I lost myself to this terrifying pressure commanding me to betray myself and everyone I love. This is what Mother did to Eleni and me. She tore us apart. She made us fight like enemies, like mindless creatures in the dirt.
Not again! I explode upright, screaming. Even blinded by Mother’s crushing magic, I see Eleni with perfect clarity in my head. It’s her image that drives the shadows back. Like a ray of sunshine, her memory pierces the dark, and together, we eject Mother from my mind. In a way, my sister saves me again, and the reverse rip of power leaves me reeling as I come back to myself.
I blink, drawing my nearly fractured mind back together again. Some of the pieces feel like they don’t quite fit. It’s a struggle to make myself whole again, but I know that I can, and I know that I won. I can hardly believe it. This time, Eleni and I won.
Steadying myself, I look around at the utter devastation. Mayhem and bloodshed surround me. I may have won my battle, but I’m the only one. Everywhere else, the savagery is chaotic and loud, jarring and brutal.
Sickened, I search for Griffin. I need to know he’s safe.
> Blond hair and familiar features are the first things I see when I turn around. Kato’s heavy arm slams into my chest from the side, knocking me to the ground. Stunned by the blow, devastated by its source, I expect his mace to swing down and crush my skull. Instead, it arcs around with a frightening metallic whistle and hits the crazed-looking man lunging at me with a dagger. The Sintan, one of our own—one of Kato’s—flies back, one whole side of his face shattered and opened to the bone. Before he even hits the ground, there’s no longer murder in his eyes. There’s nothing at all.
Still flat on my back, I gape up at Kato. His snake tattoo is racing all over his head. It slithers across his forehead and then dives into his hair before circling back under his jaw, moving up his cheek, straight through his eye, and then across his forehead again.
“Titos is protecting you! Mother can’t get into your head!”
Kato hardly acknowledges me, alert to the next threat. And that’s when I realize exactly what I’m in the middle of.
Armies clashing. Me in the center of a raging storm. Bodies strewn around me.
And they’re all Mother, just like I somehow knew they would be. They might not look like her, but they are. Every last one of them is an extension of her.
My eyes widen in shock. I knew it would come to this. I knew.
A strange mix of cold dread and detached calm washes over me as comprehension sinks in. Not a simple nightmare or embedded fear, then—one that wormed its way into my consciousness to plague my thoughts. This scene I thought I imagined was a vision of the future. After Griffin found out who I am and we fought, I closed my eyes, and I saw this. I saw Mother looking at me like I betrayed her, because in her eyes, I have. For the first time, I came out on top.
My gaze swings to Mother on her pedestal, tripping over Griffin and Flynn just long enough to know they’re alive and still locked in combat. Mother’s concentration is unwavering, but her furious eyes hold mine.
Watching her wield her destructive powers, I want to rail against the Gods for giving me foresight without making anything clear. The vision didn’t come to me in a dream like the other occasional times I’ve been touched by the sight. I couldn’t place it as real. As coming. As something to avoid. What I saw wasn’t anchored in a setting. Besides Mother, I had no notion of the people involved.
My eyes jerk back to Kato. With tattoo Titos’s help, he must have stood guard over me, helping Griffin keep me alive for however long my battle raged on the inside, for those long moments when I couldn’t see or hear anything but Mother pounding away at my head.
Above me, Kato fights with the strength and skill of ten men. He takes care of all threats, and I stop looking. I trust him implicitly to watch my back while I make sense of this—and figure out how to fight back.
But I can’t block out the sounds of pain and rage and death. There’s an ache alive and blazing in my chest, a burn that will never fade. If only I hadn’t frozen up at Frostfire. If only I’d killed Mother then. We wouldn’t be here now. Everyone here would have been safe.
I do my best to set aside those useless thoughts. Regret is a part of life, and if only is a bottomless well where wishes don’t come true.
Closing my eyes for the briefest of moments, I force down a steadying breath. I’m ready to fight now. I’m ready to take my people back.
CHAPTER 21
I twist upright and spin to my knees, heartsick at the circle of death around me. Crushed skulls. Mace-imploded chests. Most are ours, those unlucky enough to have been closest to me.
“Stay down,” Kato barks. “You’re injured.”
But I’m already up. I look for Griffin again and startle when he appears next to me. There’s a flash of black hair. A flash of auburn. Angry eyes and blood.
I jerk back into Kato just as Flynn’s ax blade whistles past my ear. Griffin grabs the handle above Flynn’s two-handed grip. Snarling, they wrestle for the weapon, both injured, limping, mauled.
Being in physical contact with Kato is like getting hit by a lightning bolt of pure Olympian power. Titos’s magic jumps to me in a sudden rush, but I don’t hold on to it. I use myself like a slingshot and send it straight at Mother without a second thought.
She cries out and drops to her knees on her stone perch. She shakes her head, looking dazed.
For a second, Flynn stops. Everyone does. Griffin rips the ax from Flynn’s hands and flings it away.
Mother stands back up and her power strikes again, skipping over me like a flat stone on water. My defenses are shored up. Kato has Titos. Griffin is impervious. But Flynn bellows again. Scores of people do. The battle resumes, and those still standing fight like savages, many dropping their weapons to tear into each other with their bare hands.
Griffin and Flynn are just as feral. They’re too evenly matched and clash relentlessly. Griffin gains the upper hand, but he won’t kill his friend. Flynn is too skilled to be incapacitated easily, or fully, or even at all. They roll, growling and grunting, locked in a tangle, one trying to kill the other, and the other trying to keep them both alive.
Flynn lands a hard punch, and my gut clenches in fear. Griffin’s face is mottled with bruises, his upper lip is split, and his nose is swelling. None of that worries me as much as the gash at his hairline. Blood slides down his face, blinding him.
Flynn looks better than Griffin but wilder. He’s mindless, driven by violence and blind rage. In my heart, I know that Griffin could take Flynn down permanently if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to, and that’s going to get him killed, because right now, Flynn’s moral compass has been wiped out by the most immoral person alive. He’s not suffering from any form of honor or rational thought. He’s been utterly freed from the yoke of ethics. There’s nothing to make him hesitate, and if I don’t do something fast, Griffin will pay the price.
I whip around at the sound of Bellanca’s distinctive scream—furious, pained, and unhinged. Carver roars in pain as well, his sword arm singed. Their differing strengths are the only things keeping them alive. Carver can’t get his blade in close enough to kill her because Bellanca is utterly on fire and throwing off what must be a terrifying amount of heat. And Bellanca can’t burn Carver to a crisp because his blade is keeping her just out of reach. They circle each other, waiting for the chance to pounce.
Around us, people rip into each other. There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s just kill, kill, kill. And the killing needs to stop.
“I know what to do!” I shout to Kato. Hopefully Griffin hears, too.
Counting on Griffin to keep Flynn busy on one side and Kato to guard me everywhere else, I inhale slowly to center myself and then pull magic from deep within, feeling the boost Titos’s tattoo shot through me still sparking in my blood. I concentrate with every ounce of energy inside me and focus all my thoughts on one specific desire—I will gather the bright sparks of human minds all around me. I will take them from Mother, even if that means making them mine.
I shut my eyes and see them even better, brighter. They’re beautiful, like stars in the night. Some flicker out, their light erased from existence even as I watch. Others, I still might save, but this day will torment them forever. This is the total loss of self a person never forgets or truly overcomes. This is where black marks on hearts come from, and where nightmares are born.
A big part of me rebels at the idea of latching on to human minds. A person’s head is a sacred place, one of truth. It’s our most private inner sanctum, where we’re all alone with our good and bad thoughts, know our own deeds and desires, and our choices should only ever be our own. All my life, the invasion of the mind has been my point of demarcation, the one line I swore I’d never cross. I’m about to do it anyway. Is it an act of mercy? Survival? Maybe it’s both. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve made my choice.
Shoving long-standing fears aside, I pull on the minds around me. Lights gravitate toward me, but t
hey don’t come fast enough, or even all the way. Mother’s hold is solid, and the brutal tug-of-war I initiate between us starts to feel like it could tear me apart.
She holds on to what she’s claimed with iron strength. I double my efforts, quaking from the sheer amount of magic required to try to steal away her prize. The lights begin to whirl, and my head spins along with them. The sounds of fighting fade until all I hear is the fast thumping of my own pulse.
I pull harder, my head starting to grind with pain. The pinpricks of light turn searing. I coax more magic up from the swirling well of power inside me, but my concentrated, powerful effort at compulsion doesn’t work. I don’t capture a single spark.
Kato hisses. The sound breaks my concentration, and I open my eyes, searching for him. My vision swims as my magic pulls my brain tight like a bowstring and then snaps back down into me with the painful backlash of unused power. I gasp, lurching. When I regain my balance, I see Griffin and Flynn still grappling and growling at each other. Closer to me, Kato is injured now. A deep slice in his shoulder paints his arm red.
Gods damn it! I haven’t changed a thing.
A woman lies either unconscious or dead at his feet, joining our other attackers. The circle has grown since I closed my eyes and tried to wrest control of everyone from Mother. Kato switches his mace to his left hand, raises it, but then shifts his balance and uses his injured arm to land a knockout punch on the man charging us from the side. I recognize the assailant before he hits the ground, incapacitated. He’s one of our Sintans. One of Griffin’s from the start.
Nausea plagues me, and not only from my headache. We’re fighting the people who flocked to us from the four corners of Thalyria. We’re fighting Fisan soldiers, too. For efficiency’s sake, it was everyone, or no one, so Mother simply took them all.
Magic bites the air near the ruined gateway, different from Mother’s. Metal whistles. People scream. There are mostly Fisans over there, but Mother doesn’t care. The point of this massacre isn’t for her soldiers to best ours. The point is to leave no one standing—because that’s how she gets to me.
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