I felt him weakening and I wouldn’t let up. I pushed bolt after bolt into his body, but the darkness spread beneath the surface in response. An inkblot appeared, spreading across the icy barrier. It grew larger and darker as it neared the edge until a thick tendril broke through. It slammed against the outside of the dome, sliding across the ice and striking out at the air. The magic hissed, changing shape into an ice pick. Bit by bit it slammed into my element and chipped it away. I ducked as it passed overhead, but it slammed down against me on its way back. The tendril wrapped around my body and lifted me into the air.
Power pulled me forward with godly strength, smashing me into the ice. My body swelled from the impact and I struggled to break the hold. After the fourth time I hit the ice, I felt broken, and I forcefully dragged up my elements. Flame ignited over my torso and the black arm screamed, dropping me to the ground.
More tendrils broke free, finally shattering the icy cage. Ithreal’s breaths were wheezing and heavy, and bar by bar he destroyed the rest of the rocky prison with a rage-filled thrust. The stone exploded into the air and Ithreal stormed forward—engulfing me in his magic and lifting me into the air.
“I thought I could beat some sense into you. To make you accept what I’m offering, but obviously that battle is futile. Time to try something different.”
A black hole opened beneath us and we fell through the earth. I didn’t have time to breathe and the portal stole what was left of my breath. I felt dreary, no one part of my body hurting more than the other. White dots flickered in my vision and when we came out the other side, we shot out of the ground and rose into the air. Ithreal’s tendrils held us aloft like the legs of a spider, pushing him high off the ground. I stared back out over the war.
Tiki’s people had joined the fight and they annihilated everything in their way. Vincent’s family had been halfway destroyed, but he remained at the forefront of the fight. He looked exhausted, but he tore into demon after demon, going as far as sinking his fangs into their throats. Marcus was on the losing end of the battle with a group of Visceratti. The hunters who once surrounded him were dead, and claws tore into his body and face from every angle, one after another.
On top of the island of land, Rayna was on her back. The Visceratti Queen pinned Rayna’s shoulder to the ground and a tongue slid up her cheek, licking the blood from her face. She squirmed and struggled against the Queen’s wrath, but she wasn’t strong enough.
Ithreal moved in a circle, letting me see the wasted lives below. His children followed the line of dead bodies, breathing demonic life into them. Desperation and sadness clung to my throat and tendrils of his power cut across my body. When he spoke, he voice was a megaphone booming over the dead forest, and it amplified the splitting pain in my head.
“Is this your hero? Is this the man who inspired you to come to your slaughter?”
The battle froze again, the power of his voice entrancing the world. It took all my energy to look up at him, and beneath his skin, veins slithered across his face.
“This fool has led you to your death! Concede now and your lives will be spared.” Nobody moved and Ithreal panned the crowd. “Nobody speaks and nobody moves. Nobody rises to challenge me. Have your allies forsaken you, Protector?”
A primal roar sounded and Vincent stepped forward, his black eyes glowing with a ring of gold inside them. “Never.” His claws cut through the air, taking the head of one of Ithreal’s Unborn. It hit the earth and the body burst into flames, crumbling to ash.
Ithreal growled with rage. “So be it!” he screamed, and we fell from the sky.
The battle continued and the god landed on his feet, a black tendril raising me in the air and smashing me into the ground. Bones throughout my body broke and I fought to stay conscious. I summoned the water element, and the pain was immense as it shifted and molded me back together.
“Yes, heal your wounds so I can inflict more pain.” He lifted me up and smashed me again, his eyes full of fury as my bones healed once again. “Give in to me, Chase, and this will all be over.” When I didn’t respond, he repeated the action over and over again, finally throwing me to the ground. “Is this what you want? Pain? Is that why you let Willy and your mother die, because you like to suffer?”
“Don’t you say their names,” I said, but the words were weak and halfhearted. As my bones reformed, I reached back and drew the blade from its sheath. I needed more energy.
Ithreal’s black arm flailed forward and wrapped itself around the glass, trying to pry it from my hands. “Enough of that trinket.”
I pulled back, using every ounce of energy I could muster. A steady flow of power began to fill me up. My wounds healed, my energy returned, and I pulled back, challenging his strength and drawing him forward.
A low growl rumbled in his throat and the other tendrils wrapped around it, jerking my body left and right, but even as my body flailed, I wouldn’t let go. Power surged into my soul and with each passing second, I grew stronger. The next time my feet hit the ground, I pulled back, tearing Ithreal off his feet and into the air. I lifted the blade and swung it down, smashing him into the earth.
Ithreal released my blade and rolled away, staggering to his feet. He stumbled back a few steps and used the black arms to balance himself. His body had begun to break, cracks forming in his skin and black ooze pooling out. He examined the wounds, anger warping his face.
“You dare steal from me?” The tendrils swam around him, looking thinner than before. The blackness had faded and streaks of grey now adorned them. The veins that bulged in his face and torso had shrunk, but his eyes were as pure and dark as ever. “Steal from a god?”
Ithreal stumbled forward and threw his magic at me. I moved the blade to try and block them, but there were too many. They all entered my body, drilling through the fleshy surface and wrapping themselves around my bones. The scream I unleashed made my splitting headache even worse, and black and white flashes blanked out my vision. Ithreal’s power flexed and he pulled at my body, physically pulling it apart.
“Give in to me, Chase. Now. Spare yourself this torture!”
“No,” I whispered.
Ithreal stomped his feet and screamed. “Have it your way then.” He looked to Rayna, then to Tiki, and finally Marcus. “We’ll start with this one, shall we?” A black arm swatted the demons away and tore Marcus from the ground. His dark body flailed, blood running from his ears and mouth. One of his eyes was swollen shut and his lips were split open.
“No!” I screamed.
Ithreal hesitated, watching Marcus as blood ran from his mouth. “No?” he asked. “That’s not the word I want, Chase. Say yes. Let me in and end their suffering.”
“No,” Marcus whispered, hacking and coughing. A wave of blood spilled from his lips.
Ithreal pulled the remaining tendrils from my body and I cried out in pain. He wrapped them around Marcus, leaving only his head exposed. The power tightened and Marcus’s body jerked, his face paling and a whimper slipping from his mouth.
“No!” Rayna screamed. Ashes and flames fell around her, the Queen’s thorny crown tumbling down the side of the cliff and vanishing into the portal. The Visceratti all fell to the ground once again in a hiss. “Chase, save him.”
“Don’t make me do it, Chase. You can save him. You can save all of them.” Ithreal’s face was completely blank. “Save him like you failed to save Willy and your mother, and all these fallen souls.”
“No,” Marcus choked out the worlds. “My life is not worth everyone’s future. He needs you, Chase. He needs you to say yes. Don’t…” his voice was raspy and choked, gagging on his own blood.
“Silence!” Ithreal slashed Marcus’s face and Marcus heaved, drool and blood exploding from his mouth.
“Wait…that’s it, isn’t it?” I asked. Ithreal’s head snapped to the side and his gaze narrowed. “You need me to let you in. All this talk about forcing yourself into me…it’s a lie.”
“No!” Ithrea
l barked. “I am merely trying to spare you pain.”
I shook my head. “You can’t summon the gods without me. And if the gods don’t show, you can’t kill them and their hold on you doesn’t weaken. You need me,” I crawled to my feet, my elements charging inside. “If I don’t agree, you will never have the chance to free your true from. Your soul pieces, your essence, they’re all bound to Riley’s now and imprisoned in that body. You let part of yourself out of one hell just to enter another…another one of Serephina’s prisons.”
“I will kill him!” he growled. Two tendrils grabbed Marcus’s head and he turned it an awkward angle.
Marcus whimpered and pain struck my heart. Willy’s face flashed in my mind and I felt like my life was on replay.
“Kill him,” Marcus said, but the words were slurred. Ithreal’s tendrils smashed into Marcus’s face again.
I shook my head. “Marcus, I—”
“Do it!” Marcus tried for a scream, and the command sounded weak and broken. “Do it,” he whispered.
“Enough of this!” Ithreal’s tendrils devoured Marcus and between the sound of bones crunching and grinding against one another, there was a muffled scream, followed by silence. The black arms unraveled and the contorted body of Marcus hit the ground.
“Nooo!” I limped toward him, trying to run but the wounds were still too raw.
A dark arm hit my chest and batted me back.
“Who’s next?” he asked, his eyes panning the earth.
Nothing mattered anymore. The pain was nothing, the fear was empty, and the loss never-ending. I couldn’t keep doing this. I couldn’t endure any more. This ended now.
I fell to the ground, my knees having grown weak. The elements swelled in my arms and rage had taken over. The very emotion I’d tried to swallow and curb all this time was ripe and fresh. It grabbed all my elements at once and squeezed them together. Power merged inside of me and a searing pain exploded from my back. Bright white ember arms swam around me and the same white glow ignited over my hands. I struggled to my feet, but the white tendrils helped push me up. Ithreal’s back was turned as he scanned the crowd. As the power built in my hands, the earth shook.
The clouds rumbled with anger, and a monsoon of rain began to fall. The earth became a pit of mud, brown ripples rolling across it as it shook. Lighting reached from the heavens, destroying demons with every flash. The wind tore across the ground in a physical force. It pushed Ithreal’s warriors to one side, and pulled my allies to the other. Streaks of fire rained down from the sky, mixed with the rain. Each flaming drop that hit me stung, forcing the anger inside me to swell. Balls of power charged in my hands, and it grew and expanded, electrifying the air.
Ithreal cursed and turned to me, his face angry and fists clenched. “When will you learn? You are not a god. YOU CANNOT KILL ME!” All his tendrils launched forward, but my own shot out to meet his. We were in the center of a tangled web of magic. Black and white arms struggled inside one another but this time I knew there was no shade of gray.
The magic pooling in my hands became too much to hold. Fire fell from the sky and scalded my back, my eyes igniting the world in red. I pushed the power out with a godly force. I was just a demigod, but I had more than that inside me now. I had Darius’s power and part of Ithreal’s too. I had to be able to kill him. There was no other way.
The sphere spiraled toward him, crackling on the air and illuminating the field like a sun. Ithreal lit up in a flash of white as the power collided with his body. The god screamed and his tendrils withdrew from mine, flailing back behind him. The sphere exploded, swallowing him completely before it vanished. Darkness followed like someone turned off a light. Ithreal was left floating on the air, using all his tendrils to hold him up, but his body looked limp. Quick and rapid breaths spilled from my lips and I felt drained. I had nothing left to give.
Ithreal’s head snapped back and he glared at me, his chest marred with burnt flesh. He grinned. “Is that all?”
My shoulders moved up and down with dramatic flair as I tried to catch my breath. All I could do was shake my head. “No.”
The vanished magic returned with a massive explosion. The rain turned to ice, spikes of it shattering on the ground and cutting through his body. The wind became a torrent of power, knocking over everything in its path. My enemies and my allies all cowered to the ground, trying to avoid the elemental attack. Lightning snapped from the sky in quick succession, multiple strikes hammering into the god. His tendrils gave out and he fell to the ground. The earth shook in the most violent of quakes and pulled itself apart. The break divided us perfectly, splitting good and evil in half. When Ithreal climbed to his feet, his legs wobbled with exhaustion. He stumbled forward, black arms lashing out in random directions.
“You…cannot…kill…me,” he said.
A giant flare of power cut across the earth. Spikes of ice drilled into Ithreal, black blood splattering the ground. The wind caused him to stumble back, and white fire sparked in front of me. It moved like a wave, wakes of heat burning the air and smashing into his chest. The force drove him back over the portal that bubbled around the island of land, his body colliding with the face of the cliff. He hung there for a moment, tendrils pawing at the dirt wall and trying to pull himself up, but it wasn’t enough. The portal’s power was thick and endless, never growing tired. Black arms reached up from the portal and wrapped around his legs, pulling him down. Ithreal fought back, struggling against the force and clinging to the cliff. Slowly, he began to climb toward Rayna, pulling away from the portal’s grasp.
“No!” I screamed.
My white tendrils drifted around me, wrapping around the glass blade. White magic filled it as I channeled my power into the weapon. When the blade was full for pure, glowing power, I threw it forward. The glass blade spiraled through the air. It turned end over end until the tip slid through his back.
There was no humanity left, and the sound that came from his lips was visceral and monstrous. His skin cracked and streaks of light explode from his body. His tendrils hissed in response, and all at once they sucked themselves back into his body. Ithreal was broken, and had only his human-like hands clinging to the cliff. A bolt of lightning arced through the air and hit the cliff. The earth broke away and Ithreal flailed back toward the dark pit below. His screams and body were consumed by darkness and all at once, there was silence.
There were no cheers or angry cries, only the drops of rain crashing to the earth. The world was still, not a breath to be taken. We all stared at the black cloud that churned over the ground, open and hungry. The demon god was not enough to sate it.
I fell to my knees, watching the portal remain alive, its pull as active as ever before. “What...why is it still here?” I gasped.
“Because it isn’t over.” Drake Sellowind stood beside me. His cheeks still streaked with black. He looked exhausted and sad, staring into the darkness.
I should’ve been ready to fight, but I had nothing left. All I could do look up at him, waiting for him to strike.
Drake gazed at me and shook his head. “The portal can only be closed with blood. Either the blood of she who opened it…” My stomach sunk in my chest and the word “no” screamed through my mind. “Or Ithreal’s blood. Without either, it remains open. Ithreal will recharge, fill himself with more of his essence, and he will crawl back out of that pit.”
“But I did!” I screamed the words. “I gave the portal Ithreal’s blood.”
I looked up at the island of land that jutted from the portal. Rayna stood at the top staring over the cliff. Tears ran down her face and I fought back my own that built in my eyes.
“Ithreal’s essence may be inside your father’s body, but the blood that spilled was Riley’s,” Drake said. “In order for Ithreal’s blood to be spilled, his pure form must be present. And while it’s trapped in that dimension, that cannot be done.”
“No,” I whispered, climbing to my feet. I dared to challenge the portal�
��s wrath by moving forward. Fear was the only thing that carried me in that moment, and my eyes were locked on Rayna, high on the peak above. “No!”
Rayna’s green eyes were glowing with power. The portal craved her, and its black arms reached up the cliff toward her, but its reach was not long enough. It needed her to succumb and give in to its power.
“Don’t you dare, Rayna.”
“I have to,” she yelled, but her voice trembled and faltered. “It’s the only way...”
“You can’t. We’ll find another way. I need you!” We were on completely different levels. Her a hundred feet in the air, and me a hundred feet below, begging her not to go. The world stopped and our eyes locked on one another while my life flashed before my eyes.
The first moment I saw her. Ashes of a fallen vampire floating in the air and an incredible girl standing behind them. Next I saw her fist the moment before it smashed into my nose. Images of the day she saved me in the sanctuary came into my mind. She risked her life to interfere with the goddess’s challenge, and she saved my life. The first time her lips touched mine. The way she rolled her eyes. Her laugh when I said something cocky she didn’t believe. The way her element filled my soul and danced inside me. The first and only night we’d ever been together.
The world came rushing back and her eyes looked more incredible and vibrant than before. I wanted one more second, one more moment, one more touch. Anything. I wouldn’t let her go.
Rayna didn’t say another word. She stared at me, blood staining her face. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her lips moved slowly, whispering the words I love you. And then she jumped.
Black and red hair whipped around her face, her body completely still. She didn’t scream, she didn’t cry out, and she didn’t flail. She looked like an angel diving from the heavens. Her face looked calm. She had accepted her fate.
“Rayna!” I screamed, running toward the portal.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. Drake Sellowind shoved me to the ground, keeping me out of reach of from the portal’s grasp.
Endure Page 38