“I don’t know.”
But if she had almost all the weapons, I hoped not. Kairoth claimed gods couldn’t be killed, but I had a feeling Khalasa knew more than us, more than she was letting on.
“What do we do?” Driscoll asked helplessly, and for the first time since I met him, I detected actual fear in his voice.
I glanced at everyone’s defeated faces, their slumped forms, and I stood.“I’ll do it. I’ll enter Khalasa’s mind.”
Chapter Sixty-Four
BELLAMY
Iclosed my eyes and reached for the starlight above, letting the light guide my mind toward the star court. That was where Khalasa had to be, no doubt looking for her scythe. The final weapon.
It only took a few moments to locate her, and when I did, I entered her mind. It was easy to get in, but inside, it was blank, similar to the shadows.
I wondered if she felt me, if she knew I was there, poking around. She must’ve kept all her thoughts, memories, hidden away. Maybe she’d anticipated this, knew I’d be coming.
Either way, I didn’t have time to waste. I moved around the dark spaces, unable to see anything, feeling my way around until I felt resistance. Something was lurking in the recesses of this darkness, something Khalasa wanted to keep hidden.
I pushed harder, my magic lighting up the space with its silvery hue. A door stood in front of me. I tried to open it, but it was locked. I shook the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. My magic flowed through me, and I reached for the power ofthe stars, letting the light push from my hands and into the door. It began to crack and splinter, and my heart pounded in anticipation of what I might find on the other side.
A scream split the air, and my head snapped back, my magic faltering.
The scream was distant, and it took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t just one. It was multiple screams. They were happening wherever Khalasa was. My stomach twisted into a knot. Khalasa could be destroying the Wilds right now, hurting everyone who lived there. I had to see what was happening.
Then, I heard a male voice, and my blood ran cold.
“Don’t do this, Khalasa.” It was Kairoth.
I moved away from the door and toward the sound. Darkness once again surrounded me, but the voices were my guide as I made my way to the part of her mind where I could see what was happening.
A little window appeared, and I walked up to it, looking through to see the crypt, the stones that trapped the remaining gods—and Kairoth with his shadows swirling around him in their beast form, eyes red and glowing.
Starlight and moonlight slashed through the gaping hole in the ceiling of the crypt, and Khalasa bent it toward the shadowy beast, making the shadows leap back toward the darkness.
“I don’t need my shadows to fight you,” Kairoth said, the angry shadow beast snapping its jaws at the light.
Khalasa laughed. “I don’t care what you use to fight me, Kairoth. You won’t win.”
Behind her, starlight wove into chains that bound all the weapons together, including Kairoth’s dagger. The starlight glowed so bright it was blinding. His shadows tried to snatch the weapons, but the starlight bound the weapons too tightly. The shadows couldn’t get them.
I pressed my hands up against the window, staring from Khalasa’s mind, helpless to do anything but stand there and watch.
Kairoth’s shadowy beast charged toward Khalasa. She raised a hand, and the stars obeyed, their light shining down brighter, making the beast roar and cover its eyes. I had to look away, the light so glaring it hurt my eyes. I peeked through my fingers. Kairoth twisted his hand, and the beast chomped at the starlight, but it bent again, this time forming into a lasso that wrapped around the shadowy beast’s neck.
Khalasa could do things with the starlight I’d never imagined. Used it in terrifying and wonderful ways.
She so effortlessly called to the stars, used their light to do whatever she wanted. And Kairoth did the same with his shadows. His beasts evaporated, the lasso dropping from its neck as it sank to the ground in a puddle, then reformed into its beast shape near the wall. It reached out a long leg and slashed at Khalasa.
“You caught me by surprise last time,” Khalasa said, jumping back. “The only reason you were able to trap me was because I didn’t see you coming. But that’s not going to happen again, Kairoth.”
She reached up and directed the starlight straight at the beast, the light burst into daggers that drove into the shadows and shattered them into a million little pieces.
They reformed as smaller beasts, about ten of them that charged at Khalasa from all different directions.
I wondered if, like elementals, the gods’ magic drained the more they used it. Probably not. So this could go on for a long, long time.
One of the shadow beasts leapt onto Khalasa’s back, and she let out a scream as another beast chomped at her hand, whichit swallowed as blood spurted from her wrist. The starlight disappeared.
