The rocks glittered in my hand, and I could feel the weight of their power. It seared into me.
“Your research to rid yourself of your power? So you could be with my father?” I asked.
Khalasa wheezed out a breath, and I hoped my brothers were doing okay, were managing against her.
“Yes, that had been the plan. I really did want to be with him.” She looked longingly at the rocks. “But as I discovered, I wanted my power more.”
“So what was the key?” I asked, not actually expecting her to answer.
“That’s the funny part about all of this.” She leaned in, red lips stretched into a power-hungry smile. “I figured it out when I found these. They were remnants of the original stone we pulled the weapons from. Little pieces of the stone that had fallen loose. See, we have no control over any of this, Bellamy. This continent created those weapons. It shipwrecked us. It chose the seven of us to pull those weapons from the stone. The stone was a way to trap the magic, shield it, control it. But once the weapons were pulled from the stone, there was no going back.” She stared at the seven stones. “Of course there were loopholes, ways to trap the gods using that stone, as your father found out. But there was no way to actually get rid of the magic. Get rid of us.”
“But...” I tried to make sense of what she was telling me. “But my father sensed you manipulated his mind, made him forget what he’d seen from your notes and journals.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “Your father wanted to believe there was a way to rid himself of his immortality. He clung to that hope. He forced himself to believe that somehow I had the answer, that I’d hidden it from him, and that meant he could find it too. He dedicated his entire life to finding it.” She laughed. “Pathetic.”
I snarled. “You’re not worthy of any of this, and I will continue his life’s work and find a way to defeat you.” I lunged forward right as the rocks in her palm glowed, stopping me.
Khalasa’s smile widened, sinister and slithering over me. “I couldn’t rid myself of my magic, and neither can you.” The dust lifted and swirled around her in a rainbow of color. “The magic has to choose to leave me, and it never has. The magic wanted leaders, gods to wield it, to have this power. Do you understand, my daughter? There is no way to separate us from the magic. This is a losing battle, and every single one of you who’s fighting against us is going to die.”
Chapter Seventy
BELLAMY
Ijolted back into the jungle, horrified as I watched my brothers still fighting Khalasa. She smiled at me as Ryder swung his sword in her direction, her star powers bending upward to throw him back. He flew through the air and hit a tree with a sick crack.
“No,” I said. “Ryder!”
Killian ran to him, helping him up, and relief flooded me when I saw him able to move. Alive. For now.
Khalasa’s words echoed in my head. We were all going to die. There was no way to defeat them. The magic chose them to lead us.
Something about her words niggled at the edges of my mind. The magic chose them. I thought about Maverick’s words from earlier, his questions. Why did my father get a weapon? Who chose him?
I remembered those rocks glowing when I said Khalasa didn’t deserve her magic. I gasped, a realization hitting me as the earth trembled under our feet, everyone stumbling at the force of it.
I raised my hands up, summoning my starlight. It wrapped around me, blanketed me, like a gentle caress.
You don’t want to be controlled anymore. You chose leaders. Made them into gods. But it was a mistake.I spoke to my magic in a way I never had before.
It tightened around me, a gentleYessssssechoing in my mind.
I thought about my father’s journal entries. He’d mentioned natural disasters happening everywhere—before the gods were trapped. The magic was already trying to destroy the earth, trying to rid itself of the gods and the mortals who had corrupted its magic, abused it.
Jorah, Phoenix, and Killian all fought Khalasa as she bent her starlight around them, and they slashed at it while Klaus jumped on her back. She screamed out as he yanked her hair.
The magic chose my father to lead. It was hoping to find someone noble, someone who could change the realm. But he rejected it. Rejected the net he’d been given. So the magic continued on its course of destruction. Once everyone was destroyed, it went dormant, burrowing itself away. It emerged again when my father returned and asked it to. It gave mortals a second chance, but this time, it chose no leaders. Everyone had the same powers, the same abilities. The magic didn’t want to be wielded by gods. It realized its mistake and did its best to correct it.
The ground trembled under us again, cracking, swallowing whole bushes. The sky rumbled louder, rain pouring and hail pelting us. The trees shook with the roar of the wind.
The magic was doing it again, I realized. It was going to purge us because the gods were back. It was going to destroy everything all over again. Just like it had before, believing we were all part of the problem.
“What’s happening?” Lochlan called, shaking his auburn curls from his forehead as he reached for Poppy and drew her to his chest protectively.
From above, hail and rain fell in heavy sheaths, clattering against the branches. Everyone shielded themselves from the onslaught while the gods continued their assault. So many had already died. Too many.
I remembered my father’s journal entries, his description of the end of the world.
“The magic is destroying the world again,” I yelled. “Just like it did to the Old World.”
