Desire radiated through the god’s power. He wanted me. Wanted me in his command, under his hand. Wanted my blood laced with his venom and his poison spewing from my lips. It was a sick fascination but also a need—Echnid wasdesperatefor me.
I am not yours!I roared internally, and from the way the god bared down, from the way our powers battled, I thought he heard it.
But right when Echnid opened his mouth to respond, two flying forms broke the horizon beyond the mist. Dark armored scales reflected the sunlight, born for battle.
Khrysaor.
Chapter Forty-One
Cypherion
“Got a read on them, Stargirl?”I called through the wind as Dynaxtar sped over the desert on Zanox’s heels. The khrysaors’ scaled wings were practically blurs.
A white mist was gathered less than one hundred yards ahead, too dense to see through. We speared toward it, as fast as they could fly. Wind whipped around us, stinging my eyes, but my blood pounded.
Vale’s gaze was narrowed, flicking between silver galaxies and olive green, but her voice never faded. As if her readings were controlled enough to be present in both worlds at once.
“Positive,” Vale said, and then she gasped. Her nails dug into my arm. “He’s there now!” she yelled. “Echnid—he has Ophelia!”
“On the fucking Angels’ graves!” Jezebel roared, and Zanox sped up.
I growled, locking my legs tighter around Dynaxtar. The khrysaor had chosen Vale, my Fatesworn, so I was putting all my trust in her as I sank into that place I went to before a fight. The one that clocked my opponent’s every flinch, every shift to calculate how to beat them. The one that had my fists aching.The one that had won time and again in the ring and on a battlefield.
With my focus honed in, I bellowed, “Stay true!”
And we plunged into the mist.
The khrysaor roared a monstrous sound I’d never heard as they spiraled down, flying in opposing circles and wrapping round and round the god. We cleared the perimeter of the mist, and?—
“Holy cursed Spirits,” I swore, my scythe burning across my back.
Echnid had Ophelia on her knees before him, bowed backward and arms stretched out on either side of her like some sick devout ritual. Mist poured down her fucking throat, choking her and holding her captive. Women clad in flowing white silk surrounded them.The gorgons.
A bright spark of silver-blue light ignited the white fog, and a bolt of Jezebel’s myth magic shot straight for the heart of the circle. Spearing toward one of the gorgons, she barely had time to gasp before it struck her through the chest.
And she crumpled to the ground. Dead.
Echnid roared, attention whipping to Jezebel, but his magic continued to push at Ophelia. Spirits, it was going to suffocate her. Tears streaked from her eyes into the misty wind.
With a wave of his hand, Echnid ripped a veil in the air like the one he pulled Ophelia and Malakai through in the mountains. The gorgons were swept into it, including the two lifeless bodies.
Then, the god turned. And as his mist relinquished Ophelia, all of his focus landed on Jezebel.
“Cypherion!” Ophelia choked out, struggling to her feet shakily but as quickly as she could.
“Drop me, Stargirl!”
Vale nudged Dynaxtar, and the khrysaor swooped low enough that I could jump to the sand, catching Ophelia as she stumbled over to me.
“Are you okay?” I asked, holding her with one arm and pulling my scythe with the other.
She shook her head, panting. Panic and pain scratched her voice as she croaked, “We need to find Tolek. Thorn is here.”
Zanox and Dynaxtar were still swooping circles around Echnid, Jezebel conjuring a barrier of myth magic to push back against the god.
Tolek, I tried to say down the Fatesworn bond, and it must have worked because Vale and Dynaxtar dove to the side. The khrysaor’s wings parted the mist, carving a tunnel.
“Come on,” I said, pulling Ophelia along. She dug her heels in, eyes flicking between her sister and the narrowing path the khrysaor had created. “You need to find Sapphire,” I urged. “You may have wings but you’re not ready for that sort of flight, Ophelia.”
