Chapter 39

THIRTY-NINE

ELLIE

Bright light exploded from above our heads. It was so bright it was nearly blinding. I shielded my eyes. The islands above rocked and the sound of falling rock filled the air. It was like one of those videos of an avalanche. Everything went into slow-motion and the entire battlefield came to a halt. The island split in half and began to plummet to the ground. Chunks of ice and dirt flew from it. Snow flew out from it like a cloud of flakes. Stellan and I landed at the foot of the remains of the castle just as the island in the middle suddenly dropped.

My eyes widened and I threw a tornado out toward Stellan. It wrapped him up and pulled him back toward me. I leapt up into the top of the funnel and let it carry us out of the way of the falling islands. I spotted Bash grabbing Collins just before the thing hit the ground. The moment it hit, the island collapsed in on itself with Tephine trapped by Collins crystals. She fell to the bottom of that island of debris as soon as it hit the ground. The thing cracked and covered her body.

The other two followed like dominos. One after the other they tumbled to the ground. When they collided with the earth, the ground exploded around them, shooting up into the air. Stellan grabbed my arm, trying to hold me steady as the entire world shook. A chunk of the castle crumbled from the vibration. The army staggered around trying to find their balance. Ice and snow filled the air from the collapse and blew across the battlefield. The line of trees closest to us all tipped back, falling like a wall after the islands came down.

They crushed some of the army, but even after that there was still a river of them covering the field. Everyone held still, their eyes focused on the disaster. It was so quiet we could hear a pin drop. Weston and Shylock flapped their wings and landed beside the two of us. On the other side of the field, I spotted Savina, Sandra, Jada, and Aphid.

“That’s what ya get, ya daft cunt,” Stellan yelled at the top of his lungs. He threw his arms up in the air and a wide smile spread over his lips. He leapt into the air. “ WOOOOOOO! ”

He turned to Shylock and lifted his hand to give him a high five.

Shylock lifted his hand in confusion. “What is this?”

Stellan shook his head and turned to Weston who knew exactly what to do. He lifted his hands and they high-fived, and Stellan gave Weston a chest bump. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. WOOOOOO!”

Bash landed in front of me and Stellan with Collins in his arms. He placed her on her feet and the two of them faced the remains of the island sticking out of the ground. Stellan clapped him on the shoulder. “Nicely done, mate.”

Sandra soared over to us with Savina in tow. She dropped Savina right next to me before she landed next to Collins. She pressed her hand to Collin’s forehead. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “Just hit my head.”

“Did you just drop an island on your mother?” Savina asked with her voice rich with approval.

Bash didn’t take his eyes off the rubble. His chest heaved with deep breaths and his eyes were deadly serious. “She’s not dead though. It won’t be that easy.”

“You call that easy?” Collins moved in closer to him and looked up at him, checking him over. “That was not easy.”

“She has no magic now, right?” Stellan moved to the other side of Bash, and he too began staring at the rubble, waiting.

Bash shook his head. “Wrong. Tephine had magic before that stone was in her chest.”

“So we need to get to the Chaos Stone before she gets out from under those damn islands.” Collins looked toward the mountains. “And we need to do it now.”

Everything was happening too fast but not fast enough. There was still a huge amount of the army left. They’d gotten Tephine’s stone but not the Chaos Stone, which was the most important of all. Without it this realm was doomed.

“How are we doing on finding it?”

Collins sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. She pressed her hand to the side of her head and blinked hard. She swayed on her feet a bit and shook her head. “I spoke to it. It demands I prove that I’m not like her.”

Savina scoffed and motioned to the army and wreckage around us. “Prove it? What more do you have to do?”

“That’s what I said.” Collins sighed.

Stellan clapped his hands together and rubbed them back and forth. “Okay, so what next?”

Collins licked her lips and looked toward the mountains. “Well, we have to get the Chaos Stone. I feel it in my gut that we’ll need it to defeat her, so I need to prove I deserve it.”

Bash followed her gaze toward where Crystal Henge would be. “We have to return all the stones from my family members. Give it all back.”

Collins glanced at him. “Is that a guess or you know for sure?”

Bash pulled out a peridot stone and held it out toward us. “It’s Helena’s. I think my father told me when he gave me this.”

I was so confused. “Didn’t Savina kill your father?”

“You’re welcome by the way.” She winked.

Bash chuckled. “Not him. My real father: Thaddeus.”

Stellan’s brow furrowed. “Who the devil is Thaddeus?”

“We don’t know. Well, I kind of don’t know.” Collins shook her head and turned to him. “I mean, do we know?”

Bash looked to the sky, then nodded toward the army. “We know that’s his army, and he betrayed my mother.”

"Which means at one point he was an ally of your mother’s.” Collins scowled.

“But he’s gone now, so let’s focus on killing Mother.” Bash wrapped his arms around Collins and lifted her up off the ground. “You ready to end this?”

She nodded at him. “More than ready.”

Bash looked to us. “Stay alive a bit longer for us, my friends. We’re so close.”

Without another word, he pushed off the ground and soared across the sky. They were headed back toward Crystal Henge. I just prayed the Chaos Stone was ready to play nice with her. Then I looked back to the army still marching towards us. I tried to wrap my head around who this guy Thaddeus was. What these people were. Thaddeus being Bash’s father and then suddenly helping him right before abandoning Tephine all felt like a horrible omen.

I turned to Sandra. “Do we want to know who Thaddeus is?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”