Chapter 41

FORTY-ONE

BASH

“ Almost? ” Collins cried and I stiffened beside her. “What more do I do? I’ll do anything.”

I did not like that at all. My stomach was a ball of nerves.

Collins listened, then nodded. “Anything. ”

I closed my eyes. Why say anything? That’s such a dangerous exclamation.

“I accept,” Collins said with a strong, confident voice.

My eyes widened. “Excuse me? What? You accept what? ”

She opened her mouth to answer me when a small, round turquoise stone shot up through the snow and hovered in the air. It glowed like a light bulb. We both just stared at it silently. And then the stone soared across Crystal Henge and slammed into Collins’ arm. Turquoise magic curled around her bicep, then faded away, leaving a glistening silver arm band with that turquoise stone embedded in it.

“ What is that ?— ”

Long turquoise tendrils of magic shot out of the armband and covered Collins’ entire body. Her feet were lifted off the ground. The magic formed into the shape of a diamond around Collins, encompassing her within it entirely. That white outfit Ellie had put her in changed from the turtleneck and cargo pants into that same exact little white skimpy dress my mother had worn when pretending to be Collins. I couldn’t be sure, but something told me the choice was intentionally petty. Which I loved. What I didn’t love was how every inch of her skin shimmered a light aquamarine. Or the bright turquoise magic billowing from my soulmate’s eyes.

Collins had just become the Chaos Stone.

Fear gripped my heart in ways I hadn’t known before. I didn’t know if this was temporary or not, or what side effects there’d be, but it was too late to ask questions. All I could do now was stare.

The diamond holding Collins lifted farther off the ground, shooting above my head. I flew up to stay level with her, desperate to see a sign that life was still in there. But this turquoise magic expanded more and more until it was this sort of sphere type of vortex with magic swirling around inside of it.

Collins opened her hands and rivers of tiny crystals and sharp thorns poured from her palms, then swirled within the magical vortex. Green vines and colorful flowers sprouted from beneath the snow below her. I backed away. There was no way of knowing if Collins was present in there at all or if I’d get sucked up in that vortex too. This thing was chaos incarnate. The Chaos Stone had come to life.

The Chaos-Collins spun toward the mountain’s edge—and then leapt off.

“COLLINS!” I screamed and dove after her, but she was flying at a speed I just could not compete with.

All I could do was watch with my heart in my throat as I raced after her. This Chaos-Collins crashed into my father’s armies without slowing down. Snow and ice billowed into the air as she descended upon them. A forcefield of crystals and thorns ripped through what was left of Mother’s palace, turquoise lightning slicing through the walls and shattering glass windows. Bright orange flames flickered through the smoke. I waited for pain or sadness to hit at seeing the only home I’d ever known go up in literal flames, but I felt nothing.

Well, that was a lie. I felt sick satisfaction.

My mother bellowed in the distance. I scanned the horizon for her. When I found her, she was staring at Chaos-Collins with wide, horror-struck eyes. Her skin was ashy pale. Collins had found the Chaos Stone and Mother knew it. She watched Chaos-Collins destroy the rest of her palace in a split-second.

And then she bolted.

I’d never seen my mother fly so frantically. It made my nerves twitch. I pushed my wings harder to gain speed, but I kept my gaze locked on her back. She raced straight for the portal door, and even though I knew it was locked, a part of me was nervous. Butterflies danced in my stomach. She was so overconfident that she didn’t slow down even a fraction. I watched in slow-motion as she slammed full-speed into the door and was thrown back into the snow. I laughed. She scrambled to her hands and knees, then pushed to her feet and sprinted for the door again. This time she stopped and tried to get it to open by pushing on the door, then pounding her fists on it.

It wasn’t budging.

I cackled. Thank you, Araqiel.

Blue flames lit up the sky below me, so I looked down and gasped. Chaos-Collins unleashed an absolute chaotic and terrifying combination of crystals and nature, destroying the army without breaking speed. When the crystals swirling around her glowing vortex hit Thaddeus’s soldiers, they burst into blue flames for a moment before turquoise magic swallowed the flames.

I tried to wrap my head around this revelation that the man I thought was my father my whole life wasn’t. In hindsight, it made perfect sense. The man who raised me all but despised me. He was the coldest of the entire family. I saw Thaddeus myself. I looked like him. That meant every time Bregan saw my face, he saw my mother’s affair. Later, when this war was over, I would have to process all of this, but right now I just was shocked.

As the screams of my father’s army echoed all around me, Tephine abandoned her attempt at the portal and tried to run. She made it ten whole feet before my friends had her circled. Tephine spun in a tight circle, eyeing each and every one of them for her window to escape.

Savina’s red lightning struck her in the spine in four places.

Mother threw her head back and screeched. Her hands curled in and her muscles pulsed. Ellie’s purple lightning laced through mother’s chest. Her feet lifted off the ground and her back arched. Jada lunged for her with her dagger drawn and swinging right for mother’s throat. I sucked in a breath as time seemed to slow down. Mother’s eyes widened when she saw Jada. She threw her hands up and thick green vines with nasty thorns coiled tight around Jada’s throat. Jada tried the cut through them, but her blade may as well have been plastic.

I cursed and flew as fast as I possibly could. It was all happening too fast. Sandra and Weston dove for Jada. Even with Savina and Ellie shooting her up with lightning, Mother still threw her hands up and shot those green vines around each of their throats. The thorns on them sliced through their clothes and into their skin. Fresh red blood dripped onto their white clothes and snow. Ellie’s purple magic flickered between each of their throats and the vines. She must have been using her magic to prevent the vines from breaking their necks or suffocating them. She tried to use her own earth magic to remove the vines, but it wasn’t working fast enough. Savina wasn’t thrashing or wiggling. She just held her focus on my mother and kept lighting her up with lightning like she was fully prepared to die to kill her. Ellie was using so much magic her legs buckled and her knees hit the snow.

“ RETREAT!” Aphid screamed from down below, catching my attention.

When I looked down, I found the villagers were all retreating in a panic, racing to get out of Chaos-Collins’ path. Good. Get to safety. I turned my gaze back to my friends. I wasn’t close enough yet to help. All of this was happening in a matter of seconds. Weston growled and gripped the vine around his throat. It smoked that pale-blue color right into mother’s hand. She hissed and clenched her teeth as his electric shock lit her up. Savina’s red lightning held strong. Stellan and Sandra were trying to cut through the vines on their throat with no success. Shylock sent his magic through the vine—no doubt to try and bring Mother’s emotions down to where we needed them. Jada wrapped both legs around the vine and began kicking Mother in the face. Blood spilled from her nose and mouth.

Mother screamed and thorns went flying at them, piercing their skin raw.

I ducked down beneath the blizzard gusts of wind into the cloud of Chaos-Collins’ destruction and my jaw dropped. The earth had split open to create a massive crevice. Vines swung from within the crevice and dragged the soldiers back inside, but as they went over the edge, the turquoise magic swept over them and turned them to dust.

Mother shrieked again, pulling my attention back to her. My friends were in trouble. Their faces were beet-red and their lips were starting to turn blue. They were losing too much oxygen. I couldn’t get there fast enough. But maybe Father’s magic can? Let’s see what we can do. I summoned those blue flames to my hands, took a deep breath, and then threw them as hard as I could right at my mother.

Blue fire hit her vines and they went up in flames. Ellie threw her hands out to stop the fire from hitting them, but her strength was fading. The blue flames hit Mother’s hands. She roared and threw the vines to the ground, yet they didn’t uncoil from my friends’ throats. I was there. Just a few more feet. Her connection to her magic needed to be halted for just long enough to get my friends oxygen.

So I tackled her.

We rolled a few times, but I was pushing my new ice magic around her the whole time. When we finally stopped, I’d gotten Mother’s arms and legs bound in ice. Her wings were frozen solid and no longer flapping. Only her hands were free, and because a part of me did come from her, I found satisfaction in reaching down and breaking all of her fingers with my bare hands. But then I saw Ellie collapse on the snow and her purple flames went out. The others flailed and thrashed as the vines had nothing stopping them now. I cursed and threw mother straight up in the air, then pushed my magic into those damn vines. I had no idea what I was doing but they began to rattle and pulse. Fog billowed from the top. I curled my fingers in, and the vines crumbled into little ice blocks on the snow.

All of my friends gasped for air and dropped to all fours. Stellan scrambled over to Ellie while still coughing on air. Weston pushed off the ground and his gold and purple wings carried him to her. Mother started to drop from the sky, so I held my hand up and strained my magic to keep her in place, hovering like a new moon in the sky. I glanced around to my group and my heart sank. Weston was using his electric shock magic to restart Ellie’s heart. I couldn’t even look at Stellan beside her, but Shylock had his arms around his cousin. On the other side, Savina was on all fours gasping for air as her arms and legs trembled. Blood spilled from wounds all over her body onto the snow. But Jada, I did not like the way she was lying there with her limbs in weird directions. Sandra was frantic beside her.

I couldn’t just lie here holding her in suspension.

The bitch needed to die. Finally.

I pushed off the ground and flew up to her, but on my way up I noticed all of my father’s army was dead and gone. They were dust in the wind, swirling around the glowing vortex of Chaos-Collins who had set her sight on Mother and was moving fast. So I backed off, letting my soulmate and her friend the Chaos Stone have some fun. I just held her in place.

Down below, the villagers were all rushing back to the battlefield with their eyes locked on me and Mother.

Chaos-Collins’ glowing vortex slammed into Mother’s back, melting through the ice I’d wrapped her in. Her diamond-like wings flashed with golden light and then changed into big, white angel wings with feathers. She choked on a gasp as the weight of those wings dragged her down a few feet. I threw more ice around her feet to keep her suspended. Turquoise tendrils snaked out of Chaos-Collins’ magic orb and whipped across Mother’s head, turning her white-blonde hair into a warm golden-blonde. Her ears shrank down to a human’s ear shape, not pointed at all. The tendrils slid across her eyes and suddenly the pale-blue changed to sapphire. Her skin was now a deep tanned olive tone. My jaw dropped. It took a second for my mind to grasp what I’d just witnessed.

She was mortal again.

She was Nephilim.

Chaos had reclaimed what she’d taken from it and turned her back to her birth form.

Chaos-Collins looked right at me with those glowing turquoise eyes. She raised her arms and the tendrils of her magic pulled back into her orb. My pulse quickened. The Chaos Stone was giving me the kill. I grinned and threw my ice at Mother without hesitation. I’d suffered a long eighty years for this moment. I wasn’t going to miss it.

I froze her entire body inch my inch, saving her head for last. Then I flew up close so we were eye-to-eye. She barely looked like the female I knew, but she still stank with the aura of evil.

Mother snarled and it was about as terrifying as a puppy’s bite. “ This . . . isn’t . . . over . . . for you. ”

“Maybe not, but I’ll deal with my father the way I’ve dealt with the rest of my family.” I laughed in her face. “I just wanted to take this last moment to let you soak in the fact that you lost. We defeated you. And it is your own flesh and blood who killed you.”

“ You little ?— ”

“I can’t wait to see what Lucifer does with you. ” When Mother’s eyes widened, I leaned in closer. “If there is Heaven then there must be Hell, and I’m sure they’re rolling out the red carpet for you as we speak. I hope you rot for eternity. Vengeance belongs to fate, and you’re about to get what you’ve deserved.”

“ Thaddeus — ”

“Will meet you there soon. ”

I pushed my magic with everything I had until she was a solid block of ice. Then I pushed more . . . and more . . . and more until she exploded into blood-red chunks of ice. The pieces of her rained like hail on the snow. But it barely landed before turquoise magic sucked those pieces up and into the vortex of Chaos-Collins. The pieces turned to dust and then floated away into nothingness.

Tephine was dead.

The world could finally take a deep breath.

But suddenly the turquoise diamond-shape at the center of this giant vortex of magic glowed as bright as the sun, forcing us all to cover our eyes. When the light faded, I looked up and my heart stopped.

Collins was free-falling toward the ground.