17. THE OLD GODS ARE DEAD

Chapter seventeen

THE OLD GODS ARE DEAD

O din stepped towards me as the door skidded shut behind him and tightened his hold on the chains.

"Surprise," he snarled.

My nails dug into my palms. "You won't take me without a fight."

"Oh, I hope not. I would be disappointed if you didn't struggle to save that miserable little life of yours." He stepped closer. "By all means, fight. But know this: you will lose. And you will die."

Ha, right.

"You have no idea how much joy it will bring me to slay the last of the Talonborn line. Worthless, weak beings, the lot of you!"

"That's funny, because I was thinking the same about you, dog ."

His grin widened. "May the best man win."

"Oh, I plan to."

I reached to my hip, my fingertips brushing the empty leather holster there, and my stomach dropped. Of course , because nothing—including defending my own damn life—could come easy, could it? Odin rattled the chains in his hand, taunting me. Cadagon's words cut through, hammering in the back of my mind.

Fight. Win. I know you can.

The simple fact was: I had to win. For my kingdom. For Kim. Hell, for me ! Allowing a rabid dog to continue spreading disease, to breed filth, wasn't an option. Odin had to die. Period. I'd rip his throat out with my bare teeth if I had to. I rolled my shoulders, lowered my stance, and launched at him, nearly landing a blow; but he stepped to the side just in time. His elbow came down hard between my shoulders with a hard thwack , almost bringing me to my knees. That speed … I pivoted through the pain and managed to connect my next punch straight to his face.

"Good one." He laughed and spit a mouthful of blood at his feet. "But I am sure by now you are aware I can take a beating. Ask Kimberly; she knows."

Her name on his tongue made my entire body shake.

"You keep her name out of your fucking mouth!"

Again, I lunged, but his fist collided with my gut; and I keeled over, the wind knocked out of me. Shit, he was fast. The hybrid spell had easily doubled Odin's reaction speed, which didn't bode well for me, and I heaved for a full breath. I'd have to go at this from another angle. Study him and get out ahead somehow. I shuffled backwards to allow a few feet between us and focused on his footwork.

"Tired already? What a shame," he patronized.

"Fuck you!"

He stepped left foot over right, leaning back on his heels slightly as he did. I faked him out, his footwork repeating the same motions, step for step. Bingo. If I timed it right, I could counterbalance him, but there could be no room for hesitation. I darted, secured my hold around his waist, and slammed him against the rooftop railing. My hold cemented around his jaw. With a little more force, he'd tumble over, falling ninety feet to the thorny garden below. Hybrid or not, it'd take a miracle to survive a fall like that.

I pushed him farther over the open air. "Better make your amends to the Gods, Odin. You'll be seeing them very soon."

His chuckle rattled against my palm. "Fool."

I saw the magic curved over his shoulders a second too late. It sharpened to pointed tips arching above my head, and with a shrill whistle, it descended upon me. I was no match for its speed or force. Like a razor blade slicing through warm butter, Odin's amalgamated magic stabbed into my arm, my chest, my rib cage and flung me across the rooftop. My head cracked hard against stone—the magic pinning me in place—and though I fought, it held firm. Blood gushed and pooled around me as his magic buried itself deeper. I lifted my head, my neck bristling at the dizzying weight. I needed to get out from under him before he sank more hooks in me.

Odin straddled me. "I must say, I am disappointed. I expected more from you. Such a shame."

His magic retracted enough for him to collect my wrists, binding them in the rusty chains. No…no! This wasn't how I went! I told my arms to swing. Told my body to rise, but to no avail.

"I'll…kill…you…" I forced out.

Darkness tinged the edges of my vision as I lurched forward; the unnerving awareness of my scalp peeling open along the crack in my skull made me ill. Damn it. I turned my head to spill my guts. Not good. I'd resigned myself to Death claiming my life years ago—believed his hands would deliver my soul to the afterlife personally—but how wrong I'd been.

Forgive me, Kim.

Odin's boot crashed into my face, and my fight left me. Abandoned me. But as my consciousness began to fade, I made out Nasheesh's final words.

"Take him to the mines. Malachi wishes to end this himself."

My eyes fluttered open.

Throbbing temples.

Stabbing needles in my wrists.

Pitch black.

A steady drip, drip, drip in the distance.

The world spun, and the black void claimed me again.

I jerked back to consciousness—the sensation of falling making me catch my breath—and the room quivered. I shuffled to sit up, gain my bearings, but…nothing.

The hell…

My pulse hammered in my skull as I tried again. Chains rattled behind me as my vision sharpened, and it became clear exactly how far up shit's creek I was. Bound. I was fucking bound! My sights frantically searched the damp space, finding nothing but stone. Stalagmites stabbed down from the ceiling and jutted up from the floor, like a gaping mouth prepared to crush me in its jaws. Lovely. This would do wonders for my claustrophobia. I reminded myself to breath and turned my head to the right. In the corner, murky water from a crevice in the cave wall dripped into a full bucket, the excess droplets sizzling in the coals of a small fire. Beyond it, a long tunnel crept off and disappeared in the distance.

"Finally, he wakes," a low voice echoed ahead.

Malachi.

"Where—where am I?"

"Do you like it?" He motioned around the room, keeping his face just beyond the light's reach. "It was quite important to me that your final resting place be…private, so you might erode and decay in your loneliness. That is what you fear most, is it not? Dying alone? It must be. Why else would you have followed that insufferable woman to this realm like a lovesick puppy, straight into the arms of your own defeat?"

I lurched forward. "Let me go, coward."

"Oh, that ship has sailed, Lyvias . Or should I say, Copernicus?"

He took a step closer. The flames reflected in his shiny leather shoes. So he finally figured it out. Took the bastard long enough.

"I know who you are and of your naive mission to restore balance to the kingdom as your forefathers before you. But need I remind you," he sneered, "they failed just the same as you. I suppose in that regard, you upheld the Talonborn legacy perfectly: utter failure."

"You bastard—"

"Accept it. You have lost. This little fa?ade of yours, this childish game: it is over. There is nowhere left for you or your disgraced queen to hide."

I sucked in a breath, wincing at my bruised ribs. "Where is she?"

"At this very moment? Likely mourning the loss of her new love, I would assume. Poor thing took the news quite hard. Understandable, really, considering you snuck off in the night, your sole explanation penned in a letter about how you no longer wanted her. Seems abandonment is a sentiment she is familiar with."

My stomach dropped as my fingers constricted around the chains. "You monster!"

"Ah, ah, is that any way to speak to your king?"

"The day Anathema crowns you king is the day all sanity is lost. It'll never happen!"

"That is where you are wrong. See, as the next eligible Lord in the cycle, it is my right—no, my duty— to wed the future queen."

Lies. He was lying; he had to be! There's no way Death would allow such a thing, unless…unless his pact kept him from intervening. "If you touch her, I swear—"

"Touch her?"

Malachi stepped forward, his shadows dispersing as he glared down at me. I receded. The sight of him was so heinous that I considered for a second if it was a trick of the light. It simply couldn't be real. My lip curled as I beheld my enemy's true form for the first time: marred beyond repair. Risen burns encased every visible inch of skin; pink, oozing blisters riddled his face. The club's flames had melted his ears clean off and corroded through his left cheek to reveal two rows of charred molars. My eyes widened, and I bit my tongue. While he hadn't died, he must have wanted to. The corded muscles in his temples—his jaw clenched and grinding—told me it took everything in him to remain standing in that moment. But his hatred proved more powerful than the pain. He reared his mutilated fist back, ready to smash me square in the mouth, when a second figure emerged from the shadows.

Nasheesh caught his hand. "Save your strength for the heathen queen. Allow me?"

Malachi considered his offer, a war of violent desire and the reality of his condition raging in his expression. Finally, he relinquished. Nasheesh's serpent-like stare fixed on me as he removed a bludgeon from his robe, bashing it across my cheek. Again. And again. My shoulder—clearly dislocated—swayed from the crushing force, sending shock waves across my body with each new blow.

"Not only will I touch her," Malachi snarled at Nasheesh's side, "but I promise you this: I will shatter her. Destroy her body, mind, and soul. I will take and take every minuscule semblance of pride she has and force her to bow at my feet as I slit her throat!"

Blood and spit dribbled down my chin as I peered up at him through swollen eyes. A laugh built in me. "Fucking…idiot…you're no match for her power."

"For now, maybe. But when I devour her soul?" He pushed the advisor aside and leaned into my face. "Take her power as my own and cast her corpse at Chaos's feet? There is not a being in this realm or the next that will be able to stop me."

"You're bluffing."

"You think so, do you? Answer me this then. Say if one discovered a way to, I don't know, circumvent Fate, would that sway your disbelief?"

He dropped his face an inch from mine, and an unforeseen glamour fell from his eyes. In them, I saw the courts of Anathema reflected back at me: demon, vampire, and shapeshifter—all in one somehow. My veins turned to ice. The world shifted on its axis as the last pieces of his sinister plan clicked together. Odin's hybrid abilities truly had been a test: an experiment to see if a lesser being was able to hold such power without splitting in two. But a Lord? They'd be able to endure far more. Malachi had already absorbed the power of three courts, leaving only one. The reapers. And the feral smirk on his face ensured me he'd set his sights high for that particular sacrifice.

He circled me, his hands clasped behind his back. "You know, it's true the Ancient Lores were locked away for their ravenous taste for mortals. But fill their bellies, and you would be surprised how quickly they can become an ally, willing to disclose the darkest spells lost to time. Even ones capable of overthrowing Fate's divinity to insert a new, more powerful Reigning Reaper line. My line."

"It's not possible. The Old Gods would never allow it—"

"The Old Gods are dead! If they still held sway over this realm, they would never have allowed atrocities to ascend the throne! They would have eradicated King Shadra decades ago. They would have seen my strength and rewarded it!" His shoulders shook, singed hair falling into his face. "I am the new god, and you will submit to my will!"

He crossed the cave in two strides and retrieved a red-hot iron prod from the fire. A psychotic grin tore the already cavernous hole in his cheek, but he didn't flinch.

"Will you bow to your king?"

I sucked the blood leaching inside my cheeks into the back of my throat and spit it straight in his eye. "You are no king!"

He wiped it off, simultaneously burying the poker in my shoulder. A scream ripped up my throat, but I swallowed it down. I wouldn't let this asshole have the satisfaction of seeing me break. With my hands white-knuckled on my bindings, I gritted my teeth through scalding pain as the smell of burnt flesh filled the air, like roasted meat over a fire pit. Smoke and iron and char. Malachi pulled the poker free, burying it in my other shoulder before I could blink.

"Fuck," I muttered under my breath. Sweat beaded on my forehead.

Fate, Mother Goddess, if you're out there…help me, please!

This time, he didn't remove it. The tip bubbled in my skin as he walked to the fire, looked to me, and suspended the full bucket over the flames.

"It would have been far less painful to bow," Nasheesh said with a cocky smirk.

"Indeed." Malachi smoothed his tie. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a wedding to attend."

Malachi doused the flames, and their footsteps receded into the distance. Alone and defeated, I released my pent-up scream into the surrounding black. As the poker cooled—my body trembling—a hollowness settled in my gut. It was over.

I'd lost.

Cadagon's belief in me had been severely misplaced. I was no hero. I was weak. Useless. Fate hadn't smiled on me like my mother had claimed. The Goddess had abandoned me the same way she'd abandoned Anathema, despite Juniper's attempts to restore faith in the Old God's power. Now, not only was my kingdom primed to fall, but the woman who possessed every part of my existence, who'd loved me in spite of all my broken pieces…she—she could die believing I'd abandoned her as she thought her father had.

I shouted into the void until my sore throat couldn't take it any longer and hung my head.

I'd lost everything .