95. Scythe

Chapter 95

Scythe

C ain Clawson stands proud before me, his aura flooded with violent black and red.

"You think you can keep me from my regina?" I laugh then. Like I've never laughed before at the infinity of stars above. I don't care that it sounds mad. I don't care that I am mad.

Cain gives a silent order and the crossbows are cocked, the strings creaking as they are drawn back.

I dive just as the arrows are fired, flinging out my power in a wave that knocks the front line off their feet. They writhe on the bitumen, coughing up blood, the wet sounds of their choking filling the air like the most beautiful song.

As I roll smoothly to my feet, I crave to hear more of it. I want a symphony.

There is shouting as felines move forward to replace the broken archers, and I feel an incessant tug as multiple beasts try their telekinesis on me.

My power sweeps it away and their power goes tumbling like seaweed in the surf.

Focusing my power, I unleash it upon the next wave of felines and hyenas, but stronger beasts have come forward now, and their power pulls at me…and finds purchase.

I roar at them as they advance towards me, no less than twenty hands outstretched.

They force my knees to crumple. I land heavily on bone, my torso kept straight.

Cain sneers at me from under his heavy black beard. "You've thought yourself infallible for too long. You and your kind." He stands aside and a lanky, pale figure is shoved forward, bound in obsidian. Silver hair shines under the streetlight, and two ice-blue eyes look in opposing directions.

"Mr Kharkorous!" Hammer shouts. "They say they want to kill me!" A knife coated with milky liquid is angled at Hammer's throat. He feels the scrape and screams. "I want to go home!"

A snarl tears from my throat, but the telekinesis holds me firm. A phantom pops up in my periphery, wraith-like, hollow-eyed with jagged teeth. It is followed by another, then another. They line themselves up shoulder to shoulder, weaving through my enemies. Mouths open to reveal needle light teeth and they laugh in a pitch that mimics my own.

"They belong in an institution," Cain snaps, "or six feet under. Fill him with arrows."

I laugh again at that great joke, because Xander had destroyed Mace's big supply of firearms. They had to resort to ancient tactics now.

Crossbows?

My laugh echoes in my own ears.

Mad or not, I want my regina. She is the object of all my desires. Of my obsession.

But a pain pierces my torso, right between the muscles of my hard abdomen. Disbelief clouds my brain as the shaft of an arrow, long and thin, juts out from my skin, the arrowhead disappearing completely. A fell burning courses through my gut.

Pain blossoms on my right side, then my left. I tug at the bonds holding me, the veins in my neck bulging, sweat erupting upon my skin. Burning fills my stomach, my sides, my chest, as more arrows pierce my body.

I roar, straining against the forces holding me tight, pulling and pulling. My foot moves behind me and with one sweeping motion, I plant it before me.

"How is he still up?" someone calls.

"More arrows!" Cain commands.

"Mr Kharkorous!" Hammer cries.

Pain blooms in my chest. I look like a pincushion now. That burning is pounding through my body with each heartbeat.

A phantom tears apart from the group and wanders forward. I squint at it, wondering at this new development.

But she glows blue. She walks with familiar grace, silver hair full and floating around her naked body.

Not a phantom. A ghost.

"My son," my mother rasps, her voice harsh, even in death.

"Mother," I choke.

"This is not the way," she says, her eyes furious as she beckons to the phantoms chanting their heinous song around me. "Take it. Make it yours."

Something nudges within my centre. Something that feels golden and blue-eyed sassily demands attention.

I shake my head. "I want her to live within me. I want to feel her close." Close, but separate.

She smiles. "Did you forget? She was made for you."

I reach for those glowing drops within me, the power my regina blessed me with, that I had been keeping in a lonely corner of my heart, and grasp it with both psychic hands.

My regina's voice resounds in my head. "It's me and you against the dark, shark-man."

The glowing drop expands. It fills me with pure Boneweaver power, wild like a tempest storm.

That primal shark within me makes its own vow. "I will walk in the dark with you for all of eternity. And for every eternity thereafter."

Power erupts from my core, funnelling through every blood vessel, every artery and vein, filling the chambers of my heart, flushing the venom away. I roar in triumph, planting my other foot in front of me and rising to my full height once again. My face flushes with heat, and I know from the gasps and the heat that my eyes have turned a glowing gold. My teeth extend into weapons wholly sharp and lethal.

Had they forgotten who is King of the Marine Court? Had they forgotten who'd given the sea a voice?

Had they forgotten my regina is the Lady Aurelia Boneweaver?

A wave of power roars from me like a tsunami, and it floods the area, sweeping every beast up in its wake, grasping their hearts and rendering them frozen, eyes wild with terror.

Hammer goes toppling to the ground, his chains clanking. He unravels himself like a bucking, rabid animal and gets to his feet, then sprints past me and towards the water.

The scent of fear and horror fill the air, and it's then that I realise it.

My phantoms. My apparitions. They've fallen back. Their voices silenced. My mind is…

Free.

Their voices and images are not gone, exactly, but they are held back as a dam holds back the colossal weight of thousands of gallons of water. Frowning, I look around my internal forces.

I seek it out, the layers of Boneweaver magic, and just as I had once stripped back Aurelia's seven layers of magic, I leaf through the layers of her power. Eagle, wolf, lion, shark, crocodile, phoenix; a whisper of her beasts lie within me, but there, glittering with precious force, is something that is uniquely hers. Only Aurelia's.

It stretches out within me, a layer of glittering, celestial water that protects me from the psychosis.

Not water, Boneweaver tears .

Because what are tears but brine filled with emotion, in the same way the sea is laden with power?

A clatter of wood tells me the arrows have been pushed out and have fallen from my body, useless now.

Cain roars, breaking free of my hold. I come back to my external world to see the massive tiger charging towards me.

But something in the night sky distracts the both of us, stopping him short.

It's fiery and red, travelling at colossal speed. Like a comet, but flying way too low…

The very earth trembles.

I fling my arm up over my head just as Celeste slams into the ground in a shower of sparks and embers. She shifts into her human form and extends her hand out to me. "Come with me. Now. "

"Gladly, my lady."

She shifts back into her phoenix form and soars over me, her talons angled in my direction. I get my hands up just in time and she grabs on to them in each of her claws, effortlessly lifting me up. My feet leave the ground, and within seconds, I'm being hauled over the city, Cain shouting in rage after us.

"Brace yourself," is all the warning she gives me before she accelerates with speed only a phoenix is capable of. My eardrums pop as she breaks the sound barrier, sending us hurtling across the state.