Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

HALWEN

C aught between two monsters, I wasn't sure who was worse. The titan who locked up and tortured my mate, who'd imprisoned fuck knows how many people … or the other Locke, who'd done things so vile they were unspeakable. Unthinkable.

I'll do far more than look at those boys.

Not if I rip out your fucking throat.

Strength filled me the longer we spent in Hell, even if it was the Damned Realm I hated with a vengeance. The pit of ashes that opened inside me when I poured magic into Cronus was bigger, deeper. It was like dry tinder to my rage; when struck, it burst into flame in so many colours I lost count. I had so much of it, I didn't know what to do with it, but I turned to keep both Cronus and Gauvan in my sight and eyed the latter. Actually, I did have a few ideas about how to use this magic.

"Back the fuck up," Kai snarled, his voice deep and resonant, a tone I'd heard so rarely. "Wynvail, get them out of here. Now!" he yelled.

"I believe," Cronus said, tilting his head as he watched us all—the bleached terror on Wane's and Harvey's faces, the rage and horror on everyone else's, the pure murder in mine, "this is what is called a checkmate."

I inhaled a slow, steadying breath and felt more of the ashes catch fire inside me, flickering emerald and scarlet and silver. Cutting him open, weakening him, had awakened something in me. Let's see what you can do.

I needed to kill them both, needed to attack them at the same time, but that was impossible. The second I moved for Gauvan, Cronus would kill me. The second I went for Cronus, Gauvan would hurt my mates. And he'd hurt them enough for multiple lifetimes.

"Checkmate?" I mused, unable to keep the fury from my voice.

The Fury…

I blinked and the fire doused in my blood, replaced by something ancient and dry and cold.

"Cronus, lord of time," I said, and my voice wasn't entirely mine. "You are an insult to life, your crimes so vast they cannot be listed."

Cronus tilted his dark head, amusement flickering in eyes that shone with power. "Is that so?"

I flexed my hand on my knife, blood pounding in my ears. Mine. His. My mates'. A hundred distant heartbeats, getting rapidly closer. One was closer than all the rest. But… Gauvan's? Where was Gauvan's heartbeat?

"I've missed you, boys," the monster said in a low, oily voice that made my stomach twist. I swallowed back bile, the taste—and the horror—making my eyes sting with tears.

"As long as you live," I breathed to Cronus, watching them both from the corner of my eye, "the world will know discord and suffering. With your death, imbalance will shift to balance. The guilty will be punished; the innocent will be spared. Everything will end with you."

"Or it'll end with you," Cronus countered, watching, waiting. For what?

Whatever it was, I couldn't allow it to happen. I reached down all my mate bonds and gave them a strong yank, a warning, in the split second before I twirled and launched myself at Cronus. The ancient power of the Fury drove my actions, guiding my hand as I stabbed and slashed. Sweat beaded on my forehead and upper lip. Cronus didn't move a single step, amusement curling his mouth.

I drove my dagger into the other side of his gut, twisting it deeper, cutting a vicious hole. He just smirked.

Be ready, an instinct warned, and goosebumps rippled down my arms. I sucked down air, tasting blood and rot and power, acrid and smoky—demon power. Our army was getting closer. Soon, soon.

"Aren't you going to give your uncle a hug?" Gauvan asked, his voice slippery, cruelty masked by charm.

My blood boiled. My upper lip curled. Cronus's blood burned my knuckles where it ran down my dagger, strangely golden in colour.

"You fucked up," I told Cronus, still in that voice of limitless power, that voice of ancient judgement. "This—" I stabbed a finger at Gauvan, "will be your last fucking mistake."

I yanked my dagger free of Cronus's body and swung it, forcing him back a step. The tip of my blade opened a shallow slice on his tanned throat, but it was far from the cleaving strike I'd planned. Shit. My pulse hammered in the base of my throat.

Soon, soon!

I didn't know what I was readying for, didn't know what the Fury's power was forewarning, but I tensed, angling my dagger across myself to protect my torso. What the fuck was I doing fighting a titan when I was pregnant? I should have run.

But Cronus would follow.

Now!

I jumped to the side in case Cronus charged at me, not daring to look at my mates even as my bonds erupted with panic and I was painfully aware that Gauvan stood between me and them.

Cronus gurgled, a wet sound that heralded blood and internal injuries. I stared, my heart skipping, as he stumbled forward a step, reaching for his face where an arrow had thrust through the back of his neck and out through his lip. The gruesome sight twisted my stomach. Hope made my breath catch.

Now, now, that ancient Fury magic urged.

I shut out the threats and warning growls of my mates at Gauvan and renewed my efforts to weaken Cronus. To kill him.

My arms blazed with symbols and light as I swung my beloved dagger, and a shudder trickled through my body when a dozen different colours rippled down the blade—violet, indigo, turquoise, coral, gold, and silver, chased by so many others I lost track of them as I propelled the dagger at Cronus.

I buried it in his heart and stared into his coldly amused eyes.

"I wondered when the pretender queen would show her face," he said, as if there wasn't an arrow speared through his lip.

A chilling laugh made my blood freeze in my veins. "I'm no pretender."

I tore my dagger out and drove it back in, blood spilling over my hands. Gold blood—the blood of gods and titans and immortals.

"Why won't you defend yourself?" I snarled, driving my dagger with its myriad of powers into his gut.

I caught a glimpse of who the cold, dangerous laugh belonged to, and a jolt of shock slammed my heart against my ribs. It was Lili, but not like I'd ever seen her before. A fierce orange flame coiled around her arms like twin whips, spilling from her palms like waterfalls as she spread them in front of her, and at her brow a crimson halo throbbed with palpable rage and devastating power.

I took a step back without meaning to, my heart quickening, breaths coming shallowly.

Her eyes were pure white, pupils ringed with red, and I could have sworn the light circling her head was a crown of Hell.

A violent rainbow of light flickered across the muddy ground as my hand shook, my soul quailing as I looked at my friend. She was as powerful as any goddess and titan I'd met, and a thousand times more wrathful. My own fury recognised hers, that ancient, endless force I'd taken on when I killed the Furies in the Labyrinth inclining its head in respect.

Lili met my stare for a split second, the depths of her rage endless, fire burning so hot in her hands that I felt its ripple of heat from the other side of Cronus. There was something less than human in her gaze, a gaping lack of compassion, a hunger for destruction and death that made my blood freeze.

Her lips parted on a word, but we both startled when a familiar voice screamed across the field, "It's not him! Get out of the way! Move!"

So, so slowly I turned my face, keeping Cronus in my peripheral vision as I watched the woman racing closer, an army at her back.

My brow knotted. "Asta?"

"Move!" she screamed.

"If you are wrong—" Lili began, her voice like thunder and embers, crackling with an infinite rage.

"I'm not. Fucking move!"

I backed up quickly, my skin crawling with warning, but my feet slipped in the mud. For a horrifying moment my legs slid from under me, the sky whirling overhead, and I bit back a scream of pure terror. I couldn't fall. I couldn't.

I flung my hands out at my sides, scattering shades of magic. One second, I was sliding, the next moonlight shone on my skin and an arm wrapped around my waist, a solid body pressing to my back. Supporting me while I got my balance.

"I've got you, honey," Wynvail said, breathless.

"Gauvan—"

"Isn't a fighter. Kai's got him coiled up, he's not going anywhere."

Asta threw up her hand as she raced closer, and I startled at the sight of a massive gun in her hand, balanced against her shoulder.

"Is that… a bazooka?" I breathed, pushing back against Wyn until he backed up, taking me with him.

Cronus laughed softly, a soft breath of amusement. He didn't move. Didn't fight. Didn't attack us at all. On his other side, Lili's mouth set in a thin line as she backed up, not taking her eyes off Cronus for a second. She visibly shook with rage, magic pounding from her halo, her hands bleeding fire.

"It's a flamethrower," Wyn said with the same tone as a vicious curse.

I twisted to see my other mates, my heart skipping at the vacant look on Harvey's face and the twisted loathing on Wane's that was somehow worse. Gauvan sat, bound in the mud, Kai's snakes wrapped from head to toe, the one around his throat cinching tighter as I watched. He was bitten all over, blood leaking from gold skin. It was only a matter of time before he died.

Cronus had brought him back, or kept him alive, for this exact moment—to weaken my mates, to fuck with their heads.

"How do you have so much magic?" Wyn muttered, his arm tightening around me, pulling me flush to his chest. "Jesus, Haley."

I shook with it, with the same rage that drove Lili to destruction. The pit in my stomach was almost entirely fire now, burning a hundred different jewel tones. I knew it would be like no magic I'd used before.

"Hello, asshole," Asta purred, launching across the last few steps and discharging a stream of magic so cold it burned at Cronus. It plumed like warm breath on an icy day but moved as fast as a bullet. The temperature dropped until frost bit at my skin. "I know you can hear me; I can see you smirking. I hope you feel every moment of this."

I frowned. Wait.

"Did she say it's not him…?"

"Shit," Wyn hissed, pulling me back another few steps. "He's a fake? But where's the real one?"

I jolted back into Wyn when the cold plume of magic hit Cronus and a wrongness filled the air, brushing through my soul. Between a breath and the next, Cronus was gone. He wasn't unmade, and he didn't turn to dust; the cold magic sucked the life out of him until he shrivelled and disappeared, like he'd never really existed.

"Deathfire," Wyn whispered, shuddering. "She's made a fucking deathfire flamethrower."

"She's a beauty, right?" Asta said with a sharp grin, hearing his words. There was something very unhinged about the silver-haired woman. That was what your wife getting kidnapped by a titan did to you.

"I want one," Kai shouted from behind us, his voice strained.

I glanced back and inhaled sharply when I saw Gauvan had got himself free and had his hands wrapped around Kai's throat. Rage poured through the pit in my gut, enflaming the last of the ashen tinder. I launched out of Wyn's arms, cutting my dagger in a deadly slash through the air, following a deep-ingrained instinct and somehow knowing the glittering rainbow of magic would follow my command.

It tore across the space between us, moving so fast that I didn't even blink before it drove into Gauvan's back like a sword itself.

He staggered, but instead of crying out in pain, a low, oily laugh came from him. A familiar laugh.

"That's another one," Asta snarled, readjusting the flamethrower on her shoulder. "Halwen, get your mate away from whoever the fuck that is."

My heart lurched. Gauvan was a fake. It was never really him. I exhaled in hard relief. "Everyone move back; give Asta space!"

Kai locked a band of magic around Gauvan, ripping his hands off my mate's neck. They all moved away from the bastard, Kai, Em, and Harvey edging towards Wyn and I.

My heart ached when Wane backed up by himself, putting distance between him and us. I reached across our tether for his soul, wrapping him in reassurance and love, wishing I could do more. His pain cut through my chest like a scythe, spreading through my soul.

He was falling apart, and I didn't know how to stop it.

"I can sense you bastards now," Asta spat at Gauvan as she blasted a cloud of cold, deadly magic at him. He didn't even try to run, as if Cronus didn't care if he was killed. Were these fakes an extension of Cronus, or had he created them like golems from clay, but lacking any survival instincts, any free will? Had every word from their mouth come from Cronus?

"Rest in suffering," Asta hissed as the icy plume hit Gauvan and sucked the life from him. A blink and he was gone, but the scars remained—in Harvey's silence, in Wane's deep pain. Gauvan's purpose was served, the damage done.

"If these were imposters, where's the real Cronus?" Emlyn asked in a low rumble, his brow heavy over sharp blue eyes as he scanned the rotting field around us. The Damned Realm steadily filled with magic and crackling power, our allies so close we could see the scales of their leather armour. Backup was here, but where was our target?

"There," Wane breathed, edging closer but still painfully apart. He raised his arm, pointing at a place in the distance.

I squinted at it and swore colourfully when I realised what I'd thought was the shadow of a mountain was actually Cronus's massive form watching us, laughing at us wasting our energy fighting decoys when he was right there.

"Lili," I said, not taking my eyes off Cronus when he lifted a hand in a taunt. My stomach tightened.

"Halwen," she replied, her voice still chillingly powerful.

"You wanna tag team this bastard?"

She laughed, even that making my blood chill. "This is the end," she said in a voice so similar to the Fury in me. "He dies here, or we all die."

Right. I took that as a yes.