Chapter 30

CHAPTER THIRTY

T here wasn't a garden outside; it opened into another room, like the world was really only as big as the house. This one was a vast library that spanned three floors, with mezzanines stretching up to the fresco on the ceiling and every book bound in emerald leather.

Why is it green?

This world was made by Demeter, the magic responded. Not with a voice or words, but with knowledge dropped into my mind like the slow trickle of raindrops. It is the green of harvest, of life and promise. Cronus being here is a violation.

Oh, shit. That was why creatures ran through the wallpaper; not to attack me but to force him out. He wasn't welcome. Even the house rebelled.

My footsteps echoed off the high ceilings as I walked into the library, scanning the many rows of shelves on the ground floor before my eyes were drawn up. There, look, see!

"You can't hide from me, Cronus," I called, surprised to find my voice ordinary and mine. Not some ancient power speaking through me.

Quick, watch!

I twisted with the magic's intuition and just avoided being cut apart on the seven-foot-tall scythe Cronus now wielded, like he'd given up on stealing my blades.

"Gotta be quicker than that," I taunted, driving both my daggers forward to meet the curved blade of his scythe. Fuck, it was good to have them both in my hands again, like I'd been missing a part of myself and now I was whole.

"I should have devoured you," Cronus seethed, swinging his scythe at me again, hatred flaring in his beady eyes. "You're one demon. Tiny. Insignificant."

My blood sang as I pushed his scythe away from me, the golden power spilling from me giving me more strength than I'd ever had before. When Cronus's face twisted at me escaping him so easily, I drove a dagger into the seam where I'd cut him open in D.C.

"Tell that to your bleeding gut," I replied, launching at him again.

His scythe was great, very sharp, very scary, but up close? It was useless. My knife sank through flesh, not shadow and magic, and he snarled, his teeth bared—flat, ordinary teeth.

"You know who's actually insignificant, pathetic, and all those other words you use to describe my mates and me? You. You've spent thousands of years gathering power, and for what? So you can attack those less powerful than you? So you can beat them down to size lest they one day match your power? All those people you brag of killing didn't stand a chance; you're not bragging, you're just a sad little man who was once a legend. And now? Pathetic. Forgettable. Nothing."

I ripped my daggers away and called a swell of pure gold power, jumping into it and landing on the other side of the library the way Wyn travelled through moonlight. Magic rushed through my blood, eager to be used.

When he spun, I sneered. "You pick fights with people smaller and less powerful to make yourself feel big and powerful. Guess what, Cronus? It just looks sad."

He launched himself at me with a snarl, like I'd expected him to. One thing I'd learned from Kai's stories was Cronus's legendary pride, his jealousy. He wanted to be the biggest, the best, the most powerful. I was more than happy to stab that weakness until he bled.

He swung his scythe, and I followed its bright silver arc with my eyes, ready to intercept it. I was unprepared for electric blue light to flash down the curved blade; I had no shield ready to block it.

I stumbled into the bookshelf behind me with a curse, waiting for pain, waiting for a scream to be ripped from me. But his attack was worse than pain. Images formed in front of me, like a memory or a dream. I could see Cronus stalking towards me, his scythe dangerously close, but I also saw my mates crowded around someone, like they always huddled around me.

Only when the view shifted, they weren't embracing me—it was an unfamiliar woman with long red hair, sparkly green eyes, and a kind smile. She looked sweet and caring in a way I'd never been, and every one of my mates was happy.

An arrow went through my heart.

"What is this?" I hissed, pressing my back to the bookshelf, blinking rapidly to dispel the image. It refused to fade, right in front of me in sharp relief and vivid colour.

"The future," Cronus replied smugly, barely visible through the nightmare vision. "When I kill you now, it'll take your mates years to move on, but they will move on. And look how happy they are. Not fearing for their lives, not running from anything. They're stable, and content. Free."

I shook my head hard, trying to scatter the scene of my mates with another woman—not just one of them but all of them, the way they were all with me. Pain screwed through my ribs into my heart. They were happier than I'd seen them in years. Em's eyes crinkled with smile lines; Harvey looked at the unknown redhead with the same softness he usually watched me with; Wane's arms wrapped around her, his chin resting on her head and an expression of peace on his face that I'd never seen; Wyn leaned closer to say something that made her laugh, and his face lit up at the sound of it; and Kai, my obsessive Kai, was handing her a hammered steel blade wrapped in red fabric, the fuller etched with a promise that meant nothing to me and everything to her— into the darkness.

My bottom lip wobbled. I sucked in a ragged breath and pressed my mouth into a line, raising both my daggers in front of me, unable to stop seeing the knife Kai presented to the other woman, like I'd meant nothing to him.

"You're just fucking with my head," I rasped, staring past the vision at where Cronus had paused to watch his damage spread through my soul. I couldn't hide how much it broke my heart. He loved it.

"I am," he agreed, walking through the vision and scattering the scene in a swirl of blue magic. "But it's not a lie; it's only the future. I am time itself. I can see it."

"Fuck you," I spat because I had no other words. No snark, no fighting taunts. Only pain and hatred and a small, screaming plea. Please don't let me die. I can't bear it. I wasn't one of those people who wanted their loved ones to move on and be happy after they passed; I was selfish and harsh and unkind, and they were mine. They were the loves of my life, the only men I'd ever love, in life and death, and I—I thought it was mutual.

Cronus laughed under his breath, sensing his advantage. No matter how much magic I threw at him, the emotional damage he countered with was worse. It worked every time, and I hated it. Hated him.

"If you don't believe the truth in front of you," he said, bringing his scythe around, magic already electric blue on its edge. "Maybe you'll believe this. After all, you know it's already come to pass, and the past can be as effective a knife as the future."

"Fuck you," I repeated. It was all I had.

I dodged sideways before he could hook me on his scythe, scraping the curved edge with my volcanic blade. Sparks of golden magic leapt off my dagger, eager for the fight, for blood, but my chest screamed with pain and my heart was crushed. I needed to find my strength again, needed to be that otherworldly being I'd felt like in the hallway, alight with gold.

The gold hadn't faded from my knives or my body, but I was hollow inside, carved open to fit a wealth of pain.

My skin tingled with warning and the magic's intuition screamed at me. Listening to its warnings, I leapt into the aisle between two rows of bookshelves, and my breath went shallow at how close Cronus's scythe had been. It left the sting of a scratch on the back of my neck and sheared off the ends of my hair.

Breathing fast, I spun and threw up my daggers, crossing them to keep the scythe away from me. But Cronus had been baiting me; his grin told me that in the moment before a vision flickered to life between us. My aching heart squeezed further. Wyn.

I flinched, stumbling away when I realised who he was walking towards, who waited for him with a smile on her too-beautiful face. But Cronus twisted his scythe, locking my daggers in place, and unless I wanted to give them up, I couldn't escape more than that one step. Couldn't risk closing my eyes. Couldn't block out the sight of Aphrodite reaching for my mate, her eyes glimmering with a strange sense of victory, like she knew I was watching now even though she was long dead, and this was a glimpse into the past.

Instead of trying to pull my blades free, I shoved them closer to Cronus, piercing his stubbled chin with the tip of one, the scent of his blood tainting the air. I stared into his hate-filled eyes, so I didn't have to see Wynvail kiss Aphrodite.

"You'll never win," Cronus said with alarming softness. "Give in now. Let me take the pain away."

I jerked back. Syphilis-riddled cock sucker. So that was his ploy? Break me so I'd give in? He underestimated how fucking stubborn I was.

I bared my teeth, sinking into the pit of pure power inside me, and pulled up so much that it blasted us apart. I skidded down the row of bookshelves, the polished wood blackening beneath my boots, and Cronus was thrown into the wall so hard that the mezzanine above screeched and warped.

That golden power followed the flow of rage through my veins, shoring up my weak spots with limitless magic.

The vision of Wyn and Aphrodite had faded, disappearing back into the void of the past where it belonged. He was mine. He loved me. What he'd done with Aphrodite in the past didn't matter, didn't change us . No matter how much it hurt me to see it.

Look, look… my gilded magic urged, and I shuddered with the force of it. The magic was eager and assertive, tearing through my body, my blood, my soul. See, see…

My eyes snapped to the scythe that had been knocked from Cronus's grip when he crashed into the wall. He stumbled to his feet now, teeth gritted, nostrils flaring. I didn't jolt forward, didn't so much as shift a dagger. I crooked my little finger, the only movement I dared make. If I tipped him off, I wouldn't get a second chance. The magic told me that much.

Magic blew from me like storm winds, carrying magic of the purest, aureate light, like polished gold. It made a show of attacking Cronus, and my heart skipped with hope when electric blue power flickered along his fingertips. It was working. He was distracted. He plunged that hand into my storm of gold magic, forcing me back a staggering step, and pain spiked through my pit of power like red warning lights, but a secret, smaller ray of magic found his scythe and burned it from existence.

Bye bye, bitch.

I sagged against a bookcase, panting through the flashes of pain as my soul and magic both suffered. But a smile tugged at my cheeks when Cronus realised the gambit I'd played, and he screamed like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

"You will die screaming," he vowed, something manic and desperate filling his stare, contorting his face as he stalked towards me, the blue magic growing at his fingertips, its sparks cast further.

"Look at you finally strong enough to use magic." I slow-clapped, and forced a laugh as I pushed off the bookcase, spines digging ironically into my spine. "About time."

"I don't need magic to crush you like a bug," he seethed. A muscle twitches in his eye.

The magic in my core thrashed like it was furious, offended. It had chosen me as its champion, a bastion of light sent down generations for a single moment—to destroy a great evil. It would not allow me to be beaten by a thing so rotten as Cronus.

I flexed my hands around my knives, gold power wrapping over my knuckles, winding up my wrists as my skin shone with marks of power. It gathered inside me, overflowing the pit, and rose through my body, suffusing every cell, pouring from my sigils in a declaration and warning.

Cronus scoffed. "Glow all you like, but you will never best someone as—"

Fuck that. I kicked off the blackened floor, slamming my wings down at the same time I hurled myself through the air, propelling myself at him with so much power that the house—the world —shook.

Cronus plucked me from the air like I was a fly, a pest. Cruel hands grabbed my wrists and squeezed so hard that golden light scattered, needles of his electric power stabbing into my skin. My wings faltered. My feet hit the floor again. I felt the ripple as he grasped my timeline, my lifeline. I couldn't die here with his putrid breath wafting over me, his evil face the last thing I ever saw.

"What a pity," he said with a mockery of sympathy, only cruelty in the line of his mouth, jealousy in the shine of his eyes. "The child you're carrying would be the one to survive if only I wasn't about to kill you."

I sucked a sudden breath through my nose. The golden magic agreed, rushing, flowing, spilling from my body at the same time it graced my mind with knowledge. Cronus was right. The baby I carried would survive. The child of a legendary lineage, with so much power that their aether trickled into me even now.

He must die. Kill him, kill him, allow him close and kill him.

Cronus tightened his grip on my wrists, and I had to grit my teeth against a cry of pain when his threads of power cut into my skin in a winding pattern, coiling until they were like a cuff on each wrist. Shackled.

"If it were older," he said, staring at me with blatant loathing, "I would rip that babe from your womb and raise it as my own weapon."

Horror turned my fear to molten rage. Power poured from me, spreading across the charred ground, forming a river of gold that ringed us both. Trapping the titan inside it with me. I borrowed a trick from my scary friend and slammed my shoulder into Cronus's chest, panting through the pain as I forced him back a step, and then two. The second his foot skidded into the river of magic, I locked him in place and ripped my wrists from his hands.

The magic carved my flesh apart, carved a scream from my lungs. I tore out every last blue thread, tears streaming down my face at the agony, my head swimming. Golden power streamed into the gaping wounds, like broken pottery repaired by kintsugi, but it did nothing for the pain that ravaged my body until every breath hitched. Blood and gold dripped down my arms to my hands, forming rivers between my knuckles, staining the pink hilts of my knives.

Cronus smirked. It was satisfying to watch the heinous expression fall off his face when he realised he was stuck, and that I was not.

Seek, seek, the magic urged, flowing faster with urgency.

I locked my jaw on a scream and clenched my daggers in bloody fists, surging across the two scant steps between us. Pain made the library blur, but the moment was here, finally here, and there was nothing that could stop me driving both my knives through his ribs and into his heart.

Cronus dropped to his knees, trapped in the river of gold, horror spilling through wicked eyes as the blue power at his fingers snuffed out. The aura of power around him seemed to die, leaving his skin dull, his eyes flat.

He didn't drop dead, didn't slump onto his face as his life bled from him. I nearly burst into tears.

Close, close, the magic soothed, flowing over the cuts on my arms, dragging a hiss of pain from my tongue even as it tried to heal me.

My hands throbbed, my arms so painful that I couldn't fill my lungs with air. I staggered when I realised what I'd done—not killed him, but made him mortal.

As if it had been waiting for me to realise it, the golden power that had pooled on the floor reached for the walls, the ceiling, the bookcases, the mezzanines. It flowed through me with its own will, and I staggered at the force of it, of its sheer power—a magic formed of two dozen different magics, a power that was impossible and endless and capable of anything.

It sank into the foundations of the house until everything green became gold, until I felt the texture of silk curtains against my fingertips, saw the sparkle of sunlight on crystal from the chandeliers, smelled the soft florals in a vase in the kitchen I'd never seen. I saw it all, felt it all, was it all, and like folding a piece of paper in half, I folded the world back up and stuffed it back inside the sphere Verena had thrown.

I didn't know how I made it happen, but magic whispered of memory passed down through family lines. My head spun with the knowledge—no, the sky spun above me, grey and lifeless.

Rise, the magic said softly, brushing against me as it soared from the pit inside me. Rise, bastion, and slay your enemy.