Chapter 29

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

AGATHA

O ne step in front of the other .

Agatha took a steadying breath, all eyes on her. Horses stamped. Soldiers, mages, Druids, and witches shifted on their feet and in their saddles.

They were just outside a valley. A burnt tunnel of land that had housed her beautiful coven so long ago. The sun was already offering murky light, tinged like it was considering twilight at midday. Shadows were tilted, doubled—hazy.

The Reaping Moon barrelled for the sun's shine, prepared to block it out.

The time for speeches was through. The time for emotions and encouragement was gone.

Agatha took one look at Grimm on her right, Nuit snorting and stomping, as ready as his rider. Then she looked to each of her Sisters, flanking her left. Faces set like stone, magic rippling off of them in waves .

Sister Autumn turned back to her people, Laurent, Asa, Eleanor, and Augustus on the front lines. The charge in the air was palpable. They were ready, every last one of them. Come what may.

Fate lay thick in the air.

Fuck Fate , Grimm slipped into her mind. We write our own. That, in the air, is our people ready to end this.

Agatha gripped the reins tighter. Guinevere's ears pulled back as she stamped at the black, ashen ground. Lifting her chin, Agatha gave her final command. "We end this. Now!"

Deafening cries roared at her back as she turned her horse and kicked her into a run. The ground thundered behind her with the hooves and feet of her army surging into battle.

Agatha's hair flew out behind her as they rode hard. Grimm charged into the valley beside her, Winnie, Seleste, and Sorscha fanning out behind them. Swords sang as they were pulled from scabbards, bow strings groaned as they were drawn back, and magic crackled through the air. Asa shouted commands to his mages in tandem with Laurent to his Druids. The valley opened up before them into a spill of burnt land, and Agatha felt the army at her back fan out.

This was it.

Dark silhouettes of terror dotted the valley, standing on the skeletal remnants of her coven. Her mother.

Agatha let forth a bellow from the depths of her soul, charging headfirst into the waiting monsters. Her sword soared through the air, slicing through the neck of a beast mid-snarl. It was the first cut of the fight, army on army slamming into one another with a cacophony of noise. Magic rained down over the fray from all sides, a kaleidoscope of colours .

They rioted. They raged. All of them as one.

Grimm stood on Nuit's back, launching upward and transforming into his reaper mid-air. All bones and smoke, he soared above the chaos toward the Acolytes, who were throwing their magic from behind the army of undead. Faster than Agatha's eye could make out, Grimm swooped low, pulling out the souls of any he could reach.

Soon, she was covered in black blood. Red, beautiful blood coated the ground. Her people.

Leaping off Guinevere, she slapped the horse's hide as hard as she could to send her out of the fray. To give her the best chance of surviving.

Sword in one hand and magic in the other, Agatha cut and seared her way forward. The Reaping Moon was arcing for the sun, closer and closer, the shadows going rippled, like a mirage.

SELESTE

She'd rendered herself invisible.

Sneaking behind beast and Acolyte alike, Seleste managed to decapitate four undead with magic and one with her machete.

Fight like Hades, my daughter . She heard her father clear as day, clear as the agonised screams of the fallen, and she fought harder.

The magic of an Acolyte bounced off Seleste's glamour—her ward—revealing her. He and his three cronies closed in on her, but the undead still couldn't see her. She strategically placed herself behind the beasts, between her and the Acolytes stalking her. Four more heads hit the ground, rolling through the gore, at the behest of her magic and her blade.

Sorscha came up behind her, bleeding and grinning. Feral.

"Did you hear her?" Sorscha shouted over the bedlam, slicing through the stomach of an Acolyte.

"Who?" Seleste shouted right back, dropping her invisibility.

"Mother!" Her dagger slammed into the temple of a beast. It screamed and thrashed at the wound while Seleste cut off its head. "I swear I heard her."

The smallest of lulls came then, as they awaited the inevitable infiltration of the circle of calm they'd cut around them.

"What did she say?" Seleste asked, her heart thundering in her chest, her body slick with blood.

"She said to fight for the life we should have had."

Eyes glossy, the Sisters wordlessly regarded one another, hope surging. In no time at all, their circle of peace had filled in, and the battle continued.

Launching herself onto the back of an Acolyte, Sister Spring clapped her hands over his ears. His face began to glow crimson with the fire of her power, burning his brain. He screamed, and Sorscha joined him until he fell to the ground. She snarled, stepping to turn that magic on an undead beast battling Asa.

Winnie was back-to-back with Eleanor, both of them covered in ash and blood, their teeth bared.

Laurent and the Druids fought with weapons and magic, each blow stronger than their last .

Aggie . Where was Aggie?

Seleste spun, another brief pause between killings. She tasted metal on her tongue, unsure whose blood had made it into her mouth.

And then she saw him. A man she remembered from her past.

G?thi Griswald.

Frail. Powerful.

She watched as he cut through Acolytes and monsters, headed straight toward Agatha. Betraying Athania.

Cutting a line through the battle.

For Aggie.

Seleste ran for her Sisters, sliding to a stop next to Winnie and Sorscha. "We have to follow Aggie!" she shouted.

AGATHA

A path began to open for her.

Agatha's magic had begun taking down anyone before her with almost no effort. It radiated within her.

Beside her, behind her, before her, the magic raged.

It wept and fought.

Every iota of fury and anguish she'd held for Athania brutally ravaged her enemies.

Then, there were Acolytes and beasts falling without the bidding of her magic. Her power halted, waiting, chomping at the bit. Until she stood before a man, ancient and haggard. Bleeding .

"Dark Star," he whispered in awe. "You have made it. This is it." A dribble of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth as he clutched his stomach. Agatha just caught the sight of the man's viscera held in place by his filthy hands before his body crumpled forward.

Agatha reached out to catch him, but he hit the ground. Before she could kneel to comfort him, Grimm swooped down, a pained sound coming from him as he scooped up the man's soul.

There , Grimm called out to her, his smog dissipating to reveal a silhouette high on a cliff.

The screams were drowned out.

By the knowing.

It was time.

And this time, she knew what must be done.

Agatha's killing calm slipped back over her, more silken than ever before. It hungered for blood. To end the carnage with finality. Once and for all.

It's time . It was all she could manage down the bond. It was all she needed to say.

She felt a pulse of Grimm's essence, and it straightened her spine. In the next breath, she heard the low peel of Laurent's conch reverberate through the valley. His call that the eclipse had well and truly begun.

Time slowed, like a fly slipped into resin, and Agatha strode forward.

WINNIE

Winnie's blade slashed across the neck of the undead in front of her, her magic pushing it back like a kick to the chest. Grimm swooped past her, coming in so low that his shadow cloak blocked her vision as he collected the freed souls of their fallen, shoving them into his lantern and moving on to the next, simultaneously pulling free any enemy soul he could.

Lau's conch sounded out across the valley, and Winnie's stomach dropped. It was time. The moment of truth. They would doom History to repeat itself, or they would end this once and for all.

She paused long enough to look right, to Sister Spring, covered in black blood. Sorscha nodded and they looked left to Sister Summer. Seleste pushed back the undead closest to her with golden magic and turned to her Sisters, dipping her chin.

In perfect sync, the three of them fanned out, turning from the raging battle at the frontlines. As one, they lifted their weapons in one hand, magic in the other, an arc of their collective power falling behind them to stand sentry, blocking Agatha as she broke free of the fray.

Together, the Sisters followed their Lady Magic.

AGATHA

The clanging of swords sounded almost like music in the drawn-out time. Magic shot across the sky in slow arcs of falling stars.

She watched as Winnie, Sorscha, and Seleste stood with their arms raised, their combined magic glowing coral around her before they followed her.

One foot in front of the other . Grimm swooped past her again, brushing his skeletal finger across her cheek.

One foot in front of the other.

Her eyes locked on Athania.

Agatha's heart beat like a drum against her ribs, keeping time with her steps. When she had almost reached the cliff's base, she turned to look at her Sisters. A tear slipped slowly down Winnie's cheek, and she nodded encouragingly.

One foot in front of the other.

Sorscha had fear in her eyes.

One foot in front of the other.

Seleste was all full up with a wrath Aggie had never seen from her Sister Summer.

Agatha paused, looking at her beautiful Sisters. Then she turned back to face the cliff and the monster that used to be her friend. To the one responsible for so much pain and despair, sacrifice and death.

Athania

Morgana

Sybil

Chresedia

Grief bid her killing calm to bow to it, her knees buckling.

A multitude against her .

No , Grimm shot through the bond. You are not alone, Agatha .

But only she could end this.

Shake this fucking realm, little witch .

Fists clenched at her sides, Agatha strode forward, toward the moment she'd been waiting a millenia for.

Her Sisters behind her, Grimm circling above her, Agatha tipped her face to the eclipsing sun and spread her arms wide. Chresedia had begun to do the same, atop her rock. Grimm's time-slowing was lifting, but it didn't matter. Not anymore. She was in position. She was ready.

Magic lifted her to the summit, and she landed directly in front of Athania.

The vile, fallen goddess brought her chin down to look at Agatha. A deviant smile stretched across her face. "Aren't you bored with all this yet?" she crooned.

To Athania, this was yet another eclipse. Yet another chance to try and take Thanasim and Asteria's power and return to The Void.

Standing in front of her, Agatha saw countless memories of this woman. As Athania, as Sybil, as Chresedia. And all she felt was pity, momentarily masking her rage.

"I was wrong about you," Agatha said calmly, her magic poised. "You want to blame me for every wretched thing that has happened to you, but I'll tell you what is my fault."

One of Athania's dark brows rose cockily.

"It is my fault that I trusted you. It is my fault that I let you in. It is my fault that you have wreaked such havoc."

Agatha caught sight of her Sisters' power rising entwined behind Athania .

The fallen Lady War grinned. "And it is your fault you will all die today."

Indignation pressed at the back of Agatha's eyes until all she saw was white-hot rage again. It coursed through her veins, it sang through the bond from Grimm. It flashed within her Sisters' magic.

"All you have, Athania, is your silly little delusions. While I"—Agatha spread her arms wide again—"I have everything in my family and my friends."

In a rose-gold flame, the magic of all four Sisters Solstice lashed out, wrapping around Athania until she screamed. Fighting back, her power managed to push against them but did not prevail.

Agatha smiled wickedly at the pathetic woman. "Magic is mine," she whispered to her. "All of it."

Lady Magic . Grimm's voice in the bond gave her the last push of courage she needed.

Lips parting, Agatha called it forth from her soul. Magic, thick and multi-faceted filled her nostrils, her mouth, her lungs, from every corner of the realm—from every realm.

A screech of fury pierced the air as Athania realised the magic of those gathered was not invading her as it had so many times before. As she realised it was flooding Agatha. As she realised the reaper wasn't trying to throw her into another realm this time as he circled her.

Grimm shot toward Athania, his skeletal fist ripping at her throat, her sternum, until her soul pulled free, just enough.

The sound of clanging swords and screams ignited the valley, but still, the magic came to Agatha. All of it. Everywhere.

Agatha's back arched, her boots lifting from the ground .

"Aggie!" Winnie screamed from the ground below the cliff, her voice sounding impossibly far away. But she merely stored her Sister's voice in her memory as her body lifted to the sky.

SORSCHA

Sorscha watched as fear crossed Chresedia's eyes where she stood atop that rock above them, watching the magic fill Aggie. Watching Sister Autumn…

No, watching Lady Fucking Magic take back what was hers.

Like a marionette on a string, Aggie rose before them into the sky. Black streams of magic poured into their Sister Autumn, the undead around them dropping to the dirt like the corpses they were.

Sorscha looked at her hands. Felt her soul teetering between life and death. Vines of glittering obsidian shot forth from Grimm where he hovered above Athania. The vines swirled around the gathered mages, witches, and Druids on the battlefield, an agonisingly beautiful ballad playing on the wind.

Sorscha felt the coolness of Grimm's power pressing at her soul, bidding it to stay . But magic left her body—a well dried up.

The Sisters' magic was gone. No longer holding Chresedia captive. But the reaper was .

Winnie began to cry. The battle had halted, the Acolytes fallen with their beasts.

All of their comrades watched the sky. Watched Lady Magic.

Aggie rose higher still into the darkening sky, but her veins were turning black.

SELESTE

"She lied," Sorscha choked out, manic. "Aggie lied! She said she only needed that Primordial kernel of magic back!"

Winnie did not take her eyes off their Sister Autumn, tears streaming down her face. "I know," she whispered. She took both their hands, and together they looked up to where Sister Autumn lay in the sky, limp and splayed.

Aggie's hands unfurled, a swath of black lace crawling like a swarm of arachnids up her arms until she was in an obsidian gown that trailed, dangling beneath her hanging body.

Hanging like the witches. Righting every wrong.

Seleste gasped as a dark crown appeared on Aggie's head, her auburn hair blowing in the wind.

A glimmering, spectral form materialised before the three Sisters, pulling their attention from the scene on the mount.

"Mother?" Sorscha squeaked in disbelief.

Seleste gasped.

Winnie wept .

"My darlings," their mother's ghost said, touching each of their cheeks, her hand cold. "There is no other way. Let her do this."

Already, the spirit was fading, and Sorscha's hand lashed out. "Don't go! Please!"

"I wait for you in the Afterlife, my dear ones."

And she was gone.

Winnie, Sorscha, and Seleste wept openly.

Watching. Waiting.

Higher Aggie rose until they had to squint. The magic stopped streaming into her, the battle quiet behind them. Aggie's body tilted, her gown swaying. The Reaping Moon began to pass behind her, but it was Aggie who blocked out the sun.

"She is the dark star," Winnie whispered through tears.

"And she will blot out the sun," Sorscha cried.

Seleste sank to her knees. "Lady Magie de la Nuit."

WINNIE

Athania's limp form suddenly animated and screeched within Grimm's grasp, tearing at her skin, at the vines of Lord Night's power holding her in place. Flailing uselessly atop the rock with no more magic left.

Aggie had it now. Aggie had it all now.

Grimm moved from where he'd bound Chresedia in shadow ghouls .

The Reaping moon slipped behind Aggie in the sky, everything plunging into murky darkness.

"No," Seleste whispered, one arm reaching out toward her Sister. "Aggie, NO !"