Chapter 29

T he road to Aquilae was long. As we continued south, the air turned gritty with sea salt and ocean waves. Gulls squawked in the afternoon light, following the sun to its zenith.

"What happened with Zecharius this morning?" Aryx asked, glancing over his shoulder to face me. His shoulder blades stretched beneath the back of his sweat glazed, white tunic.

"I'm not sure." My mouth went dry, and I sucked in a shallow breath. "All I could see were my hands around his throat. I wanted to kill him. If you hadn't of intervened, I would've done it, too."

Aryx was quiet. The only sound between us was the clop of Kratos's hooves against the stone laid path. Rolling hills of the Western Realm morphed into steep, jagged cliffs. Dry sprits of grass and coastline flora scattered across the rocky landscape.

"Are you afraid?" he asked. Kratos jerked us forward as he leapt over a stone protruding from the sun-cracked trail.

"Of myself? Yes." I wrapped my arms around him as Kratos trotted forward. The curves of his body beneath my touch sent electric jolts through me. I was desperate for a distraction from the dread bubbling up in my throat.

"Well, I'm not," he said, flicking Kratos' reins.

He should be.

Everyone should be.

That demon I kept locked away was an unstoppable force. If I freed it again, would I be able to keep hold of its leash?

"As half-gods, our power is a weight we'll live with forever. Tipping us closer and closer to the edge. When I was a boy, I nearly lost myself to it." His throat bobbed. "Eventually you learn to settle yourself and control it."

"And what if I can't?" I steadied my gaze on the horizon. The blue coastline of the Southern Sea blurred with the hillside like rough brush strokes on canvas.

"You must. Otherwise, the world will burn. It's the price we pay for our immortal blood. Our mortal minds feel too deeply to keep it locked away," he said, placing a free hand over the back of mine.

I gripped the cotton of his tunic. My blood burned hot. The scratch of power coursing through my veins was an uncomfortable reminder of the lives I'd already taken.

"I was still a boy when my mother killed all of her court. Barely trained and barely old enough to even understand the permanence of death. Whispers of magic kept telling me to kill her. To take revenge for the lives she'd stolen. When I stood above her one night while she slept, I nearly did it."

"And why didn't you? If our power is so all-consuming, how did you stop?" I asked.

"My father once said that love is the strongest fuel for violence. I still loved her. Every day, I regret not plunging that knife into her throat." I could feel the steady throb of his heart against my cheek as I leaned my head on him.

"You were a child with too heavy a weight to bear. It's not your fault," I said. He laced his fingers through mine, pulling our intertwined hands over his chest.

"So were you. I guess that makes us the same."

My heart, matching the rhythm of his, slowed as I let out the air I'd been holding in my lungs.

"I guess so."

I realized suddenly that this warrior, this half-god, this man who I'd grown to fear, then hate, then befriend, was just as lonely, just as broken as I was. He'd called himself a monster once.

I knew then that he truly believed it. It hadn't been a ploy or manipulation. We fought the same battles, the same heartache, the same guilt.

He had betrayed me, and that pain might never heal completely, but his candid words were a stitch in the wound.

The rest of the ride was quiet, save for the click of hooves against stone.

#

The Southern Realm was known for its glorious gilded gate. Colossal pearl statues of their patron god gleamed in the sunlight. Kratos trotted through the city walls, carved from looming cliffs standing hundreds of feet high. Electricity pulsed within the salted air while the sharp, oceanic breeze pricked at my nose.

"Something's wrong," Aryx whispered, slowing Kratos to a halt. His eyes narrowed, scanning the street before us.

Shadows of massive palms stretched across the vacant building exteriors. Not a murmur of life echoed around us.

"Where is everyone?" I asked, leaping from the saddle.

My boots scrunched against the sandy ground as I, too, surveyed the stone-carved homes. The midday sun reflected off of bleached white dwellings carved into the hillside. The nearly identical, rambling structures took up every bit of flat surface in the cliff side terrain.

"I don't know, but I don't like the looks of this." Aryx continued down the street and disappeared from view.

Arcturas pawed at the ground, her ears sharp and alert. I followed behind, my hand hovering above the sheathed dagger strapped to my thigh. With every rolling wave in the distant ocean, the quiet grew more and more sinister.

Aryx stiffened as he knelt over something ahead.

As I came in close, his reflection peered back at me in the crimson puddle oozing from the mass. I stopped in my tracks with boiling blood as Aryx rolled the corpse over. It was a child, his deep brown skin caked in sand, a carved wooden doll clenched tightly in his stiff hand. I threw my hand over my mouth, stifling the scream now raging through me.

"Something is very wrong. We need to find Altair. Now," Aryx said, closing the child's lids over his terrified, grey eyes.

I dropped to my knees, brushing my finger across his cold, swollen cheek. Aryx rose and continued down the street. After tearing a scrap of my cloak and draping it over the boy's face, I followed him, my knees weak. I'd return for the boy's body and ensure a proper burial.

The scene down the hillside was even more jarring. The bodies that littered the ground threw me to my knees. Men, women, and children, all with frozen eyes and open mouths as if the wake of death snuffed out their screams.

Careful to avoid an outstretched limb or bloody face, we snaked our way through. This massacre hit me like an unrelenting shockwave. My body trembled with a fury I'd never imagined was possible. I kept my eyes level with the horizon, afraid of losing control if my gaze wandered too far towards my boots.

With the stench of death ripe on my nose, we finally reached Altair's temple. On the city shoreline, the waves lapped at the temple's stone steps. Blood muddied the water. The once pristine white marble was now stained a shade of red with the rising tide. The temple's dome-like ceiling flashed in the remaining afternoon daylight.

"Shouldn't we try to find survivors? What if they need help?" I paused, my feet frozen at the bottom ledge.

"Elpis…" Aryx turned to me, a thick, dark fog hung low over his glossy eyes. "There aren't any survivors. I can't feel any life here, only death. Can you?"

I swallowed hard. The stench of hot flesh was too much to handle. The sight of blood dripping down the walls was overwhelming. My head spun. Aryx was right. The only thing I felt here was a void. A thick, chilling vacancy.

"We need to find Altair," he said, holding his hand out for me to grasp. I placed my trembling fingers in his and let him guide us through the temple's entrance.

A falcon squawked in the distance. Its somber cry sent shivers down my spine.

The temple's interior was just as brilliant as its exterior. Rows of glyphs covered the walls from ceiling to floor in ancient murals. The sound of our steps bounced off the walls, causing the flaming gold light fixtures to ripple and waver. The ear-splitting silence of the heart of the temple pushed thoughts of the slaughtered city forward in my mind. All I could see were their lifeless bodies. All I could hear was the squelching of congealed blood beneath the leather sole of my boot.

War was violent, bloody, ruthless. Brutal battles taking the lives of thousands spattered our history like blood stains. I'd seen death first hand, but this… nothing could've prepared me for this.

The child clenching his doll for comfort. His last scream for his mother permanently set across his face. The innocence lost, the lives taken, they were holes punctured in my chest. Heartache pulled my feet backward. Back towards the life spilled on pristine tropic streets.

"I know how you're feeling. Right now, we have to focus on the plan. We need to be strong. You're at risk of losing control. You're reeling. Pull it back in," Aryx whispered, stopping before a grand, golden archway.

The fists clenched at his sides suggested he wasn't talking about me.

I nodded, fighting the tears that now pooled in my eyes. Aryx pulled me in, wrapping his hand around my head. Planting his lips softly on my brow, he breathed me in. Inhaling my pain, my sorrow.

"This is why we need to stop her. This is what she does. She takes and takes and takes until there's nothing left."

"I'll try." My voice trembled as it whispered from my lips.

"That's all we can do," he said.

Sucking in a hesitant breath, I reached for his palm and led us through the archway.

Pools of turquoise water trickled into a round council chamber. Splitting at the entrance, it flowed around the room, entangled in ornate patterns of cerulean across the aureate floor. In any other circumstance, the great hall would take my breath away, but now it only kindled the inferno blazing through my chest. A round gilded table rested on the center platform of the hall. All of its matching chairs were vacant except one .