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His gaze darkened with worry, but I glanced away, looking at the guards again. "They all have the same face," I pointed out. "Those men. They look human enough, but they have the exact same face."
Wynvail nodded, unease crossing his face. Speaking of having the same face, it was eerie how similar he looked to Wane and I. Sometimes I forgot he wasn't born at the same time as us, that he didn't grow up in the basement.
I really shouldn't have been thinking about the basement right now. Not when we had to go inside that dark, ominous cave where—
Haley laid her hand over mine on the rocky hill, and I jumped—and then settled, the frantic part of my soul quieting. Haley was here; I was safe.
I just had to keep her safe.
"They're creepy as fuck," Verena muttered on Wane's other side, her freckled hands clenching into fists. "Why are they just standing there? Move, freaks. Breathe or shift your weight or something."
I agreed; their stillness was unnerving. My chest tightened.
"Cronus made Typhon create monsters for his trials," Wane murmured. "What are the chances these are something similar?"
"High," Emlyn muttered. "They're not moving. It doesn't look like they rotate; I think they stand guard twenty-four-seven."
"What are you thinking?" Haley asked, calculation in her stormy eyes. Fuck, I loved that look in her eye. I couldn't help but smile even if I felt sick with panic and dread.
She died. We didn’t come close to losing her; we actually lost her. Was Renna worth this? I was a bastard for asking that, but I had to. If we’d only been here for her, I’d have grabbed my mate and run, but this was bigger.
This was the prophecy on her back, impossible to escape. It was fate giving us no fucking choice. Cronus would find her no matter what we did, but we could take control here. Empty his buffet cart so he couldn’t grow in power.
Deep down I knew there was no retiring from this fight, this war. That’s why I was here, not running back to Hell.
Emlyn made a thoughtful sound. "There must be something in these bags to cause an explosion. What if we blow up the ground in front of them, and Haley, you slow their heartbeats while they're distracted. When they pass out, we go into the cave. And follow the plan we made last night."
Haley hiked up the strap of her satchel and smiled. My stomach both clenched with dread and fluttered with butterflies. "Wyn?"
"Harvey, do you have a jar with a purple flower in it?" Wynvail asked, glancing across Kai, Em, and Haley to meet my eyes.
I frowned and dug through the bag, blinking at the innocent looking plant. Wynvail's grin was mildly alarming when I drew it out.
"Everyone, shield your eyes. Harvey, fill the jar with sun magic and throw it at the guards."
"What is it?" Verena asked, eyeing the jar covetously.
"Some mad scientist's experiment," Wynvail replied quietly, his eyes on the cave. There was no sign of movement inside, but he watched it like he was as suspicious as I was. There was a prison inside, and Cronus's most high profile prisoners were locked up here. It might have looked like an abandoned cave1 but it was anything but abandoned inside. A tremor went through me, but I locked my body to control it.
Locke isn't inside, I snarled at myself. He's dead. Wynvail killed him.
Yet, my stomach twisted, and I could feel the heat of his breath on the back of my neck, could smell his wine and cigarette smoke scent.
Haley tightened her hand around mine, and I sucked down a breath of fresh air. I tasted dirt, minerals, and rainclouds—no smoke and wine. He was dead.
"Blowing shit up can be cathartic," Wane whispered, startling a quiet laugh out of me.
So I pulled my hand out from under Haley's and sank into the boiling pool of my magic. It had been warm and comforting once, the soft brush of sunlight, but now it was a light that scalded, that took no prisoners.
I screwed the lid off the jar and pressed my palm over it, my magic rising effortlessly. Emotions were the key to controlling power—and losing control of it. There was never a moment when I wasn't full of rage and grief and fear, never a moment when my magic wasn't ready.
I filled the jar until it glowed as bright as a sunbeam. It was easy, effortless.
"Shield your eyes," I reminded everyone, and waited until all their heads ducked—watching Verena the longest, expecting her to rebel and surprised when she didn't.
Wane was right. Rearing my arm back and hurling the jar full of magic at the cave was cathartic. I threw my rage along with it, and when the glass shattered upon impact with the ground, it took some of my fear with it, too. The purple flower was visible for a split second as a luminous violet glow before sunlight erupted like the heart of an explosion.
Holy shit. A laugh bubbled up my throat, satisfaction and viciousness driving out my fear for a moment. A plume of light erupted so far and high that guards were thrown in a dozen different directions. Damn. I understood why Wynvail collected all this shit now.
