Badb gazes at the four other amethyst slabs.
“They got all of us, did they?”
Odessa nods. “You’re the last to be freed.”
Badb turns towards us, resting her hands on her hips.
“That’s what happens when you grow complacent. Let’s see if there’s anyone left to kill, shall we?”
She reaches out towards us with both hands. Hesitantly, we take them.
I blink. And we’re gone.
Hurtling through space and time.
We appear outside of the castle walls, standing on the outside of the wall.
My worst nightmares pale in comparison.
The mists are coated in a light sheen of crimson. Bodies lay everywhere.
No longer is the ocean a brilliant turquoise, but a dark purple as it laps against the black stone wall.
Odin stands a few paces away and where he points his staff bodies of demons and giants fall.
Their skin turns to ash and flecks away in a gust of wind.
Eira and Balthasar are on either side of the gate, cutting down throngs of demons.
Tyr casts flames of lightning from his sword as he cuts through giant after giant. Their bodies thundering loudly as they fall to the ground like a great felled tree.
Morrigan soars through the air.Death incarnate.Her black wings devour the watery moonlight as she slices through a dragon. Her sword skewers an onyx-scaled beast right through the top of its head and she rides its carcass down, cackling as it crashes into the waves. She springs back into the sky, soaring through the darkened mists for her next kill.
Danu waves her arms around in twirling motions, the magic she casts spears out disintegrating everything in its path.
Badb grumbles beside us. “Looks like they’ve handled it then.”
I spin in place. Ramses, Cynane, Boudicca, Leif…our troops.
Everyone is here. Swinging, cutting, shielding.
Our troops made it.
I look back through the stone door that has been ripped off its chains, the crumbling bridge beyond it, and to the castle.
But did they make it in time?
Lachlan.
My chest caves in as I sprint back towards the castle.
Please be alive.
Please.
Please.
My feet slam against the stone bridge, the soaked leathers hindering my movements. Splinters are all that’s left of the oak doors as I cross the threshold. Wood is scattered over the checkered marble floor.
