I really should ride on his back, right? If I need to use my magic,hewill be able to help me, not Quill or Torin, but the idea sounds absolutely dreadful.
Torin looks at me. “Riley, stay here and help them.”
“Absolutely not,” I say as Mickey calls up two mounts. Vero leaps onto one without bothering to ask if Mickey had made it for him.
“No! That one’s mine! It’s all fluffy and this one is all scaley and likes to lick my feet,” Mickey whines.
“Why did you summon it, then?” Vero asks.
“Because… I wanted it to torment you,” Mickey whispers.
Not wanting to waste time, I turn from Torin and leap onto my horse… or more precisely, smack right into the side of the horse because he’s so fucking tall that I can’t leap onto him. Then I’m left kind of dangling there like a fool while all of Torin’s people question how exactly these are the people who are going to save anything.
Tommy rushes over and valiantly gives my ass a push, helping me up onto Sigma’s back. He even hands me Conquest’s bow, which I’d had out earlier to practice with. Torin and Quill are already moving, so I take a deep breath and grab the horse’s mane before asking him to catch up.
Sigma slowly moves from a trot that jostles me all around to a gentle lope that is terrifyingly faster but makes it easier to sit. And when he seems pleased that I haven’t just thrown myself off, his speed increases, flying past Mickey and Vero who are still bickering and catching up to Torin.
“You’re doing good,” Torin praises.
I try to ignore the fact that every part of this is horrifying. “What is our plan? We fought them once and had to flee. What the fuck are we going to do differently this time?”
“This time, we’re on my land,” he replies while I see the sky darken.
“That doesn’t look good.”
“Maybe not for them,” he says as I spot the Door in the distance.
I sling the bow off my shoulder when I see Selena standing in front of the Door next to Famine astride her horse. Famine isn’t facing us, she’s cutting us off from Selena, prepared to protect her from us, but Selena’s eyes are fixated on us.
With a wave of Selena’s hand, the ground shudders and cracks, and I’m afraid she’s going to eat up this world like she did with Obsian. It seems so simple for her to do so, even on foreign land. Famine’s horse scrambles back to avoid being swallowed up by it as I realize the attack wasn’t meant for us.
It was meant for Famine.
“Turn around and go back through that Door. These people are not worth this,” Famine screams loud enough that we can hear her as we draw closer. “They aren’t even the ones who did this to you! I’ve explained to you again and again that the people who stripped you of your power and tortured you met their death hundreds of years ago.”
Famine drops off her horse and rushes up to Selena, whose eyes are locked in the direction the palace sits. It’s like she already knows where they are and is prepared to chase these people to the edge of the world.
But she’s going to have to go through the four of us to get to them.
My sister looks desperate as she grasps Selena’s shoulders. “Please, I love you. Please. Selena, turn around. This fight isn’t worth it. I just got you back—I can’t lose you. We did whatAemon asked me to do in order to set you free. We can go on with our lives.”
Selena shakes her head. “They have to die for what they’ve done. They are greedy, selfish… they don’t even deserve the lives I gave them. They prospered from all of my gifts then destroyed me, and you expect me to walk away?”
“They aren’t the people who did it! Those people are dead,” Famine yells. “Selena, please. We are free now! We’re free of your shackles and we’re free from Aemon. We are truly free. Please, let’s flee this place. Let’s live the life we promised to live all those years ago.”
The goddess shoves Famine back. “Soon. After every single person from that wretched world has been slain by me. Every child, grandchild… any being that has blood in its veins that is connected to that world will die by my hand, and no one is going to stand in my way. Not even you.”
The ground rumbles beneath our feet when Selena’s eyes turn to us before shifting back to Famine.
“I will kill every one of them, includinganyonewho stands in my way,” she says.
Famine looks startled as she steps back. “What… but it’s me. How… how could you say that?”
“Get out of my way if you don’t want to end up like the rest,” Selena snarls with no apparent regard for any feelings that she might have once had for Famine.
“You’re just going to kill me? Do you know how much I went through to bring you back? How much I sacrificed? I have loved you and missed you for threehundredyears. I have torn my life apart to bring you back from the hell they’d inflicted on you. I sacrificed so much and this is how you treat me? Did you forget what we meant to each other?”
“I forgot nothing. But now… now I feel nothing but hatred,” Selena says. “Maybe once I get the satisfaction of their deaths, Iwill feel something more, but for right now, either you will back off and let me kill them or you will help me. If you refuse to do either of those, I will not hesitate to kill you.”
