Torin calls back his scythe, no longer needing the chain to do so, while Vero tries to get closer to Famine but is hindered by the people. I’m afraid he’s going to hurt them to get to her, but so far he seems to be trying to work around them.
“Riley, does your bow work on them?” Torin asks.
“I… I don’t know,” I admit, scared to try after I’d just hurt a man. What if I had killed him? What if itdoeskill him?
“Riley, focus,” Torin yells.
Famine has practically disappeared behind the bodies of the people she’s controlling. Anxiety eats at me, but I push it back and lift my bow. I aim it at the same man I’d hit with the shard of ice, hoping that if it helps, he can immediately get medical attention.
The white arrow strikes him, and he cries out in fear as he pushes away from the monster who’d taken control of him. The problem is that she has at least fifty people surrounding her, and each arrow isn’t instant. It takes me a moment to draw up the magic to create the arrow to shoot. There’s no way I’ll stop her at this rate.
“You just have to make an opening, and Vero and I will do the rest,” Torin says. “You’re doing good.”
I nod as I focus and realize that the hourglass feels hot again, but the pain that I would normally have been feeling at this point hasn’t returned to me. Usually, my hands and legs would be throbbing by now, and my body would ache while the stain spread. Has this hourglass really fixed the curse?
I release an arrow that feels stronger and proves to be when it rips through three people, exposing Famine.
Torin rushes in, but I see elation cross her face and it chills me. It’s like she’s thrilled he’s made this decision.
“Torin, pull back!” I yell a second before the ground explodes in front of Famine. It throws Torin back, but he easily lands on his feet, prepared to strike again as immense power spikes behind me.
I quickly twist and throw myself back while Onyx tries cleaving me in half with a sword that flickers and shimmers, almost like an iridescent seashell.
“Selena,” Famine whispers as Onyx screams and the ground shakes.
Onyx looks up, her eyes glowing an iridescent hue just like her sword. “I gave you everything! Humans are such greedy creatures. Such sickening creatures.” She pays no attention to her dead father, a victim to the magic circle.
Famine leaps onto her horse and dashes toward Onyx, but Torin is faster. He strikes, hooking Famine with his scythe and throwing her off while lightning crackles up his weapon and wraps around her. I’m surprised to see it and wonder what else he can do as his power grows.
Before Famine can even move, the ground beneath Torin’s and Famine’s feet explodes, and Torin drops down into a hole created by the explosion. I see his scythe catch the edge of the hole as I rush toward him, but Vero drags him out first.
It’s become clear that Onyx is no longer herself. It’s hard to tell if she’s even inside the body any longer when the voice doesn’t even sound like her own.
“Kill them all, kill them all,” the person who was once Onyx begins to chant. “KILL THEM ALL.”
“As you wish, my love,” Famine says as she throws sand at Vero. When it hits him, his hand hesitates, but the arrow I shoot straight through his back yanks him back to reality, making Famine furious that I keep fucking up her plans.
Onyx rushes me, and since I’d been fixing my arrow on another cluster of people, I don’t see her until she’s on me, having moved impossibly fast. It allows her to grab me by the throat, rage written across her face.
“Selena, my sweets, that is my brother. He is simply confused, but we’ll show him the right way,” Famine says.
This woman Famine called Selena doesn’t care. Her hand turns into that same shimmering material while she drives it toward my side, but I call up ice to block her hit. The iceshatters as the Death magic swirls inside of me, drowning me in uncontrollable magic that bursts out, flinging her off me and right into Vero’s path. He raises a pole and thrusts it into her chest, pinning her to the ground.
“NO!” Famine screams.
The ground shakes and the dirt beneath me starts to crumble. The trees wither and die, and the buildings begin to collapse. It’s like an earthquake is running through the city, tearing it apart. Vero is thrown back when the pole that he’d driven into Selena slams into him.
“Riley!” Torin yells, and I discover that the shaking ground beneath my feet has opened up into a hole while the world falls apart. As my footing disappears, I lunge for the edge, barely managing to catch it. But the dirt immediately starts giving away, and I cling desperately as the ground beneath me is eaten up. People who’d chosen to stay in an attempt to help are swallowed by the woman’s wrath.
Kit cries and anxiously dances on my shoulder, unsure of what to do. She seems to want to get help but she knows that by doing so, she’ll take my vision from me. I don’t even know what to tell her to do.
Selena has so much power, so much control over everything, and I begin to wonder if she is the goddess who built this world… the goddess who brought life upon it, crops to feed the people, rain to water the crops… before they betrayed her and destroyed her.
Of course her power would be immense here if everything here was built with it. And now she’s decided to destroy all that she’s built.
I can’t see what is happening while I desperately cling to the edge, but I can hear the screams, the pleas. My feet try to dig into the dirt but every time I find purchase, the ground instantly crumbles. My fingers strain as I fight to pull myself up but whenI try, more ground disappears and I’m left frantically grabbing on to something new to save me. My hands shake and I realize that I’m not sure how much longer I can do this. Then the world shudders and everything beneath my hands begins to fall away like the goddess is calling away even the dirt of this world. I start to drop a second before a hand clamps around my wrist.
“I have you. I have you,” Torin says from where he hangs on the edge. I don’t even have time to comprehend that I’m not falling to my death before I see Selena charge Torin. She drives a sword down at him, fury written across her face.
