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Let us save the world with you.
We always wanted glory.
We craved victory.
Help us achieve it.
The souls whispered within the sea of my arcana. They walked alongside me in this battle.
However, that meant I’d drained power from Hel’s domain. The lights dimmed. The roots blocking the doors of the other cells turned gray. I took the power that the domain had given me and grabbed fate threads from the air. The arcana rolled down the thin threads and turned them into chains.
I needed to get three more around Fenrir to bind him again. Two chains already dragged behind him. If I could get three onto him, then that would give me the time I needed to attach the loose chains to the rocky domain.
Fenrir grabbed Maddox by the throat and lifted him from the ground. Maddox thrashed in his wolf form. He was a white blur, but Fenrir somehow kept ahold of him. Maddox twisted and bit down on Fenrir’s arm. The pain brought a laugh out of Fenrir.
The monster was toying with us now. He wasn’t afraid like he’d been in Beryl’s restaurant. We’d taken too long. Fenrir had eaten enough to regain much of his strength. My will faltered, and my grasp on the threads slipped.
I’d learned too much today. I’d destroyed too much.
This should have been easy. Maddox and I were fated to live long, happy lives now. Why was this still so hard? It seemed like we were doomed. Guilt ate at me. I must have messed something up. The threads were all tangled and fate no longer understood what would happen next.
Was that it? Did I have to untangle the mess I’d made?
Or had I failed from the start? We were never meant to save the world. Our fate could have been sealed this whole time.
I shook myself. That wasn’t an answer that I could accept. I refused to sit back and let the divine dictate how my future would happen. It was mine to write.
Maddox siphoned more arcana from me. I shoved it at him in a wave of love and hope. The arcana let him change forms in Fenrir’s grasp. Maddox’s feet hit the floor. Patches of solid bone sprouted from the backs of his knuckles and along his forearms. More grew around his feet to give him a better stance.
He punched Fenrir in the jaw. The sound of cracking bone didn’t come from the plates on Maddox’s hands but from Fenrir’s face. I clasped a hand over my mouth to stifle my gasp of shock.
Blow after blow, Maddox backed Fenrir into a corner. I followed with the chains of fate hanging from my hands. Everything had come together perfectly. I never should have doubted myself. Once I wrapped Fenrir in these chains, he would be locked down here to starve alone all over again.
“There they are! They set Fenrir free!” Paige shouted across the room.
Confused, I paused and twisted to look back in her direction. Beside her stood Hel with a discerning look flattening her brow. Even Hel could tell from one glance that we weren’t trying to set Fenrir free. Paige’s words made no sense.
However, the lie bought Fenrir a fraction of a second. Maddox’s blows paused just long enough for Fenrir to change shapes. The black wolf leapt out of the way of Maddox’s fists. Even after all he’d eaten, Fenrir’s wolf form still looked starved. I could see the bump of every rib pressing against the inside of his skin.
Fenrir’s front paws hit the ground as he twisted back towards Maddox. I shouted in warning. Maddox threw up his arms in a guard. Fenrir used Maddox’s defense to his advantage. It’d been a feint from the beginning. Fenrir bounced away from Maddox and towards Hel.
I shouted for Paige to cover Hel. The Reaper sidestepped Fenrir to give him an opening. My jaw dropped. Hel’s dark glare slowly slid from Paige to lock eyes with Fenrir right before he slammed into her chest.
Fenrir’s maw opened wide over Hel’s face. Wisps of pale blue light bled from her. She put her hands, both human and skeletal, to his chest to push him away but never shoved.
“You can’t trust Paige!” Maddox called back.
She gave a devious half-smile before stepping back out of the shadows. In that moment, I realized why she’d never come to us when Hel’s domain had been falling into disrepair. Paige hadn’t cared. She’d held no stake in its crumbling state.
But…why?
We didn’t have time to wonder. Fenrir’s grinning maw was still wide over Hel. Her form seemed to turn translucent which made my stomach churn nervously.
Maddox limped past me. When had he gotten hurt? I moved to push power into him, but my own stores were dangerously low again. It’d taken a lot to give him this protective form, especially after how much Fenrir had stolen from me. The spirits hadn’t been enough to refill my arcana completely.
My hands trembled, but I pushed forward. I lifted my chin and gripped the chains tight again. But when Maddox moved to grab ahold of Fenrir, a portal snapped open. Fenrir launched himself through it. He flashed a wolfish, toothy grin as he fell through it.
Maddox moved to follow. I had to let go of the chains I’d made so I could grab ahold of my husband and keep him from following Fenrir alone. Apart, we could get hurt. Together, we could survive. I wasn’t about to let him go off on his own again.
