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And that’s when I realize it isn’t Nereus’s hand in my grasp, butmy sword.
“No,” I hear Orion wrench out. “No…”
Lamia leaves me there for a moment, but I’m breathing comfortably now, pacing myself. I still don’t fully understand what’s happened, but I have to assume it has something to do with the Elixir Ceremony.
The girl who’s always been afraid of drowning can breathe underwater.
That stupid, absurd fact sings through my mind as Lamia draws me out of the water, hauling me up by the air. It hurts my scalp, but I focus on the visage of Yrsa tucked into my palm, aquamarine gems biting into my flesh.
“Prepare my shuttle,” Lamia says to someone out of sight. “We’re leaving.”
She tries to haul me with her, but she doesn’t realize that I amvery much alive.
Without another moment’s hesitation, I draw the knife across her arm, cutting down to the bone. She screams, reaching for me with her other hand, but I roll out of the way, landing in a defensive position on the other side of the dais. We stand face to face on the pyramid in the center of the room, the throne between us.
“How?” she hisses.
I laugh, and I think of Kye at how manic and snarky I feel right now. “Magic,” I whisper.
I think I’ve got her on the hook—that this is finally going to end—and then I see that her flesh is knitting itself back together, threads of silver across her arm. She ages as it heals, growing more and more crone-like in her sparkling gown, but it doesn’t matter. She’s got enough Elixir in her to keep her alive.
Which means we’re going to have to take her out cut by cut.
She lunges for me once again, but this time there’s someone else at her back. Orion has crawled up the dais from behind, and wraps his claws around her abdomen to tear at her as she reaches for me, tearing a hole across her dress and at the flesh underneath. A splash of black ichor and silver Elixir pours from her, and I watch as that sickening thread winds her back together again.
“Now I have to kill you all,” she hisses out.
Nowshe’s a caged animal.
And we have no choicebutto kill her, or she’ll do the same to us.
She flings Orion away from her with a lash of power, and I cry out for him, but I can see that it weakens her—and I can only hope that he’s alright. There’s no time for that right now, though. I whirl away from her and around the throne as she comes for me again, scrambling to reach me. She isn’t quite as agile as I am, and with her powers waning, there’s nothing she can do.
And apparently, she can’t touch me.
Because I’m starting to think that Yrsa reallyison my side. The goddess of all creation doesn’t want this planet to die.
She doesn’t wantmeto die.
With no other tools at her disposal, Lamia starts to bring down rocks from above, grabbing anything she can and hurling it at me with a lash of telekinetic force. I manage to dodge out of the way, watching as she uses up her own life force—life force stolen from Homeworld—to try and kill me. And I’m ready when I get an opening, watching as Orion rises again.
I can’t let him risk himself. Not when he’s already so badly injured.
I run for her, sliding under a thrown boulder and lashing out at her legs. I can’t seem to get a hit on her heart, and I don’t even know if that would do any good; she seems heartless, as far as I’m concerned.
I try to urge Orion not to come closer through the Elixir bond, but he isn’t listening, and he creeps ever closer. Lamia whirls, and at first I think she’s going to strike Orion again, and I know it’ll be the end.
But she does something worse.
She raises her hands up toward the ancient ceiling, and the whole room starts to tremble. I look her in the eye as she smirks, her stare wild and manic.
“I won’t see you survive me, human,” she sneers. “So we’ll go to the abyss together.”
And then she wrenches the ceiling free.
Water pours in through the windows, the sudden burst of pressure making my ears pop and my head swim. I fall to my knees with a scream, and reach for Orion. The sorceress is going to kill us all out of spite.
I don’t want to be alone for this. And I don’t wanthimto be alone.
