AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Frozen air slaps my cheeks as the magic thickens, first surging with light and then growing opaque. There’s the smell of burned metal, the sense of something thick and oily pushing back against my spell, and then there’s the portal: a round hole in the air itself. A door into another world.
That other world is dark, and it’s cold. The moonlight filling this room casts silver bands across the snow just inside the portal, and I shiver despite the magic burning inside my veins. That was supposed to be my escape. I was supposed to carry this life inside of me through that portal.
Escape. The word hisses through my bones, calling to me like the moon pulls the tides. The old god’s pain throbs inside my skull and pulses through my teeth, and some dim, distant part of me realizes that this much magic will destroy me.
Escape. I leave my right hand raised, sustaining the portal to the Lands Below, and then I send the rest of the stolen magic back into the pipe. Another low, booming echo shakes the walls of the room. Somewhere, someone is screaming. Quite a few people are screaming.
Magic surges through the pipes and then recoils from the dark chains wrapping the old god. I grit my teeth; I can’t break those chains, whatever they’re made of. Breath hisses over my lips, pulling in air that carries the bite of frost from the Lands Below.
I can’t break the chains, but I can break the walls.
Magic responds to the thought, and the floor trembles beneath us. Phaedron’s grip on my arm tightens, tugging me back to reality as the wall beside us bulges outward, then collapses in an avalanche of stone and dust and tiny, golden grass seeds. The shouting increases; it seems far, far away.
Good, but not enough. Magic seeps through the floor, seeking the places where the chains are anchored. The old god stirs within its prison and sniffs the air. The tendrils of hope rising through its magic are still thin and weak.
Seven. There are seven anchors for the chains holding the old god in place. One by one, I shatter the floor around them. It sounds like feast day fireworks, complete with the haze of smoke and the screaming.
And then there’s something else. A long, low groan, the kind of sound the earth itself would make if it were given a voice. The chains hiss like snakes as they come free of their stone bindings, then whip around the room. Phaedron covers my body with his, so that when the old god finally rises from its prison, I see it through the screen of Phaedron’s pale hair.
The god reaches upward like a pillar of smoke. Its eyes open wide, gleaming in the moonlight, as its body stretches and stretches, shifting from light to darkness and then back to light, sprouting legs upon legs as it climbs the broken stone of its shattered cage.
And something else rises as well. All around the remains of this room, darkness as thick as ink creeps up the walls. As I watch, a droplet gathers, swells, and then falls to the floor. Smoke rises from the grass where it hits.
Oh, that’s not good. I pull away from Phaedron, turn to the portal, and then turn back to him.
“Go!” I say, my voice rough with magic.
Phaedron steps toward the portal, then spins back to me. He looks like something deep inside of him is being pulled apart. Darkness swells against the wall behind him, growing thick, then dropping to the floor below. Smoke drifts through the shattered wall as the old god’s body rubs against the stones, rising higher and higher. Its legs end in sharp claws now, claws that pull the stones apart as it climbs.
The screams are closer now. Much closer.
“Go!” I say. “I can’t hold it open forever.”
A shadow passes over Phaedron. Something very large and very heavy collapses behind him, a cacophony of sound, and then moonlight shines directly on him and I can see that he’s crying. He has, perhaps, been crying for quite some time. His left hand drops to his side, as if he’s grasping for the sword he just gave me, and then he holds it up, his palm open and winking in the thin, cold light.
“I can’t,” he whispers. He sounds like he’s broken, like something inside of him just collapsed. “I can’t leave you.”
There’s another shattering sound, like an explosion, and the screams grow so loud I could almost believe the voices are in this room with us. I look up. The old god curls its body around the shattered tower like a snake. It still wears the same face, that carved feast day mask, only now its eyes are open. The god’s body shifts as it turns. Fathomless black eyes pass over me, and for a heartbeat, all is perfectly still. Somewhere, I hear the soft buzz of insects, feel the sun on my face and the scent of green, growing things all around me.
Then the god turns away and stretches forward, rising to meet the glow of the full moon. Magic leaks out of my body. It feels like a fishhook coming up my throat, like my rib cage splitting open. I gasp as the ground beneath me lurches and rolls. Magic’s absence burns.
The portal. It still stands, a blazing hole punched through this world, gaping nothingness just over Phaedron’s shoulder. Something hisses through the air above me, and some part of my mind identifies it as an arrow. The arrow, plus the screaming, means that we are not alone in the old god’s broken prison.
And the silver pipe no longer burns beneath my palm. It’s been severed from the old god’s magic, and its power is fading. When I lift my hand, the portal I’ve opened into the Lands Below will begin to fade.
I stare at Phaedron, then at the portal behind him. Passage to the Lands Below, where once upon a time I wanted to find my freedom. Phaedron is standing right there, in the doorway between our two worlds, with his arm at his side as if he’s trying to offer me something.
I still have one shot, then. One chance.
I take my hand off the silver pipe and throw all of my weight against Phaedron’s chest.
Chapter22
Phaedron
HOME
This world is crumbling all around me.
