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“I don’t know shit about you,” Ada eloquently states. “So why would I stand with you?” She sighs at Nesta’s stunned silence and continues, “You know what I do know? I left some fucks on the beach when I got here… You can take as many as you need.”
Nesta’s face betrays her emotions, splotches of red and pink appearing as her anger spikes, raising the temperature around us to staggering degrees. “Pardon?”
My stomach flips, nausea overtaking me as Ada smiles once again. Everything in me wants to cover her mouth, take over this conversation, and hope I can repair the damage. I don’t want to overstep, but—
“Get fucked,” Ada politely says before I can utter a word of my thoughts. “And see yourself out of my territory.”
Between one breath and the next, purple fire rises from Nesta’s hands. She stretches out her arms, releasing the flames in a pressurized blast that slices through the surrounding area like a white-hot knife.
Talodus and I drop to our bellies, avoiding the brunt of the attack. I peek to my right, and Garben furiously pats at his chest, dousing his burning shirt with weeping hands, though his efforts don’t stop the blisters from appearing almost immediately. Trees blaze around us, the stench of thick smoke searing my nose.
Through it all, Ada still stands on her feet, doubled over at the waist with her arms wrapped across her midsection. Just when I convince myself she’s hurt, injured too badly to fight Nesta off… The Mongrel Menace peers up at Nesta through her lashes and grins.
The unstable Shade queen gives a frustrated growl and lobs a ball of dark fire at Ada. She quickly follows it with another slice of the same unnatural power.
Ada barely has time to fully stand before she’s hit again. She doesn’t counterattack or defend herself against Nesta. She simply waits for the onslaught to end, her smile only growing brighter, more suspicious, as the old queen loses her mind.
I’ve never seen Ada appear so confident in the face of chaos. This isn’t like being in the clinic or training in the colosseum. Or the way we found her after Poko’s attack.
This is a furious goddess confronting a queen with too much power and too little respect for the changing times.
“This is Spiran’s fault,” Nesta screams at Ada, panic and paranoia edging into her tone. “If I can’t get to her, I’ll take it out on everyone else. The island, too, will feel my pain and loss. I will burn everything to the ground.”
Nesta pants as her tantrum fades, but her eyes are wild as she takes in Ada’s appearance. The burns on her cheeks and chest heal before our eyes, leaving behind rosy patches of raw skin.
“There are other goddesses here,” Ada murmurs, ever so slowly shaking her head as she steps forward. “It’s not just Spiran anymore.”
My chest tightens as Ada invades Nesta’s space. It becomes difficult to breathe, and my throat threatens to close up completely with each meager inhale I manage to take. I feel as if I’m suffocating, like I’m experiencing everything Ada has explained of her fight with the darkness.
A dreadful odor overtakes the burning forest as Nesta swings her right hand across her chest, twirling until nothing but a cloud of gray mist hovers in her place. Ada reaches toward it, and it vanishes before our eyes.
I stretch my senses through the forest to feel for more Shades. It’s a trick Connak taught me when we were young, though I’m not nearly as good at it as he is.
After a moment, I relax. It appears the unstable Shade queen came alone.
“She stinks,” I absently comment, still trying to process the last few minutes.
“It’s sulfur.” Ada mumbles.
She doesn’t move. She just stares at the spot where Nesta once stood, her brow knitting low over her eyes while lost in thought.
“Did you see the gray cloud?” I ask softly, not sure if I want to pull her from her mind.
“The mist?” she inquires, glancing my way. Her cheeks and chest are still raw, but the edges are returning to normal. “Connak and I have seen it before, but you couldn’t see it when we were in the forest with Poko.”
I nod, remembering that day more clearly than I care to admit. It was the first time she threatened me with rocks. “Why were you smiling at Nesta?”
“She did exactly what we wanted,” Ada answers, shaking her head. “But she isn’t just using fire.”
“He’s dead,” Talodus mutters, hanging his head. “Garben is dead.”
Ada takes three long strides to his side and drops to her knees. She touches Garben’s forehead before hovering her hand over the hole in his chest.
“Don’t touch it,” Talodus snaps. “Please, don’t touch it. That’s the last thing I heard him say.”
The edges of the blast mark are slowly decaying. He didn’t have a wound when I last looked at him, but where his shirt was burning was now a festering hole, oozing dark sludge instead of blood.
“Where did this come from?” Ada leans closer to look. “He didn’t have—”
