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Emlyn nodded, his wings tightening.
"Nothing to worry about," Harvey replied flippantly, ushering us to a wide staircase and taking the steps two at a time. "Just Hera challenging Aphrodite in a fight to the death that could cause a cataclysm so big it wipes out all of Earth."
"Harvey, what thefuck?"Kai shouted behind us. "Where did this cataclysm shit come from?"
"Do you have any idea how much magic the gods have?" Harvey replied, sprinting across a stone landing and down another staircase. I followed, my heart racing fast—afraid, but exhilarated to have my family back together, too.
"He's right," Emlyn agreed behind us. "Bad things happen when the gods fight."
"How bad? Tiny little earthquake bad? Or end of the world bad?" Kai demanded, his voice sharp with panic. "Harvey's exaggerating, right?"
"End of the world shit tracks with everything else the gods have done," Verena remarked dourly. "Wait, what isthat?"
I spun at the breathy tone of her voice, and a strange protective rage filled me at the sight of her terrified face, her freckles standing out darkly on her cheeks.
Em and Wane reached her first, peering out the stone arch that had caught her attention. Wane's sharp intake of breath had me moving faster, catching the toe of my boot on a step and almost smacking teeth-first into the stone. Harvey caught me before I could smack into the wall, and my gaze shot out the window, past the arch of a wall and over a domed rooftop. From this angle we could see down into a perfectly circular coliseum, eerily similar to the arena in Alphaven but without the dramatic flames.
There were no people on the stone benches, either, no hungry spectators. Just two women in the centre of a plume of dust and magic—and hovering in the air above them, a black vortex that made my heart skip one, two, three beats. In the heart of the swirling blackness was a ring of light, and then a darker circle. An eye.
"He's here," Wane breathed, grabbing my hand in a desperate grip.
"We're all dead," Verena laughed, gripping the edge of the window with white-knuckles hands.
"We need to leave," Emlyn growled."Now."
I began to turn, but the vortex pulsed, the eyeblinked,and when the blackness shot to the floor of the coliseum, I couldn’t look away. It happened so fast, I would have missed it if I'd blinked. Dark magic formed a column that slammed into the arena floor, and then like something out of a supernatural horror film it resolved into the shape of an enormous man.
Cronus was here.
Really, really here.
And when he turned in our direction, like he knew we were watching us, I struggled to breathe.
"Run!"
CHAPTER29
WANE
The sweet, floral scent of Olympus filled all my senses when Harvey barrelled into the door at the base of the palace tower, bursting it open with a resoundingboom.The scent was sickly, too sweet and cloying in my lungs. I wanted to run as far away from this place as possible; it was every bit as insidious as the Damned House even without mould and blood on the walls. And there was no doubt the titan had heard the door slam open.
"Faster," Emlyn barked behind us, ushering Haley, Kai, and Verena out the door and down the steep cobbled road outside. I kept close to my brother, my heart hammering my ribcage so frantically I felt it in my throat. The titan was here. He'd find me and force me to my knees and tear me apart until my heart stopped beating. Then he'd bring me back all over again so he could force me to watch him kill my family.
Haley squeezed my hand hard enough that I gasped, ripped from memories and back to the present.
"Stay with me," she breathed, running so fast her pink hair flew behind her like a ribbon, her face flushed with exertion and storm-grey eyes wide with terror. That fear cleared my own panic until rage filled its place. Rage was good; I could use that.
"I'm here, itzaia," I promised, squeezing her hand back and scanning the steep road we fled down. At the bottom, it led to another avenue that curved out of sight, the buildings ancient and pale, bricks carved from enormous chunks of stone. And empty—every building was empty.
Where is everyone?
A tremor ripped the ground from under my feet, and I cried out in surprise. My breathing cut off. I threw out my hands to catch myself before I broke my nose on the ground.
Haley’s hand was torn from mine, but she leapt across the ground, throwing her wings and arms around me to stop my fall. A thin breath rasped up my throat as she steadied me, but a grunt of pain had my head snapping up. I scanned the steep road, terrified the titan had stolen someone while we were distracted but—Kai was still here, his hand locked around Verena's upper arm; Harvey had shifted into his beast form and bared his teeth at nothing in particular; and Emlyn was on the ground, wincing as he pushed back to his feet.
"Em," Haley breathed, releasing me when the ground steadied under us, and rushing across the road. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," he muttered, catching her face in his big hand. "Just a bruised ass. Nothing fatal."
