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I flinched so hard I whimpered when that stolen magic drove into the cobblestones of Olympus, and cracks raced through the buildings on either side of us.
My own shadows fled when the blackness pulled back, revealinghimbeside a tall, regal woman with warm caramel skin and brown hair. We were close enough to see his smile when a tendril of dark magic struck, piercing her heart, and she crumpled to the floor at his feet. Her eyes lay open. Sightless.
Oh gods, she was—a goddess.
He’d killeda goddess.
Harvey rumbled a warning, backing up swiftly and nudging me behind his huge body. My feet were entirely numb as I stumbled back a step.
I jumped violently, gasping when something slammed into the ground beside me—more titans, more monsters, more—Haley. It wasHaley.
I shuddered, my teeth clacking together. A tear burned my eye, streaking down my cheek. Haley was here; I was safe. I was safe.
"No," Kai hissed, lurching out of her arms with an expression of raw horror. "Hera!"
So that goddess was our backup, and she was in a broken heap at the titan's feet, and now—oh gods, no—
Haley threw herself in front of me, her body alight with crimson rage as the titan rose and expanded, becoming somethingmoreas he loomed twenty feet tall, his entire body made of a still, stagnant evil.
I covered my mouth with my hands when he lifted his powerful leg and stomped on the goddess until her bones broke and crushed to shards. She didn't even cry out.
Terror made me sick. My whole body was cold, weak. We needed to run. I tried to say it—run!—but my mouth wouldn't form words.
Emlyn dropped from the sky and grabbed me, holding Verena in one arm and me in the other.
"Run!" he ordered, like he saw the weak plea I tried to shout, his command deep and throaty and enough to send Harvey into motion.
But the gates were blocked by the titan's mammoth form and—and Kai and Haley weren't running.
"I brought her here," Kai hissed, fury in his voice and the air shimmering around him.
"We can't fight a titan," Haley warned, pulling at his arm. "Please, my night."
Emlyn rose into the sky with brutal wingbeats, clutching Verena and I in a brutal grip, but he hovered, refusing to leave the rest of our family. As much as instincts howled at me to flee, I wouldn't leave them either.
"Oh shit, oh shit," Verena whispered like a chant.
"Shhh," Emlyn soothed absently, a constant growl filling his voice, vibrating his chest against me.
Motion caught my eye and I whipped my head towards it, throwing my hand up on instinct to build a hasty wall of shadows around us. I gasped when my magic slammed into Aphrodite, the goddess's eyes blazing with—excitement. Not rage.Excitement.She was enjoying this.
"Pathetic," she remarked, but she was less interested in us than the broken body of Hera at the titan's feet. He didn't have a face, but some of the blackness split in the semblance of a grin as he drove his foot into Hera's body again.
Evil—he was pure evil.
When Haley grabbed Kai and shot back into the sky, I could breathe again. But being airborne wasn't much comfort when the titan was twenty feet tall and so close it made my stomach clench.
"All gods are pathetic," the titan chuckled, his voice gravelly and rough.
I recoiled so hard that Emlyn nearly dropped me, angling us away with rapid wing beats. I knew my shaking made me harder to hold onto, but I couldn’t get my body to stop. What if he dropped me? Would the titan crush me to bones and blood too?
Aphrodite laughed, hovering in the air through some fell power. "So true."
I kept an eye on her, shadows writhing inside me, ready to knock her aside if she came at us. But instead it was Haley who shot through the sky towards us like a dark-winged bullet. My heart settled to have her close again.
"We need to fly over the walls," she yelled. "Fuck the gate; just get out of here."
Emlyn nodded, following her command without question.
