The Land of Gods and Beasts

Chapter 18

Esther

Everything went to hell. I could feel it in my bones, knew it with every frantic breath. The storm refused to move, no matter how tightly I grasped it. Something was keeping me from being able to end it, a wall of blood barring me from taking control of it. Ekon was wrong, the storm was not my doing, it couldn't have been. Yes, it began the moment I unleashed my power, and maybe I can control the weather. But I knew exactly what had caused it, and who was preventing me from tearing it from the sky.

I ran towards Ekon, fear finally snapping me from whatever haze I had been operating under. Blood poured from a gash in Silas's side, the cat's yellow fur stained and dark from it. Ekon seemed to still be in one piece, but I can see the exhaustion flagging each movement. He caught my gaze, his face pale.

I can't stop the storm it's-

"Mal."

One word whispered into my mind, and my feet freeze. I felt it then, the usually blazing red thread stretched between us dim and fraying. I look around frantically, nausea rising in my throat when my eyes snag on them. Amidst a glowing silver bubble, Ellie's shaking body is hunched over a still form. Blood sliding between her fingers pressed against his stomach.

I don't know what happened, but one moment I was staring in horror at Mal's pale face and blue lips, the next Ellie is scrambling back in surprise as I appear beside them.

"No," the word is whispered, the voice not sounding like my own.

Rage slides along my bones with a force I've never felt before. It feels like its own entity as I stare at his lifeless face. This can't be happening. Not when I had just begun to understand, to remember. I can't do this without him, I can't. I won't. These fucking demons. The fucking Harbinger. She thought she could take him from me, but I will take everything from her. I will drag her to Hellas's realm myself, help the demons rip her apart, will shove her head beneath the flames, will dance atop her bones. And all those who help her, I will peel their flesh from their bones with my teeth.

No no no.

Power flares in the face of my rage, the beast in my chest roaring as my heart breaks in a way I didn't know was possible. Shatters so thoroughly it made any pain I thought I had known seem so insignificant, so stupid. Pressure builds inside me, roaring surrounding me. My skin is too tight, splitting at the shitty seams that holds me together. It's too loud, too much.

His chest rises, falls.

And does not rise again.

I explode.

"You know, Ekon wouldn't be so angry if you would stop acting like you want to kill us all."

I snort throwing a pillow at Mal's face, "who says I'm acting?"

Green eyes roll as he plops on the bed beside me, his dirty leathers smearing dirt on the white and gold duvet. "You and I both know you just like getting a rise out of him."

I grin wiggling my eyebrows, "he is unbearably sexy when he's angry."

He slaps me in the face with a pillow as I laugh, "ew. You do realize he is practically my brother, right?"