Book 3 Chapter 27
1097 Words
27
Immediately the smoke disperses.
Everyone is still standing where they had been. There are gasps, and cries, and even a few cheers when everyone sees Zee lying at my feet, his hands wrapped around the blade of the sword as he tries in vain to remove it from his chest.
The earth beneath my feet trembles and a rough wind picks up, strong enough to blow up anything not bolted to the stage.
“It’s begun,” Themis says.
“Edie, I knew you could do it.” The voice in my ear sounds like Mavis. A hallucination brought on by my overwhelmed senses. Except she keeps talking. “You have the sword still, press the gods for concessions. Free the monsters from them once and for all.”
Am I truly having a vision of my dead sister bossing me around?
A hand wraps around my uninjured arm. My head turns slowly, afraid of what I’ll see.
Mavis. No longer broken. Not even bruised.
Alive. And breathing.
“Mavis…” I can’t get out more than that as the tears start to flow.
“Shhh. Edie. Don’t fall apart on me now. Don’t let your friend’s sacrifice be for nothing.”
I still can’t believe she’s beside me. I reach out to touch her. My fingers trail down her cheek, the skin warm against mine. Slowly, slowly, her words penetrate the fog in my brain.
“What friend? What do you mean about a sacrifice?”
“The little bat boy. He flew down to the Underworld. Made some sort of deal with Hecate down there. I didn’t get all the details, just that his family were UWA legacies and they owed him a favor. He cashed it in for me.”
“Greg,” I say, a smile stretching my mouth, as I look around for him. What an i***t I was to underestimate him. “Where is he?”
Mavis frowns. “Edie...he traded his life for mine. It had to be that way.”
“No…” I shake my head wildly at the same moment that my eyes meet Cassie’s. She doesn’t look surprised at all. “You saw it,” I say to her. “You knew.”
Cassie nods. “It had to be,” she says softly.
My own words come back to me. “Go away unless you want to get yourself killed, which is pretty much the only thing you can do at this point.”
Cassie had known I would say it. And she knew how Greg would react.
Oh gods.
And then Themis is in front of me. “Edie, Zee will draw his last breath if you don’t remove that sword immediately. Your sister has been restored to you Now is the time to show the same mercy that was granted to her—”
“Mercy! It was a transaction!” I have to shout over the wind which has picked up once more. “Her life purchased with Greg’s.” The ground beneath us shakes and then the stage begins to roll as if a huge wave is surging up beneath it. I fall to my knees beside Zee.
But my eyes aren’t on him. It’s Themis’s scales I watch as they spin wildly, like a carnival ride, moving faster and faster. The weighing plates fly out while the chains that connect them rattle ominously. With a c***k, the plates fly off, whooshing right over our heads. Abruptly the scales stop spinning and what’s left of them crumbles to dust.
Sooo...it’s possible maybe Themis wasn’t bluffing about that whole end of the world thing.
Grasping the sword with two hands, I look up at the gods arrayed before me. “The war against the monsters is over. They will live freely and never be bothered by any of you again.”
“They must vow,” Mavis adds in, and then leaning in to me she says in a softer voice, “For gods, vowing to something is magically binding. They’d give up their own immortality if they tried to go back on something they vowed to.”
I nod. This is good information to have. And for the first time, instead of seeing Mavis as bossy, I realize what our relationship could be going forward. Sisters, working as a team, together.
Sometimes I’ll hold the sword. Sometimes she will. Sometimes I’ll know the words and at other times Mavis will supply them.
“You heard her,” I say. “Make your vow.”
Hermes, Kratos, Themis, Hades—all the gods—they stare back at me dumbly.
“Now!”
Hand to heart, they each make a solemn promise to make peace with the monsters.
I look down at Zee and his watery eyes meet mine. “You too.”
He nods and his mouth moves but no words come out.
“Try harder,” I tell him.
“I vow,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. I make him say the whole thing, then have them vow to not hurt myself, my friends gathered here, or my family. They swear it.
I do the whole thing again, but this time making them all swear.
Satisfied and knowing Zee is running out of time, I grasp the hilt, ready to pull it from his heart, hoping that I am not making the wrong choice.
With a horrible crash, the earth trembles once more and then with a deep groan, it splits open wide. The sword slips from my hands as I fall, deep into an endless darkness. Mavis’s scream is at my ear as she falls beside me. My wings pop out and I snatch Mavis with a single talon. A quick glance below shows me the ruby stone, growing smaller as it travels further—Zee presumably still with it.
“Edie,” I hear Val yell from above. A moment later Cassie’s and then Fern’s voice echoes his.
I let Mr. Zee and the sword go, all the way down to Hades if that’s where this darkness ends. My heart clenches as I think of Greg down there with him.
“Give him hell, Greg,” I screech into the black, wishing and hoping that he somehow hears.
Then, holding my sister tight, I fly up toward the light.
I’m pretty sure it’s the end of the world up there.
But I feel fairly certain of something else too.
I’ve got Mavis. Val. And my friends. So long as we stick together—we’ll be fine.
- Writer
