Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Carrick is beside me, and I don’t think twice. I shove Cato’s lightning bolt at him. “Finish the bastard.”
I’m vaguely aware of Amell and Finley appearing. Carrick strides with purpose toward Rune, now screaming profanities. More than anyone, Carrick has the right to strike Rune dead for all the ways he tortured him for hundreds upon hundreds of years. The gods who imprisoned Rune before I was created wanted him to suffer the length of a mortal life behind bars, and they might disapprove of me condoning his death.
But none of that matters now.
I rush to Maddox, lying on his side next to the stone altar where I was supposed to die. My heart stutters when I get a good look at him, dropping to my knees at his side. I pull the ax from his back and toss it far from us, gently moving him.
If a hard death had a picture, it would look like this. Maddox’s skin is dry, leathered, and gray. His hair is almost pure white and so brittle that when I rest my hand along the side of his head, it breaks off. His eyes are closed, sunken into his skull, and his body looks to be but a skeleton—skin stretched taut over bone.
What did Rune do to him?
I encircle his wrist with my shaking hand, but it’s so thin and bony, I’m afraid it might break. I search for a pulse… that beat of a heart even immortals have to indicate the truth of their existence.
Nothing… I feel absolutely nothing.
Tears wet my cheeks, the first time I’ve ever cried. Not even when my twin had to plunge a knife into my heart to save the world did I shed a tear. And yet the prospect of a world with no Maddox is too painful to consider. I had thought I’d expelled the last of my humanity when I called upon its strength to pull the Blood Stone free of Rune’s chest.
If that’s the case, how come my heart feels like it’s breaking?
I slide my palm against Maddox’s, gently lace my fingers with his skeletal ones, and dare not squeeze. I glance over to Rune, lifeless on the cavern floor with the lightning bolt lodged deep in his chest. Carrick stares down at him grimly before turning his head slowly my way.
For the first time, he takes in his brother lying on the ground, and his expression morphs from the satisfaction of putting Rune down to shock.
He bends distance to me, appearing in a flash. Amell and Finley walk slowly, perhaps to give us privacy—the two people who cared for Maddox the most.
“What happened to him?” Carrick asks softly.
“Rune.” That’s what happened to him. “He was protecting me. Told me to go help you and Finley. I shouldn’t have listened to him.”
“He loved you. Of course he was going to protect you.”
Loved. Past tense. “I know,” I admit with shame.
And I was too proud to admit it back to him.
“The question is,” Carrick drawls as he stares at his brother’s lifeless form, “what are you going to do about it?”
“Do about it?”
He nods at Maddox. “Fix it.”
“But…” I can’t.
Can I? My gaze roams over Maddox and the scraped-out husk of a demigod. I felt no pulse, no life.
“You’re a god,” Carrick says harshly. “You just crushed the Blood Stone as if it were nothing more than a gnat. Save my brother.”
My hand tightens reflexively. I have the power to do it. The gods brought me back. Plucked me from a mortal death and created a god. I, in turn, resurrected Finley.
I’m the fucking god of Life. I have the power to make anything grow and thrive.
I can do this.
I start to bend forward but a slurred voice stops me. “Do not.”
Glancing up, I see Onyx standing there. She doesn’t look good, but she managed to awaken from the sleep of Valshour. She blinks slowly, as if she’s still in a partial trance.
“You need consensus. What’s done is done.”
The rules I don’t understand. The vague proclamations that some things must be unanimous while the gods can freely meddle in anyone’s life they want.
It’s simply not fair, although I’m well aware that the first rule I learned was nothing is fair in the game of gods.
“Fuck your consensus,” I snarl, and without hesitation, I place my hands on Maddox’s chest and press my mouth to his.
His lips are cold and dry, but I’m not repulsed.
Rather, I’m determined.
I blow warm breath into him laced with my power, and I dare say, a bit of love to go with it. I feel it deep in my gut, and it’s what gives me the courage to face down Onyx.
My eyes are closed, but I feel the flare of light that I know is radiating from Maddox’s body as I breathe new life into him.