Page 75 of Crimson Skies

Darkness reached out of the Abyss and snatched her and Loki from the air.

“NO!” Tenebra howled.

The divine wrath of the Moira’s sisters drenched the atmosphere.

“Loki!” Theo bellowed.

“ZREL!” King Rizen roared.

Cassius darted toward Atropos and Loki. The pair vanished inside the void. He followed without a second’s hesitation.

Horror choked Morgan’s breath.

Cassius whirled around inside the gaping emptiness and gripped his blade. The weapon brightened with Heaven’s Light. He met Morgan’s gaze where the demigod was closing in on the rift ahead of everyone.

“Change of plans!” A fierce expression tightened Cassius’s face. “Iwillbring them back. Wait for me!”

He stabbed his sword into the interdimensional fracture, poured the power of the Awakener into the weapon on an explosion of brilliance, and closed the Abyss.

Deafening silence rang in Morgan’s ears as he lurched to a halt a foot from the spot where his soulmate had disappeared, Cassius’s ferocious smile burned across his vision.

A wretched sound left him.

Theo appeared.

“Cassius?” he mumbled numbly.

Morgan startled when heat flared through his belly. He swallowed, mouth dry and heart thumping hard against his ribs.

“He’s alive.”

“What?” Victor croaked.

Morgan pressed a hand to his stomach. Though they were separated by dimensions, the bond that tied him to Cassius pulsed brightly inside him, as solid as when he’d revived him with the fruit of resurrection in Argent Lake.

He reconnected our souls!

“Cassius is alive,” Morgan repeated. He met everyone’s stunned gaze, hope warming his ice-cold core once more. “And if he is, then so are Atropos and Loki!”

Silver tears fell down Clotho and Lachesis’s faces, their eyes aglow with relief. King Rizen sagged.

A sound finally broke the shocked hush.

Elios’s incoherent scream echoed across the sky as he wailed and raged, fingers raking his face until he bled.

“WHY?!” he bellowed. “Why have you forsaken me, Grandfather?!”

Shadows boomed around his shapeless form. The demonic artifacts he wielded spun faster and faster in the growing vortex, engulfing him.

Shit! He’s lost his mind!

Morgan gripped the Sword of Wind. “This isn’t over yet.”

Theo, Victor, Tenebra, and her sisters joined him as he faced the dark God, the rest of their army regrouping behind them.

32

Infinite darkness surroundedCassius where he floated in the Abyss. The adrenaline surging through his veins gradually abated as he cautiously appraised his surroundings. Surprise replaced it.