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“My mother is dead!”

A statement she cemented by crushing the branch in her hand, making the pieces fall to the floor and with it,the last of my hope.

“NO! No, Ella! What… what have you done!?” I called out in shock, truly believing that it would have worked.

“NOW KILL HIM THIS TIME!” Garmr ordered.

Unlike before, she didn’t use a piece of wood. No, she had something far more effective as she made power extend out her hand. A piece of her summoning magic formed into a flaming green sword, one held at the ready to end me. However, before she could make the first strike, my brother got there first, hitting her over the head with a rock and knocking her out cold. After this all her souls disappeared at once, making Garmr roar out in anger as he raced towards us.

As for me, the second I saw the blood trickling from her forehead, I fell to my knees next to her, something my brother wouldn’t allow for long.

“No, I can’t leave her… I can’t…!” I was grabbed from behind and tossed towards the portal Dariush was keeping open. The struggle on his face told me that it wouldn’t be for much longer.

“Hurry!”he shouted, but my mind was solely on Ella. The whole side of the army now coming for us at Garmr’s demand. A horde of them far too great for us to ever fight. Something my brother knew.

“We can’t fight them all, brother, come on!” he shouted as the portal began to fade. And just before it could disappear completely, and as Dariush was stepping inside, I felt myself suddenly pushed from behind. I fell through the portal and out the other side where we had first waited. I landed flat on the ground, my hands barely saving my face as I panted and thought through all that had just happened.

It hadn’t worked.

I had failed.

She touched the branch, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to bring her back. Wasn’t enough to make her remember her past life. I hammered a fist to the ground, knowing I had just barely made it out of there. But there was one thing I hadn’t expected next, as my nightmare was far from over.

“I am sorry,” Dariush said, making me frown as I pushed up and looked back at him. The confusion on my face was easy to see when I finally asked,

“Wait… where is Orthrus?”

Dariush shook his head and told me,

“I couldn’t keep it open any longer.”

I gasped and staggered back.

“No… no… where is he?Where is my brother?!”I roared, now running towards where we had come from, ready to race back down there and fight the fucking army to get him back! But Dariush stopped me, grabbing me from behind, telling me,

“You’re no help to them both if you’re dead! It’s too late, they have him. He pushed you through so you could live, Jared, but if I let you go, then his sacrifice will have been for nothing!”

I tried to fight, only to lose it to my agony. The pain making me drop to my knees as my anguish overwhelmed me.

My brother.

He had been taken.

“Come, it is over,” Dariush said, prompting me to lift my head to see that he was right. Our army had started to retreat, just after Adam’s beast emerged. The deafening roar that rocked the valley of the Gods wasn’t enough to drown out the howl of agony that came straight from my HellBeast.

Not even the crashing sound and destruction of the statue of Hades was enough to pull me from this torment. I realized that we had lost so much more than just the battle. And as the sight of the Gods figures smashing to the floor created a barrier between us and them, it became symbolic for what Hades had told me.

The cost of love…was pain.

Because now Fate had taken two people I loved away.

Neither of which, did I know…

Were dead or not.

31

THE LOVE OF A CRUEL HAND