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CHAPTER 29

NOVA

I n the past few months, I’d been in more fights than I’d ever expected. Seriously, when I killed John and started down the path to becoming a terrifying goddess of chaos, I had no idea the can of worms I’d opened.

This wasn’t a fight anymore, though—no, this was war. The three dragons that had positioned themselves between me and Lorcan underlined the point. I hated leaving Rowan and River on the other side of the monstrous beasts, but as I launched myself over them and locked my gaze onto Ra’s hungry expression—vile intent focused on my friend—I knew it was the right choice.

The god couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet ahead of me, but as I flew up the cliffside, it felt like miles. Time felt both irrelevant—nonexistent—and like it was moving at sonic speed. The power from above was threatening to pull my very feet off the ground, and my magic hovered over my skin, lashes of purple and blue electricity jumping to the ground to anchor me. My avatars moved at my sides like silent, lethal mercenaries, ready to fight at my behest.

The music didn’t help my concentration at all.

Lorcan had begun playing a few minutes ago, a slow start to a piece that I knew would have a violent climax. Her weapon—her violin—was poised underneath her chin as she pulled on the chords of the universe to create a heartbreakingly beautiful sound. My eyes watered, grief pulling at my chest in contrast to the way I was energetically bounding behind Ra. I was so incredibly glad I was shielding others from the full effect of her music because this was something else entirely—this was the most inhuman I’d ever seen Lorcan.

Her posture delicate, she swayed back and forth as seafoam green and turquoise pulsed around her. I could see two other men—one that looked just like her and one that I recognized as one of her bonded—offering her very similar magic from afar while facing off with one of the dragons. Her hair was flying every which way, and her skin seemed to pulse with lights, like she herself was made up of stars. The air shimmered with power as the music skated across my ears, growing louder. I nearly stumbled to a stop, tears streaking down my face.

I knew I had to ignore it, but shit—this was unreal. It seemed impossible that a noise so beautiful it was painful existed in the first place.

Agony.

Grief.

Joy.

Passion.

All of that and so much more were inspired, plucked from the universe in bouquets to be laid at her feet. It was like Lorcan was untangling the very threads that held everything together with the simple movement of her body.

I should have expected the reaction from the world eaters to her magic—I should have realized how furious it would make them.

A blast of raw power sent me nearly flying back, but I caught myself last minute. Ra stumbled and fell to a knee before regaining his footing, allowing me the opportunity to move within striking range. I didn’t have time to hesitate with him. He may have been pathetic, but I would never say that he was a weak opponent.

As I reached him, his frame—which was already larger than mine—pulsed with power as he grew in width and height. I hesitated as a burst of sunlight transformed the sword in his hand into a black obsidian blade lit with yellow-white flames. Forms rose from the ground, gold shades that instantly turned to attack. With one sweep of his sword, his magic would reach Lorcan, those minions being set loose on her?—

“Ra!” I roared, throwing every ounce of will toward him in one hard blast right as he turned to look at me in shock. Relief filled me as his sword dropped, a furious bellow leaving him. A massive hole stood gapping in the center of his chest, crackling with electricity.

I wish that had been the end of him, but I knew better now.

Throwing bolt after bolt of magic, I pursued him as he dodged, ducked, and turned away from me. He was actively bleeding, but it didn’t stop him from swinging his sword at me, the flames licking my skin. I had no idea what those flames would feel like if they made full contact, but I wasn’t interested in finding out.

“Go!” I cried to my avatars as they broke away from me and attacked the gold figures that were surging toward us. I didn’t let them distract me as I took out my dagger and threw it right at Ra’s throat. It sliced his skin before clattering to the floor, as if it had hit a wall of stone. His grunt of frustration wasn’t nearly as satisfactory as I would have hoped.

Suddenly, Ra barrelled into me, invading my space in a second flat. My body glided through the air and toward the cliffside. I clenched my jaw as my body dropped, my hands snapping out in a split second to grip onto the closest rocks.

Motherfucker —he’d thrown me over the ledge.

My hands slipped on the rocks as my body hung over the vortex of death. I hissed, pulling myself up so my upper body hung over the ledge—my gaze darting to Lorcan.

Fuck. Her eyes were completely black—no pupils in sight—and her body was lit up in her star form. Neon tears leaked down her face, painting the ground in a sea of color. It was distracting just enough that Ra was on me faster than I could manage to pull myself completely up.

His metal boot crushed my hands, and I cried out in pain, his full weight feeling as though it was breaking each bone in my fingers one by one.

“Learn to stay down, girl,” Ra snarled, bending down to grab my throat. I let him hoist me up into the air to get away from the damn cliff, then grunted as he threw me onto the ground. Before he could stab me with that damn sword, I rolled over and gained my footing.

“You could have knocked me off—that was dumb.”

“Then I couldn’t drain your power.”

I dodged and weaved, playing defense as we danced around one another. I managed to get in a few blows, distancing myself from the ledge while still guarding Lorcan. Behind the dragons it was only Lorcan, myself, and Ra, but it felt far too fucking crowded with him here.

“I will never stay down,” I told him. “The minute I do, you win. And I will never let you win, you piece of shit.”

Suddenly, five golden swords—smaller than his—appeared out of nowhere, soaring towards me. I tried to avoid them but braced for impact at their unexpected arrival…nearly as unexpected as the body that appeared before me. Shielding me.

Apep.

The primordial demon appeared in his full glory. Black armor made of snakeskin and wreathed in smoke, a massive scythe hung at his back, green electricity dancing along the blade. The contrast between the two gods—dark and light, the void and sun—was very obvious. Ra literally hissed in reaction to seeing him, shooting away and landing nearly ten feet away, pointing his sword at Apep.

“You,” he snarled.

Apep flashed across the ground, appearing right before him. His scythe sliced Ra’s left side, and when the sun god tried to duck away, Apep conjured a gigantic snake to constrain him. I watched the entire scene with awe as I slowly moved back toward Lorcan. I still listened, though, unable to completely pull myself away.

“For eons, I’ve watched you lord over humans, beg for their attention, their love—now you seek their destruction,” Apep spit out. “You disgust me. You don’t deserve to be a god on this planet.”

Ra’s form exploded with light, and the god once again seemed to transform into something more. How many forms did this bastard have? I almost felt fucking offended he hadn’t transformed for me as the two of them began to fight in what could only be described as a clash of the Titans.

A war of gold and obsidian. Of sunlight and darkness.

My avatars, having defeated Ra’s minions, sought out Lorcan and surrounded her protectively as I continued to watch. I was mesmerized by the intensity of the fight, and I could have watched for hours—but I had a job to do.

I turned to face Lorcan and was almost immediately met with one of the humanoid apparitions from the dark ones. So incredibly creepy.

“Release your protection, mortal. You cannot stop this.”

I let out a disgusted sound. “Pretty sure I’m not mortal. And no, I will not release my protection from anyone.”

“Her. Let go of it only around her. The rest do not matter.” His tone was so dry and filled with nothingness, but somehow his frustration leaked through.

“No.” I held his gaze. Behind me I heard a massive crack, and I snapped my head around to see gold blood leaking onto the ground where Ra had landed. The bastard was getting his ass handed to him, and I loved that so damn much.

“You will.”

“I will never stop protecting my friend. Fuck. Off.”

And he did.

The result was a sudden and drastic increase of the pull from above, as if trying to prove that I had no power and no grasp on the situation. A roar had me turning back around to watch Ra, bleeding and injured, as he managed to land a blow to Apep—slicing his head clean off. I cried out in concern as his body broke into millions of snakes that fell off the cliffside. Oh shit.

Ra beelined toward the two of us, and I turned my back to Lorcan’s as I intensified my protection around her and sent my avatars to overwhelm Ra. He sliced through each one of them as my breathing turned rough, my body aching from the pull of the world eaters and the damage his sword was doing on our magic.

Suddenly, I felt Lorcan waver, stumbling to the right for just a moment.

Reaching back while keeping my eyes on Ra, I kept my hand against Lorcan’s arm. “You’ve got this. Just focus. You can fucking do this. We need you to do this, Lorcan.”

I hadn’t expected my ‘pep talk’ to work, but she planted her foot into the earth, and music blasted from her violin with renewed vigor. I hissed as blood leaked from my nose and ears, bracing myself as Ra catapulted toward us.

The world shattered into fractured, violent pieces all at once—everything colliding, imploding, and exploding.

Lorcan and I remained back to back, our simple connection through touch slowing time as I watched every singular moment play out.

Miniature stars lit the space around us, the cosmos dancing in our presence as my magic intertwined with Lorcan’s, creating a bright arc of power in electric blue, seafoam green, and amethyst.

The stars released spears of pure destruction, all heading straight toward Ra.

The music notes turned into something so much more than just vibrations, morphing into glowing spheres that floated around us—before screaming toward the dark ones.

I could feel something huge happening behind me, but I couldn’t look away from the death of the sun god. The stars, infused with my magic, hit Ra in a single shot. The world dimmed and his body froze up, his flames extinguished as the cosmic lights speared him through. His very molecules broke apart before my eyes, small fragments of the god hanging suspended in the air as stolen magic shot back off into the universe.

Lorcan’s violin suddenly emitted a broken noise that had me crying out as fragments of time and space became disjointed—some speeding up, others slowing down—turning the world around us into a circle of panels of fractured timelines. I watched Ra’s obliteration at all speeds and tightened my grip on Lorcan’s arm, knowing that the chaos could only exist for so long.

As if summoned by my thoughts alone, the air got sucked out of our plane of existence, and my hearing went out. With Ra gone, I turned toward Lorcan.

The world eaters were close enough to touch, their gaping mouths pulling on us as Lorcan braced against the storm. At her fingertips—the violin having fallen to the ground—were three electric blue orbs. Although to call them that seemed far too simple.

I had never seen such a pure form of magic. It tasted like salt water. Like the universe. Like the earth’s magic but different. Like…creation.

The orbs shot forward at her command, hitting right into the center of the creatures.

For a mere second, there was nothing. We stood frozen, waiting, hoping…

A singular light—a mere whisper of the blue orb from within the world eaters— destroyed them. Electric blue light flashed, and my hearing crackled as their death cries shook the universe. Our bodies were yanked upwards into space, and the smell of burning filled the air, my skin turning into a searing inferno. My physical form felt like it was being ripped apart, destroyed by the very fragments that kept our universe together.

Light filled the space between the atoms around us, breaking apart the dark ones and illuminating our universe.

Then we were falling into the cosmic abyss of space, the two of us unaware if we had just saved our world or destroyed it.