Page 4 of Scorched Earth (Dark Shores #4)

KILLIAN

The weight of being in the presence of one of the Seven rendered Killian speechless, but he carried Lydia into the cottage, Hegeria shutting the door firmly behind him.

“You can put her there.” She gestured to a small bed made up neatly with a patchwork quilt. “Tea?”

“Do you have anything stronger?” he croaked, carefully setting Lydia on the bed.

Her eyes were still black pits, and she watched the goddess intently.

He’d hoped she’d grasp at the chance that Hegeria could free her from the hunger, but those eyes suggested Lydia saw the goddess as a threat rather than salvation.

Hegeria sniffed in disgust, then shoved her long white braid over her shoulder. “Falling into the bottle during moments of adversity is a slippery slope, Killian. Especially when you need your wits about you.”

Feeling profoundly chastised, he said, “Tea would be lovely.”

“Help yourself to a biscuit.” She gestured to the plate sitting on the small table, then put the kettle on the stove. “You’ll feel better with something in your stomach.” When he hesitated, she added, “I made them myself while I waited for you.”

The last thing Killian wanted to do was be rude to a goddess, so he sat on one of the small chairs and took a biscuit, and swiftly discovered that Hegeria had the same feelings about sugar as she did about strong drink.

Forcing himself to chew and swallow, he watched as she circled the table to kneel next to the bed.

“Careful,” he warned, rising to his feet, but Hegeria waved him away.

Ignoring Lydia’s glare, the goddess curved a hand around her cheek, the gesture as tender as a grandmother’s touch. “Oh, dear one, he has his claws in deep.” She sighed. “I warned you this would be a hard road, but even I didn’t foresee this moment.”

Ice pooled in Killian’s stomach at her dismay. “Can you help her? Can you break the Corrupter’s hold on her?”

“Yes.” Hegeria dropped her hand from Lydia’s cheek. “And no.”

It felt suddenly very hard to breathe.

“I cannot take away her mark. But what she chooses to do with the powers she has is her choice.” Turning her head, she met his gaze. “As it is your choice, for do not believe for a heartbeat that my dark brother does not reach out his grasping hands to take all of our chosen.”

Killian had felt that touch. Felt the compulsion. “She’s beyond choices. I don’t think she can see her way clear of him. I don’t think she even cares to try. The… the hunger for what she takes is too overwhelming. It’s only getting worse.”

Lydia was watching them. Listening. Killian’s instincts flared a heartbeat before Lydia lunged at Hegeria, snapped bindings falling away from her reaching hands.

Hegeria had Lydia by the throat, though he hadn’t seen the goddess move. Not squeezing but holding her in place with the terrifying strength of a god.

Lydia clawed at her arms and tore the fabric of Hegeria’s dress, but the goddess’s face was impassive. “She is not yours,” she said, and it echoed through the cottage like thunder. “Release your hold and crawl back amongst the villains where you belong!”

There was nothing human in Lydia’s scream as she ripped away her gag. The sound was both fury and agony, and though it might be the death of him, Killian tried to go to her.

Only to find himself fixed in place, unable to move. Unable to do anything but watch in horror as the love of his life writhed in the grip of a god.

Hegeria’s eyes pooled into inhuman voids, all colors and none. “Release your hold!”

“She is mine!” a voice that sounded like breaking glass said from Lydia’s lips. “You have lost her to me, sister!”

“Not yet,” Hegeria said between her teeth. “Not ever!”

Lydia opened her mouth, and inky black smoke poured from her lips. The mass of smoke swirled around the room with a shriek of rage, then it exploded outwards.

The power holding Killian released him, and he fell to his knees as tiny pieces of the cottage rained down, slivers of wood slicing his exposed skin.

Ignoring the pain, he scrambled upright.

Lydia was limp in Hegeria’s arms, both of them panting in exhaustion.

But the sight of her green eyes filled him with relief, even as his instincts screamed that it wasn’t over.

“He’s not going to let me go,” Lydia sobbed. “He’ll never let me go.”

Hegeria ignored Lydia, her focus beyond the ruin of her cottage. Killian looked upward, and his heart broke into a gallop. The sky was full of oily black smoke, circling in an ominous and vast cyclone above their heads.

“Take her.” Hegeria pushed Lydia into his arms.

She was boneless and limp, chest rising and falling in rapid pants as though she’d been running. Killian lowered her to the ground. “He’s coming,” she whispered. “Killian, the Corrupter is coming. You need to go. You need to run!”

“I’m with you to the end.” He pulled her close and pressed his lips to her forehead. “No matter what the end.”

The cyclone descended, and with it came the awful howling. Like a thousand, like ten thousand, tortured voices all shrieking their agony.

“Steady now, Lord Calorian!” Hegeria’s skirt brushed his elbow. “If it is a fight he wants, a fight he shall have!”

A stream of black mist broke away from the cyclone, flying toward them with a piercing wail. Hegeria lifted her hand, and the mist exploded with a concussive blast that made his ears ring.

But the Corrupter was not so easily defeated.

Stream after stream lanced toward them. Hegeria met each one with her own power, the noise deafening and the ground shaking. The attacks only increased in frequency, the air a blur of blackness, the goddess’s jaw tight with strain.

She was losing.

Losing to the Corrupter, and Killian’s mind recoiled from the reason. From the truth that the Corrupter’s influence had undermined the faith people had in Hegeria. In all of the Six. With his own eyes, Killian was witnessing the consequences.

Hegeria staggered and fell to one knee. She struggled upright, blocking a dozen attacks in a matter of seconds.

But one got past her flanks.

Killian watched with helpless horror as the oily stream of blackness struck Hegeria in the side. A cry tore from her lips as she fell, the earth shuddering as though it were a tower that had fallen, not an old woman.

Pushing herself upright, Hegeria blocked another attack. But as though bolstered by having landed a blow, the cyclone birthed a dozen streams of blackness, all racing together.

Killian held Lydia tighter and closed his eyes. Please, he silently begged the higher power he served. The god who’d given him his mark. Please, Tremon, do not leave her to fight alone.

When he opened his eyes, it was to discover not salvation but the streams of the Corrupter’s power drawing closer, the air so cold his breath misted around him. All the light in the world seemed to disappear in shadow, and then—

Five columns of white light burst through the darkness, the ground shaking as five figures landed on the ground. Killian blinked away tears from the sudden brightness, and his breath caught as his eyes latched on a familiar armored form. “Tremon?”

The god who’d marked him gave him a wink, then reached down a hand to pull Hegeria to her feet. “Sister.”

“You took bloody long enough,” she muttered. “As is your habit.”

Tremon laughed, then turned to face the attack, the rest of the Six forming a perimeter around Killian and Lydia.

They were human in size but had the presence of giants, beautiful and yet terrifying to behold.

The pressure formed by their presence made it almost impossible to breathe, Killian’s heart stuttering in his chest as his eyes skipped from Tremon to Madoria to Gespurn to Lern to Yara and back to Hegeria.

The Six had not abandoned the world.

Far from it.

Seething with rage, the cyclone descended in a screaming wrath of darkness but was met by a brilliant glow of light as the Six lifted their hands.

Killian threw himself over Lydia, closing his eyes and covering his ears as the might of the gods collided.

The ground shuddered, as though Reath herself cringed away from the violence of the moment.

Then all fell still.

For a long moment, Killian didn’t move. Couldn’t move, if he was being honest with himself. Then he managed to push up on one elbow. Lydia stared with wide eyes, the half-moon tattoo stark against her blanched skin. “Is… is he defeated?”

“It is a battle won in a war without end,” Tremon answered. “For a time, our brother will need to rely on his chosen to do his fell deeds, as it should be. The toll of battles between the divine is too great for it to be otherwise.”

“Reath weeps.” Yara pressed a palm to the ground, even as Madoria closed her eyes and said, “The sea is in turmoil.”

Gespurn, who looked for all the world like Agrippa’s friend Baird, snorted in disgust. “We should not be here.” Then he disappeared in a swirl of white mist. Lern and Yara simply vanished, yet as Madoria began to dissipate, Lydia reached forward to catch hold of the goddess’s dress of seaweed. “Teriana. Is she all right?”

Madoria smiled, teeth white against her midnight skin. As she leaned down to cup Lydia’s cheek, her multitude of braids clicked as seashells and bits of coral knocked together. “Her road is as difficult as your own, child, but Teriana is exactly where she needs to be.”

Then she dissolved into a froth of water that swirled away on the breeze, leaving them with Tremon and Hegeria.

Killian dragged himself to his feet, helping Lydia upright.

Only to stagger as Tremon pounded him on the back.

“You’ve done good work, boy. Far cry from the smart-ass little brat who fell off his pony.

” As Killian met the god’s fathomless eyes, Tremon grinned and drew his finger through the air, parting it like shears through fabric to create a slash of brilliant white.

Tremon reached into it and extracted a familiar sword, handing it to him. “Your father is proud of you, Killian.”

Then he disappeared.

Killian stared at his father’s sword, which he’d left with his lieutenant, Sonia, for safekeeping before he’d left for Derin.

He was so overwhelmed he couldn’t speak.

His father’s last words to him had been that he was a disappointment, and the weight of that had sat on his conscience ever since.

To know that his father was watching, that he was proud, meant more than Killian could ever begin to explain.

“It is far from over,” Hegeria said. “Enemies approach from all sides, for even in the lands where we have been forgotten, there are many who reach into the darkness. And my brother always reaches back.” Gripping Lydia’s shoulders, the goddess gave her a tight smile.

“You will never lose the temptation, dear one. All we’ve done is given you the freedom to fight it. ”

A battle won. But not the war.

Hegeria rounded on Killian. “You cannot fight the enemy alone. Your companions flee south toward Anukastre. Find them.”

Then she was gone.