Page 35

I closed my eyes and let the power rise up within me.

My book appearing at my side, and with a mere flick of my hand, it was so easy to flip open the pages and release them all as one.

The pages turned quicker than the eye could see, and one after another, every green soul in my collection all flew down below, creating a line of unbeatable entities for Jared’s army to fight first.

“Do it! Make them pay, Anástasi!” Garmr growled behind me with glee. The anticipation of the kill made his voice more dark and sinister than usual.

“Oh, I will make them pay!” I said, my voice now that of someone else.

And I sucked in a quick breath when I felt her there.

The other side of me. Anástasi had forced those words out, her voice demonic and angry.

The power shot from me, and with it a command I was almost fearful of, for they all went charging toward the wrong side.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Garmr said behind me, but then just when I thought I had made a terrible mistake convincing Jared to trust me, something happened. Anástasi turned slowly towards Garmr and for the first time in her controlled life, she said,

“No!” and suddenly, I didn’t need to look to know that the souls suddenly stopped charging toward my uncle’s men’s. Stopping just before they reached our army.

Each of them evaporated into a green mist that floated right over them. This before each of them reformed back into my souls, only now they were facing Garmr’s forces. Which meant that they went charging into battle once more, only this time, they were fighting on our side.

Garmr’s eyes went wide as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Red eyes that had haunted my dreams turned from the battlefield, before narrowing on us. He staggered back a little, before anger overtook his features.

“No, no, no… It… it was all a lie… a ruse… you… you aren’t my Anástasi!” he accused, and the second I saw what I had been waiting to appear behind him, I told him,

“No, but I am his Ella!”

Then I nodded to the sight of Jared as he grabbed Garmr by the armored jacket he wore and punched him square in the face. Blood erupted around his nose, breaking instantly.

“Now, Ella!”

I didn’t need to be told twice… I reached into my bag and grabbed the orb Nero had given me. The one that would incapacitate Garmr for a short time. Because there was still one more thing that we needed to do to win this battle. And for that, we would need a little green goblin.

So, I smashed the orb, knowing it was only intended for him. And thanks to the blood of a Viking volunteer, Nero engineered it so that it would only affect the one with Norse blood running through their veins.

Garmr cried out before he started to choke, thrashing in Jared’s hold. Because unfortunately, Jared couldn’t just kill him and snap his neck, as much as I knew he wanted to. This being his very first question asked to the Goblin when we had planned for this.

However, the goblin explained that the hex would remain on his dead body with no way of ever getting it off if he we killed him, because you could cast a hex, but you couldn’t remove it from a dead corpse.

Which meant the army would only end up fighting in their King’s honor.

So, Jared had no choice but to grab him in a choke hold until the spell began to work.

As for the goblin, he stepped through the portal Dariush had created, with Clay right after him.

Clay was the rightful king to the largest portion of the army below.

One that was slowly being beaten and would soon know defeat.

At least that was the plan if we could only get this fucking hex off him.

Speaking of which, Garmr finally went still, forced to watch the end of his reign and unable to do anything about it.

With Garmr paralyzed from the spell, the goblin wasted no time in covering Garmr’s head with his hands.

As for Jared, he came straight to me, taking me in his arms and holding me close.

As if the last hour of his life had been the longest yet.

“Are you alright, did he touch you, harm you in anyway?” he asked, his concern for me easy to see. I shook my head and told him,

“No, it all went to plan.”

Jared pulled me closer, holding my head to his chest as I watched the goblin take down the villain once and for all.

And as for Garmr, he was forced to watch me in the arms of the man I truly loved.

The one who hadn’t forced me to feel this way.

Hadn’t planted lies in my mind or stolen my memories.

It was a love that was real. A love that was pure.

A love not asked for but one freely given.

And now he was made to witness exactly what that looked like.

And with it came the display of that love in the form of a kiss.

A kiss I gave back with just as much passion.

As if erasing the one Jared had been forced to watch Garmr give me that day in the bedchamber as he had been bleeding on the floor. It was as if history was being rewritten after coming full circle to this point.

A cruelty Garmr deserved.

“The hex, where is it?” Clay asked, prompting us to pull back from each other.

The raw pain in Garmr’s eyes was the first real emotion I had truly seen in him.

“Hidden away, but over the years, it has bled outwards,” the goblin replied, before closing his eyes in concentration.

“It’s clinging on,” he said in a strained voice, as if removing something that had lasted this long was a challenge he had been expecting. But then Garmr’s eyes started to change, turning stark white with small black dots appearing at the centers.

If he had been in control of his body in that moment, he would no doubt have been screaming in agony.

The red scars that marred his face started receding, little by little, back into his hairline.

As if the essence was being drawn back out of him.

His hex, once hidden beneath his hair, had started to show as the years went by, with the evidence of it trickling down his face.

“Can you do it?” Clay asked, after looking to the battlefield as if pained at the sight of his men fighting for the wrong side.

“Yes… just… a little… more… AH HA GOT YOU!” he shouted suddenly and with it, Garmr’s eyes closed, making me wonder if it had actually killed him.

Then an invisible current flowed through us, like wind that instead of going around you, actually travelled through you and everything in its path.

We all looked down toward the battlefield and amongst the fighting, we could see large groups of demons all stop, as one by one as it hit them.

Like they were suddenly waking up from a dream before all heads turned as one toward the battlements.

Toward the sight of their true King.

But this reaction didn’t just affect them, because suddenly, all of Garmr’s past control over me simply disappeared.

As if there had still been an invisible net clung to my skin that, for the first time in forever, had been lifted.

A cord that connected us had snapped and I cried out before falling, with Jared catching me just before I hit the ground.

“Ella!” he shouted my name in panic, and it felt as if I didn’t know what to do with my body now that it was free. It was a feeling I hadn’t known before, as if a piece of Garmr had always been there.

“Are you alright, what’s wrong?” Jared’s panicked voice brought me back, making me breathe in and out, at the same time glancing at Clay. I wanted to make sure he was focused on his side of things and when it was clear that he was busy taking back control over his army, I sighed in relief.

“The connection has been severed completely,” the goblin offered helpfully, but Jared was barely listening.

His sole focus on me as he cradled my body to him, after first lowering me to the floor.

I gripped onto the black material that molded to his body, curling my fingers around the neckline of his clothes.

“Ella baby, tell me you’re alright.”

“I’m alright… I’m okay,” I told him, making him sigh in relief. Especially when I started to sit up, the feeling now passing me by as my body was getting used to this new freedom. To no longer feel tethered to another, despite never realizing that I had been before.

Jared helped me stand, and it was just in time to watch as Clay’s army started to fight against those they had once been fighting alongside. Something that caused mass chaos between the ranks.

Meanwhile, the rest of our forces were closing in, pushing the enemy back, after thousands of them fell.

We had been right, with Clay’s army and that of my summoned souls, we had started to overpower them.

The ones that were at the back of the battle had even started to flee. However, they didn’t get far, because suddenly a new army appeared just through the valley pass.

“Oh no, are those Garmr’s reinforcements?” I asked, fearful that the battle wasn’t as good as won like I thought.

Jared grinned and said,

“Koro came through on his word.”

His grin told me that they were on our side before the clash of weapons did. Now, Garmr’s army were being forced to fight from all sides, and soon it became clear that we were dominating the battle.

As for the goblin, I glanced back to see that he now had a strange glowing symbol in the middle of his forehead, telling me that this must have been the way he had removed the hex.

By absorbing it into himself somehow. But that’s also when I noticed something else, because whereas we had all been busy watching the armies below, we had missed something important, making me ask,

“Where is Garmr?”

Jared’s head snapped up and turned to the floor where he should have still been lying… only to find an empty spot. I looked to Jared and with pure panic in my voice, I said only one name…

“Fenrir.”