I spin, and blood sprays in my face. I jerk back, my vision pulsing like a fading heartbeat. But I can still see soldiers fall, cut down by comrades, friends, and family. Brothers and sisters who came to us together, who trusted us to lead them, rip at each other’s throats, turned into vicious, mindless killers with no free will of their own.
A knife lands in my left shoulder. I grunt in pain and shock. Heat flares out from the wound. I recognize the blade. The Metal Mage must have thrown my own knife back at me. This is Fisan irony, otherwise known as vindictiveness. At least it always gets me my weapons back.
I pull it out and feel blood wash down my side. The sting in my shoulder is nothing compared to the agony in my head. If Mother didn’t have everyone else to control, I think she would have already vanquished me. I don’t know how much longer I can fight her.
Warring splotches of light and dark overwhelm my eyes, and I can’t find her anymore in the chaos. I hear Griffin roar at Flynn to snap out of it. There are grunts and hard punches. There’s Flynn snarling like a wild beast.
Where’s Kato? I can’t see!
I battle for control of my mind while fighting rages all around me. I don’t have to see it to know what’s out there—blood on hands, hate in hearts. Mindless and corrupted.
“Give in!” Mother’s ruthless command hits me with the force of a thunderclap between my ears. It’s shattering, invading, bleeding into all my edges and forcing me down the wrong path—the path I’ll never want.
Crouching down, I wrap my head in my arms. Sykouri and I are one—razed, wrecked—and Mother’s voice is the most terrible of Siren calls as it pummels me over and over. Pounding. Pounding. Pounding.
This has to end. The promise of no more pain seduces my imploding consciousness like a mirage in the desert. But that’s just what it is—a lie. Every instinct tells me that I have to fight for all I’m worth, fight for my life. I hammer at my head with the palms of my hands, trying to beat her pollution out. The darkness is too close. It’s overtaking me, inside and out. My heart resists. It’s too filled up with better things to flood with malice and hate.
I rock. I’ve been here before, and I lost myself. I lost myself to this terrifying pressure commanding me to betray myself and everyone I love. This is what Mother did to Eleni and me. She tore us apart. She made us fight like enemies, like mindless creatures in the dirt.
Not again! I explode upright, screaming. Even blinded by Mother’s crushing magic, I see Eleni with perfect clarity in my head. It’s her image that drives the shadows back. Like a ray of sunshine, her memory pierces the dark, and together, we eject Mother from my mind. In a way, my sister saves me again, and the reverse rip of power leaves me reeling as I come back to myself.
I blink, drawing my nearly fractured mind back together again. Some of the pieces feel like they don’t quite fit. It’s a struggle to make myself whole again, but I know that I can, and I know that I won. I can hardly believe it. This time, Eleni and I won.
Steadying myself, I look around at the utter devastation. Mayhem and bloodshed surround me. I may have won my battle, but I’m the only one. Everywhere else, the savagery is chaotic and loud, jarring and brutal.
Sickened, I search for Griffin. I need to know he’s safe.
Blond hair and familiar features are the first things I see when I turn around. Kato’s heavy arm slams into my chest from the side, knocking me to the ground. Stunned by the blow, devastated by its source, I expect his mace to swing down and crush my skull. Instead, it arcs around with a frightening metallic whistle and hits the crazed-looking man lunging at me with a dagger. The Sintan, one of our own—one of Kato’s—flies back, one whole side of his face shattered and opened to the bone. Before he even hits the ground, there’s no longer murder in his eyes. There’s nothing at all.
Still flat on my back, I gape up at Kato. His snake tattoo is racing all over his head. It slithers across his forehead and then dives into his hair before circling back under his jaw, moving up his cheek, straight through his eye, and then across his forehead again.
“Titos is protecting you! Mother can’t get into your head!”
Kato hardly acknowledges me, alert to the next threat. And that’s when I realize exactly what I’m in the middle of.
Armies clashing. Me in the center of a raging storm. Bodies strewn around me.
And they’re all Mother, just like I somehow knew they would be. They might not look like her, but they are. Every last one of them is an extension of her.
My eyes widen in shock. I knew it would come to this. I knew.
A strange mix of cold dread and detached calm washes over me as comprehension sinks in. Not a simple nightmare or embedded fear, then—one that wormed its way into my consciousness to plague my thoughts. This scene I thought I imagined was a vision of the future. After Griffin found out who I am and we fought, I closed my eyes, and I saw this. I saw Mother looking at me like I betrayed her, because in her eyes, I have. For the first time, I came out on top.
My gaze swings to Mother on her pedestal, tripping over Griffin and Flynn just long enough to know they’re alive and still locked in combat. Mother’s concentration is unwavering, but her furious eyes hold mine.
Watching her wield her destructive powers, I want to rail against the Gods for giving me foresight without making anything clear. The vision didn’t come to me in a dream like the other occasional times I’ve been touched by the sight. I couldn’t place it as real. As coming. As something to avoid. What I saw wasn’t anchored in a setting. Besides Mother, I had no notion of the people involved.
My eyes jerk back to Kato. With tattoo Titos’s help, he must have stood guard over me, helping Griffin keep me alive for however long my battle raged on the inside, for those long moments when I couldn’t see or hear anything but Mother pounding away at my head.
Above me, Kato fights with the strength and skill of ten men. He takes care of all threats, and I stop looking. I trust him implicitly to watch my back while I make sense of this—and figure out how to fight back.
But I can’t block out the sounds of pain and rage and death. There’s an ache alive and blazing in my chest, a burn that will never fade. If only I hadn’t frozen up at Frostfire. If only I’d killed Mother then. We wouldn’t be here now. Everyone here would have been safe.
I do my best to set aside those useless thoughts. Regret is a part of life, and if only is a bottomless well where wishes don’t come true.
Closing my eyes for the briefest of moments, I force down a steadying breath. I’m ready to fight now. I’m ready to take my people back.
CHAPTER 21
I twist upright and spin to my knees, heartsick at the circle of death around me. Crushed skulls. Mace-imploded chests. Most are ours, those unlucky enough to have been closest to me.
“Stay down,” Kato barks. “You’re injured.”