But I’m already up. I look for Griffin again and startle when he appears next to me. There’s a flash of black hair. A flash of auburn. Angry eyes and blood.
I jerk back into Kato just as Flynn’s ax blade whistles past my ear. Griffin grabs the handle above Flynn’s two-handed grip. Snarling, they wrestle for the weapon, both injured, limping, mauled.
Being in physical contact with Kato is like getting hit by a lightning bolt of pure Olympian power. Titos’s magic jumps to me in a sudden rush, but I don’t hold on to it. I use myself like a slingshot and send it straight at Mother without a second thought.
She cries out and drops to her knees on her stone perch. She shakes her head, looking dazed.
For a second, Flynn stops. Everyone does. Griffin rips the ax from Flynn’s hands and flings it away.
Mother stands back up and her power strikes again, skipping over me like a flat stone on water. My defenses are shored up. Kato has Titos. Griffin is impervious. But Flynn bellows again. Scores of people do. The battle resumes, and those still standing fight like savages, many dropping their weapons to tear into each other with their bare hands.
Griffin and Flynn are just as feral. They’re too evenly matched and clash relentlessly. Griffin gains the upper hand, but he won’t kill his friend. Flynn is too skilled to be incapacitated easily, or fully, or even at all. They roll, growling and grunting, locked in a tangle, one trying to kill the other, and the other trying to keep them both alive.
Flynn lands a hard punch, and my gut clenches in fear. Griffin’s face is mottled with bruises, his upper lip is split, and his nose is swelling. None of that worries me as much as the gash at his hairline. Blood slides down his face, blinding him.
Flynn looks better than Griffin but wilder. He’s mindless, driven by violence and blind rage. In my heart, I know that Griffin could take Flynn down permanently if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to, and that’s going to get him killed, because right now, Flynn’s moral compass has been wiped out by the most immoral person alive. He’s not suffering from any form of honor or rational thought. He’s been utterly freed from the yoke of ethics. There’s nothing to make him hesitate, and if I don’t do something fast, Griffin will pay the price.
I whip around at the sound of Bellanca’s distinctive scream—furious, pained, and unhinged. Carver roars in pain as well, his sword arm singed. Their differing strengths are the only things keeping them alive. Carver can’t get his blade in close enough to kill her because Bellanca is utterly on fire and throwing off what must be a terrifying amount of heat. And Bellanca can’t burn Carver to a crisp because his blade is keeping her just out of reach. They circle each other, waiting for the chance to pounce.
Around us, people rip into each other. There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s just kill, kill, kill. And the killing needs to stop.
“I know what to do!” I shout to Kato. Hopefully Griffin hears, too.
Counting on Griffin to keep Flynn busy on one side and Kato to guard me everywhere else, I inhale slowly to center myself and then pull magic from deep within, feeling the boost Titos’s tattoo shot through me still sparking in my blood. I concentrate with every ounce of energy inside me and focus all my thoughts on one specific desire—I will gather the bright sparks of human minds all around me. I will take them from Mother, even if that means making them mine.
I shut my eyes and see them even better, brighter. They’re beautiful, like stars in the night. Some flicker out, their light erased from existence even as I watch. Others, I still might save, but this day will torment them forever. This is the total loss of self a person never forgets or truly overcomes. This is where black marks on hearts come from, and where nightmares are born.
A big part of me rebels at the idea of latching on to human minds. A person’s head is a sacred place, one of truth. It’s our most private inner sanctum, where we’re all alone with our good and bad thoughts, know our own deeds and desires, and our choices should only ever be our own. All my life, the invasion of the mind has been my point of demarcation, the one line I swore I’d never cross. I’m about to do it anyway. Is it an act of mercy? Survival? Maybe it’s both. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve made my choice.
Shoving long-standing fears aside, I pull on the minds around me. Lights gravitate toward me, but they don’t come fast enough, or even all the way. Mother’s hold is solid, and the brutal tug-of-war I initiate between us starts to feel like it could tear me apart.
She holds on to what she’s claimed with iron strength. I double my efforts, quaking from the sheer amount of magic required to try to steal away her prize. The lights begin to whirl, and my head spins along with them. The sounds of fighting fade until all I hear is the fast thumping of my own pulse.
I pull harder, my head starting to grind with pain. The pinpricks of light turn searing. I coax more magic up from the swirling well of power inside me, but my concentrated, powerful effort at compulsion doesn’t work. I don’t capture a single spark.
Kato hisses. The sound breaks my concentration, and I open my eyes, searching for him. My vision swims as my magic pulls my brain tight like a bowstring and then snaps back down into me with the painful backlash of unused power. I gasp, lurching. When I regain my balance, I see Griffin and Flynn still grappling and growling at each other. Closer to me, Kato is injured now. A deep slice in his shoulder paints his arm red.
Gods damn it! I haven’t changed a thing.
A woman lies either unconscious or dead at his feet, joining our other attackers. The circle has grown since I closed my eyes and tried to wrest control of everyone from Mother. Kato switches his mace to his left hand, raises it, but then shifts his balance and uses his injured arm to land a knockout punch on the man charging us from the side. I recognize the assailant before he hits the ground, incapacitated. He’s one of our Sintans. One of Griffin’s from the start.
Nausea plagues me, and not only from my headache. We’re fighting the people who flocked to us from the four corners of Thalyria. We’re fighting Fisan soldiers, too. For efficiency’s sake, it was everyone, or no one, so Mother simply took them all.
Magic bites the air near the ruined gateway, different from Mother’s. Metal whistles. People scream. There are mostly Fisans over there, but Mother doesn’t care. The point of this massacre isn’t for her soldiers to best ours. The point is to leave no one standing—because that’s how she gets to me.
I focus on my compulsion again, sliding my consciousness into a different place, one of magic and instinct. I reach for the sparks, trying to corral the jumble of minds, but they resist me. Mother’s hold on them is rock-solid, absolute, and the longer she has them, the firmer her grasp seems to get.