“I am content to spend the rest of eternity fighting you right here. I will not allow you to move another step in Thia. You won’t harm another soul. You won’t take another life. From this day forward, I am the wall between you and the rest of existence.”
Zyros screamed and lunged forward as if to attack him, but suddenly stopped, the war cry cut off sharply. She looked at her chest and Caelan followed her gaze to find the bloody point of a blade sticking out where her heart should be.
“Enough,” Lore choked out on a broken sob. “Enough.” Jerking the blade backward, they both stumbled under the force.
With another cry of fury, Zyros swung around, her claws raised as she ripped Lore’s throat out, sending him to the ground in a lifeless heap.
There would be no other opportunity. Caelan flew across the distance in the blink of an eye, the world becoming little more than a white blur. He slashed and cut at the Goddess of the Hunt. She blocked him time and again, but her movements were sluggish and growing slower as the power she should have used to heal herself was channeled toward fighting Caelan.
He pressed on, never relenting, never wavering. She shrieked and cursed him, but Caelan hardened his heart against her. Maybe if she had done it for love. Maybe if she had chosen to walk away from Tula and the others. If she had gathered Lore close and embraced that love, he could have forgiven her. He could have granted her mercy.
But when the opening presented itself, Caelan didn’t hesitate. He cut her head clean off her neck. Her body collapsed where she stood, a couple of feet away from the God of Wisdom, while her head bounced and rolled down the stairs to settle near the feet of one of her dead children.
“Finally,” Tula breathed with a sigh of relief, but Caelan ignored her.
He stood over the two dead gods, his sword still clenched in his trembling fist as the rain hammered on them. Blood pooled around his feet, never fading to pale pink despite the growing puddles of water. So much blood had been spilled in this stupid game of bored gods and petty jealousies. It was more than the people who had died here today; it was the people who had died for centuries.
Zyros and Lore had paid for their mistakes and poor judgment with their lives, but he couldn’t get past the fact that there was still one who hadn’t paid any price. One who had meddled and taunted and tortured when she couldn’t get what she wanted.
And who was to say this wasn’t going to happen all over again now that the godstones were gone and the remaining gods roamed Thia freely?
Kneeling next to Lore, Caelan set aside his sword and carefully removed the gold collar from the dead man’s neck and set it aside. In the end, he did the right thing and acted to save the people of Thia. Caelan could at least give him a final moment of dignity and see to it that the world remembered that it was never too late to do the right thing.
Shifting where he kneeled, he turned his attention to Zyros. He wanted nothing more than to burn her body to ash and wipe her memory from Thia. She didn’t deserve to be remembered, let alone worshiped. It was already on the tip of his tongue to ask Caris to incinerate her corpse when a pulse of energy caught his attention.
“Stop, Caelan!” Tula shouted as he reached out his hand toward her chest. “Don’t touch her!”
Naturally, he ignored the Goddess of Life. He couldn’t imagine ever listening to another command from her again.
Plunging his fingers into the wound in her chest, Caelan felt around until they closed on the ball of energy he could feel calling to him. With it tight in his grip, he pulled it out and held it up to the flickering lightning. Even smeared in blood, he could clearly make out what looked to be a red marble about an inch in diameter, and in the center was a smaller gold marble.
Lore’s stolen power wrapped in Zyros’s.
Rising to his feet, he turned to face the other gods. Nyx stood back with Caris wrapped tightly in his arms, wary expressions on both their faces. Kaes remained beside Tula, his old visage twisted and angry.
But it was nothing compared to the glare of open hatred on Tula’s face.
He held up the ball of power between his thumb and forefinger for everyone to see, its electric energy already biting into his flesh and crackling along nerve endings. Angry bloodlust chewed at the edges of his mind.
“Is this what you were hoping to grab after I did your dirty work?” he mocked. “I imagine this is what she collected from all the other gods and goddesses she’s killed over the centuries in her pursuit of power. A chase you made possible.”