Kaliope
“NO!”
My mind whirls, unable to hold on to a coherent thought, as Caben lies in the center of the light. Unable to accept that this is it; he’s gone—I continue to pound against the solid force field…whatever the goddess is separating me from him.
He’s not breathing. Not moving. My hands ache, but I can’t stop their abuse. All this strength for nothing. “Alyah!” I shout. “I swear, I will hunt every last goddess in the heavens if you don’t bring—”
Before my threat is fully voiced, the spire splinters, sending shards of fractured light through the room. One blinding flare, and I cover my eyes. Peeking through the slats of my fingers, I watch as Caben’s body is lifted into the air. My breath ceases. Then I’m back on my feet and punching the wall of light.
“Don’t you take him, you fucking beast!” I kick at it now, jab my fingers against it, trying to find a crack in its armor. But Bale’s moonlit casing holds strong.
I faintly register footsteps in the room over the roaring in my ears. The static in my head. Someone says my name, but my sole attention remains on Caben as he’s elevated higher…and then he stops.
Suspended in the air.
I wipe at my face, trying to clear the tears so I can see. A black mist emits from first his ears, then his eyes. His nostrils and then his mouth leak the dark substance. It quickly fills the light, bleeding mist-like tendrils into the air. I shake my head. No. “No—” I don’t know who I tell this to, but damn it all, someone is listening.
“Kal!” Lilly is yelling close to my ear. “We have to go. Move!”
But nothing and no one is removing me from this temple. I will be damned if I’m going to let that devil goddess have his body, too. Caben leaves with us.
Even as I’m reconciling his loss, trying to accept his death, my soul won’t believe it. I cannot accept that he’s gone.
“She’s here.”
I whip my head arou
nd to see Bax staring ahead, his lens-covered eyes set aglow by the ultraviolet light consuming the sanctuary. Then following his gaze, I look back at the spire. A solid form is arising from the black mist. Taking shape. Becoming corporeal.
I don’t know what I was expecting—I never allowed myself to think further than this moment. But the woman gathering the tendrils of mist into herself to form a solid, living being, is not what I imagined.
An ugly, ghastly, demonic creature with horns and scales—this is what I envisioned. Not the beautiful woman that appears suddenly amid the smoke. Her skin is pale, the color of cream, or rather, the moon. It’s the first shape to appear. Coloring in, and then dark blue swirls veining over the canvas. This should look hideous, deformed. Only it’s striking. They branch out like thin bare limbs of a tree in winter. And that’s the best my mind can comprehend.
Bale is a beautiful, ethereal winter creature bathed in moonlight.
She steps forth, and her legs are suddenly covered in black and silver boots reaching to her thighs. A dress begins there, its train extending to the ground in the back. Her shoulders and arms are bare, revealing the faint blue rivers of veins swirling her body. As she lifts her delicate chin, a headdress forms atop her head. A crown. A mixture of black and blue, silver and crimson feathers.
And her eyes…glowing silver rays that stare right through me.
Getting to my feet, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not leaving here without Caben. I reach for my sword, but my wrist is clasped and my movement halted.
“Don’t,” Bax says, his tone severe. In my peripheral, I see him standing beside me, his gaze trained on the goddess in the center of the room. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“I’m not leaving him.” I jerk my arm from his grasp. “Get the others out while you can.” Bale is becoming corporal, but she’s taking her time doing so. Studying her arms, hands, fingers. She’s like a newborn, transfixed and curious, only entering this world the wrong way.
Caben lies discarded on the marble floor behind her. A forgotten token of her phenomenal entry. I’m going for him.
With a bound, I race toward the dais. I only partially hear Bax’s cry as I’m snapped up, my feet kicking the air. My throat constricts, and I grab at the unseen fingers strangling the air from my lungs.
Bale holds her arm outstretched, her elegant but solid fingers curved into a claw. Her lips, coated with a glistening silver-blue, curl into a smile. It’s chilling. “Very fitting,” she says, her voice a soprano chorus. “That my first act in this form should be to kill you. Alyah had no right, the righteous little sprite.” She grips her hand tighter, locking her fingers to her thumb, and my vision dims. “Die now. And take with you that annoying spark of my humanity.”
Her hand lashes out with a jolt, and I’m tossed like a weightless trinket across the sanctuary. Pain explodes in my shoulder as I hit the wall with violent impact, hearing a snap. Then I slide to the floor, gasping for air and clutching my neck. Kaide and Lilly are at my side, attempting to help me stand, but I cry out at the pain in my shoulder. Only able to open my eyes long enough to see past the black spots filling my vision, I glimpse Bale kneeling next to Caben.
What is she doing? I open my mouth to shout at her, but the pain in my shoulder steals the air from my lungs.
“Kal, please,” Lilly pleads. “It’s over. We have to go. She’s going to kill you, us, everyone…”
That’s a truth I can trust. Bale will tear through us all, barely a hiccup in her schedule, as she builds momentum toward a worldwide massacre. We’re nothing but tiny irritants in her path. Little gnats buzzing in her ear.