Adrian lifted his gun, pointing it at the soldiers. “Can I return fire through this?”
“Do you have enough bullets for all of them?”
“Nope.”
“Then I wouldn’t try. Just cover me if anyone gets through.” Adrian grunted in agreement and Caelan closed his eyes. He blocked out the noise of the gunfire and the screams of the innocent people who had come to visit the historical shrines and temples on what had been a peaceful morning. This chaos was only going to bring more law enforcement to their location, making it harder to escape and disappear into the city.
Still holding tight to the power from the Goddess of Life, he stretched out and touched the tree. The roots ran long and deep under the city square, reaching out in every direction under them. He sent Tula’s power rushing down along the roots, pulling them upward. With a shout, he forced them to burst through the concrete and paving stones. There were more shouts and gunfire fell silent to panicked screams.
Caelan opened his eyes to direct the roots around the Empire soldiers. They tried to run and fight them off, but he was faster. The only one he couldn’t catch was Safa. She darted, jumped, and dodged deftly out of the reach of the roots, all while cursing him.
Overhead, the tree erupted in the cries of hundreds of birds. He hadn’t even noticed their presence, but Safa had used her gift from the Goddess of the Hunt to call the enormous flock of birds of prey as backup.
“The shield—” Caelan started to warn Adrian.
“Got it!” the man cut him off. His gun was raised and pointed at the soldiers who hadn’t gotten completely wrapped up.
It had become too difficult to shift his attention between maintaining their protection and trying to capture the soldiers. The deafening flap of hundreds of wings was filling the air, their cries piercing his ears.
I’m here, Caris soothingly whispered just as a firestorm burned across his body.
Caelan let the fire sweep through him, burning through mental barriers and fears before pushing out to erupt in place of the green shield he’d been holding up.
“Holy fuck!” Adrian cried out and he thought he might have heard Nina scream in terror. He wished he could have warned them, but he didn’t have enough brainpower left to do things like that. Everything he had was focused on manipulating all the energy surging through him.
The flames swirled around them like a tornado, leaving them trapped in the eye of the storm. The heat was intense, baking them and drying the sweat as it formed on their skin. He was vaguely aware of Adrian pulling Nina against his body, trying to shield her from the flames.
Overhead the birds attempted to dive-bomb them but were immediately engulfed by the fire and reduced to black cinders.
His only warning was a scream of rage.
Safa plunged through the wall of flames, her fierce face a twisted mask of fury. Her hands were outstretched with her fingers hooked with black claws. She collided with him, and they crashed to the ground. Air exploded from Caelan’s lungs and his hold on the firestorm dropped, causing the flames to disappear.
The woman lay half on top of him, her long, bony fingers wrapped around his throat as she tried to squeeze the life out of him or simply snap his neck. Caelan gasped and choked, trying to replace the air he’d lost while pulling her off him.
“Dead! I want you dead!” Safa seethed through clenched teeth. Her red eyes were wide, like vast deep pools of blood, and her face was an almost ghostly white as the skin stretched over too-sharp cheekbones.
Caelan pulled and fought. He was exhausted from using the power of the gods. Even Kaes had broken loose, sending flashes of lightning and deep, booming explosions of thunder across the sky. Safa’s claws dug into his flesh and blood poured down to pool on his collarbone, soaking into his shirt.
A fist wrapped in Safa’s wild hair and jerked her backward. Those tight hands left Caelan’s throat and he choked in a ragged breath as he watched through watery eyes as Adrian pulled Safa off him. When his bodyguard got a couple of feet of distance between Safa and Caelan, he planted a booted foot right in the center of her chest, sending her flying.
Caelan lurched upward, still coughing and gasping for breath, but everything had stopped. As if the world had been frozen. He whipped his head about, taking in the soldiers still wrapped in the roots, the three who’d gotten free, and the black rain of ash from the dead birds filling the air. Adrian was positioned to throw his body in front of Caelan while bringing up his gun. Safa, on the other hand, looked as if she would land on her feet and launch herself straight at them both.
“You’re fucked,” a bland voice on his left announced.
His heart stopped in his chest when he snapped his head around to find Nyx kneeling next to him. “Shit!” he exclaimed before he could stop himself.
“I’ll give you one of these,” Nyx said.
“One of what? What’s going on?” Caelan scanned the square, half expecting to see the other gods, but there was no one else. Not even Caris. The chaos in his head had even gone strangely silent.
“Nope. Just us. They can’t even hear us. I’ve stopped time. I’m holding you frozen here between the last second and the next.”
“Why?”
“Because, like I said, you’re fucked.” Nyx stared at him for a heartbeat like he was the slowest person on the planet, and then continued, “Oh, we can let this little scene play out, but I’m going to tell you now bullets aren’t going to stop that woman. She’s going to kill your new bodyguard, and there’s a damn good chance she’s going to kill you. I might be wrong. You might escape. But the odds aren’t good. And in case you forgot…” Nyx paused and waved his hand in front of him. He pinched the air right in front of Caelan’s chest and pulled, revealing Caelan’s personal chain of time. It was short. Frighteningly short. “You’re running out of time. In fact, the time you lose speeds up whenever you breathe the same air as this woman.”
“What-what…” Caelan started but he wasn’t even sure what he was trying to ask. How could he be so short on time already? Did he have enough time to bond with the God of Wisdom? Even if he did, there wouldn’t possibly be time for him to defeat Safa and the Goddess of the Hunt. What was he supposed to do?