Chapter 155: The storm of vengeance
The cell door crashed in a wreckage of splintered wood and twisted metal, the blast blast sending splinters shrieking to shatter on cold stone walls. Beta Landon sprang first, sword flashing in the shattered torchlight, eyes widening as they saw Selene—Celeste—ghastly and snarling, silver hair glinting like dirty moonlight. Gamma Calista sprang behind, spear at the ready, warriors pouring behind her to fill the gap like a tide.
"By the gods," Landon gasped, his voice shattering. "Celeste?"
The name floated, an icy whisper. There was a moment in suspended time, warriors half-step, Selene's guards half-to-their-swords, Grayson's ragged breathing off walls. Then the world went mad.
Calista leaped first, her spear a shimmering silver as she struck the closest guard. "Take them down!”
The cell erupted into pandemonium. Steel clashing on steel, the air thick with grunts and growls and the metallic tang of blood. I fought at my chains, the iron bracelets biting deeper into my wrists as I tried to free myself. Selene stood frozen, her knife still against my throat, her pale eyes switching back and forth between the fight and the talisman in her other hand.
"Now, Landon!”
Calista shrieked, impaling a guard through the shoulder.
Landon's sword flashed free, removing a henchman of his sword and bashing Cassius against the wall. Cassius struggled, his cursing giving way to bestial snarls as Landon tied his wrists with wolfsbane-tipped cord. "On your knees, traitor!"
Selene's grip on the dagger tightened, her breathing hot and raspily in my ear. "This changes nothing", she growled, but her voice trembled.
“It’s over, Celeste,” Landon growled, his sword tip hovering inches from her throat. “Surrender.”
“Over?” Selene’s laugh was shrill, unhinged. The talisman in her hand flared, its crescent edges glowing like molten silver. “You have no idea what you’ve unleashed.”
The air compressed, electrified with a charge that made the hairs on my head stand on end. Selene swore a deluge of guttural spells, old, deadly and the talisman throbbed. Darkness boiled from its heart, twirling in a maelstrom that engulfed the fire of the torch. The room became black, walls shuddering as a wailing gust of air tore through the room. Thunder boomed, ruin, and the ground under our feet heaved as if the world itself were sundering. "Althea!" Grayson's bellow broke through the frenzy, torn with fear.
I couldn't see him. I couldn’t see anything but the talisman's extremely bright light, and Selene's twisted face in triumph. The storm swallowed sound, swallowed breath, swallowed time. I was pinned inside the vision, a castle made of black stone, a throne of bone, my mother's screams as the blackness swept over her.
And then nothing.
Darkness receded as fast as it had fallen. Moonlight flooded in through the shattered doorway, lighting the carnage in its rays, upturned furniture, blood-soaked rocks, warriors lying on broken limbs. Selene and Cassius were nowhere to be found.
"Find them!" Grayson yelled, leaping up as Landon hacked him free. Blood dripped from his smashed lip, his face ashen but anger incarnate. "They couldn't have gotten far!"
Calista rushed to me, her hands steady but frantic as she worked the lock on my chains. “You’re bleeding,” she muttered, eyeing the jagged wound in my stomach where Selene’s blade had bitten deep.
I pressed a hand to the injury, hissing at the sting. “It doesn’t matter. She has the talisman. I’m going after her.”
"Like hell you are,” Grayson snarled, staggering towards me. His t-shirt was torn, and purple welts spread like ink on his ribs. "You're hurt. You'll kill yourself."
"And if she releases the potential of the talisman?" I shouted back, my rage-shaken voice shaking. "You saw what it did here. She'll reduce the world to ashes!”
Grayson's arms wrapped around my shoulders, his gaze frantic, imploring. "Let the warriors do this. Let me do this. You're not something to be used and discarded, Althea."
I shook free, chains groaning on stone. Stripping away the talisman hollowed out a grievous pain within me, its taken power a wail in my blood. "This is mine. My mother's legacy. My right."
He glared at me, grinding teeth, tension between Alpha directive and raw fear etched on the wrinkle of his throat. He leaned forward close at one point, voice coarse and spent. "If you die out there, I'll burn everywhere down and burn myself up with fire to be with you in the afterlife. Are we clear?"
The words got to me, stealing my breath from my body. I didn't have time to respond to him before he pulled me to him, his kiss frantic and desperate, his hands holding my face as if I were something delicate, something sacred. "Stay alive," he gasped into my mouth.
I nodded, my throat closing. "I will."
Calista pressed a dagger into my hand, her eyes never blinking. "We'll take the perimeter. Go."
I did not glance back.
Compound corridors receded from me as I ran, anger and adrenaline obliterating the searing in my side. Selene's perfume lingered, jasmine and rot, urging me forward into the labyrinth. Moonlight filtered through slits in stone, casting spillings of blood on stone. Hers? Cassius
The vibration of the talisman drew me like a lodestone, the beat increasing as I moved toward a line of thin stairs. Cold air crept up from below, thick with the bitter scent of pine and the raw thrum of magic.
Down step by step darkness, resonant, fell I, the stairs spilling not into a subterranean grotto, roots spilled upon the ceiling, musk-torn air thick with damp earth. Beside it, stood Selene, talisman held high, its bright light casting grotesque shadows on the walls. Kneeling at her knee was Cassius, his lips twisted into a sick smile and his eyes crinkled with insanity
"You’re too late, fool," cackled Selene, the sound echoing through the cave. "The ritual has started."
The talisman's light intensified, swirling into a vortex above her head. The ground trembled, and in the darkness beyond, something stirred.
I looked at the darkness beyond, squinting and trying to see what was coming, and when I saw it, my heart stopped.