“I’m fine,” Valen muttered.
Keras yanked the arrow from his thigh, ripping a bellow from him.
When Valen’s breaths levelled out, he grumbled, “Okay, I’m not fine.”
His brother clutched his thigh, but with his armour on, it was hard for him to stop the bleeding.
“You need to get patched up.” Keras frowned at him when he shook his head. “Valen. Do as I order.”
Around them, lightning blazed from the sky, striking several Keres before it slammed into the ground forces, hitting two valkyries who had been advancing on them.
“I can still fight.” Valen ripped the leg of his armour away and grimaced as he inspected the wound. “Where’s Ares when you need him?”
“Here.” Ares’s bass voice rolled over them and he stepped around Valen, his expression grim as he looked him over. “You need to go home.”
“Fuck you.” Valen saluted him with his middle finger. “Just cauterise this shit and fuck off.”
Ares dropped to his knees beside Valen and pressed two fingers to the wound on his thigh.
Valen screamed as flames formed around the tips of Ares’s fingers and Keras took hold of him, supporting his back as he struggled against Ares’s hold. When Ares released him, Valen sagged in Keras’s arms, breathing hard.
“Eva digs scars,” Valen murmured, sounding not quite with the world.
“Eva would prefer you back alive,” Keras countered and eased Valen up so he was sitting again.
He realised that Ares wasn’t the only one who had fallen back when Valen had gone down. Esher, Marek and Caterina fought around them, keeping the enemy away from Valen.
“Not going home,” Valen grumbled. “You need me here.”
As if to illustrate his point, a bolt of lightning shot from the sky and struck a valkyrie who had been coming up behind Esher, sending her flying away from him.
“Fine. But you stay with Ares.” Keras stood and offered his hand to Valen.
Valen gripped it and pulled himself onto his feet.
Ares reaffixed his armour for him and then straightened, looking Keras in the eye. “You need fixing too?”
Keras shook his head. “It barely pierced my armour. We need to find where Oizys is though.”
“Somewhere high up most likely,” Marek said.
Glowing blue hexagons rippled across the air behind him and a silver arrow bounced off them.
Caterina swore in Catalan.
Another arrow shot towards Marek and Keras hit it with his shadows, deflecting it.
His gaze darted to where it had come from. The roof of the palace. Before he could step there and deal with her, Oizys disappeared.
“Track her down,” Keras growled.
“On it.” Esher teleported.
Keras stepped again, returning to Enyo.
Moros was gone.
“What happened?” He blocked the sword a Hellspawn swung at her and the male went down screaming as his shadows tore into him.
Enyo swiped the back of her hand across her brow, clearing not only sweat away. Blood trickled from the wound above her eye, dripping onto her cheek.
“He retreated. I think they are using the palace as a stronghold.” Enyo wiped the blood from her cheek.
“Oizys was there. Maybe they teamed up.” Keras lashed out at a Hellspawn with his sword, catching the male across his chest as he fumbled his block.
Blood spurted from the wound and the male turned fearful eyes skyward.
Enyo grabbed Keras and they kept moving, working in harmony to cut a path towards the palace.
A bright burst of rainbow light snagged his attention and he glanced off to his right as he reached the perimeter wall of the palace.
A gate.
The violet disc birthed another colourful ring of glyphs as he looked at it.
A few metres away, Cal and Marinda battled two valkyries. Cal hit them with a blast of wind that tangled their wings and threw them high into the air, and Marinda was waiting for them when they crashed to the ground, leaped on them and clawed at them, hissing and flashing fangs, her violet eyes shining brightly with battle hunger.
As vicious as any Ker.
It was still strange seeing the sweet and gentle Mari transform into a bloodthirsty furie.
Marinda sprang from the valkyries, neither of which got up. She and his brother must have discovered their charms, the item that protected them. Marinda made a fast beeline for Meadow as the blonde female held her hands out before her, her focus entirely on the gate as another ring formed, hovering a few feet above the black ground.
Marinda slammed into her back on a vicious hiss, knocking her through the forming gate, disturbing the rings.
Meadow grunted and Mari gasped as she grappled with her, her violet eyes widening as she jolted.
A grin tugged at her lips.
The ground beneath Keras bucked and shuddered, and Cal and several others who were near the forming gate fell over. Another fierce quake struck Keras and he looked over his shoulder, watched as it rippled outwards like a shockwave.
Marinda.
This power came from her.
By touching Meadow, she must have formed the cycle between them, had absorbed his father’s power from her half-sister.
In several places, great shards of onyx shot from the ground, and a deafening groan sounded as a huge streak of the land fell away. He quickly scanned the faces of everyone caught in the sudden collapse, their harrowing cries filling his ears as his heart raced, fear that one of his brothers would be caught up in the landslide gripping him hard.
He didn’t recognise any of the unfortunate souls who plummeted into the depths.
Enyo grabbed his arm and pointed, and he looked there. Ares and Valen fought together but they were slowly being separated. Far beyond them, ice shards and bursts of colourful light told him where Daimon and Cass were.
The great black spears of earth were joined by smaller spikes off to Keras’s left, where Marek was fighting.
He couldn’t see Esher, but he could feel him, somewhere beyond the wall.
Thanatos and Nyx were there too, battling someone powerful.
He turned to Enyo and frowned when she wasn’t there. He scoured the battle for her and growled when he spotted her a short distance away, fighting a valkyrie and four Hellspawn.
And something struck him.
The enemy were working to split them up, forcing them to fight alone or with one other.
An arrow whizzed past him, swiftly followed by another, and the darkness in his veins snarled for freedom as one hit its target, nailing Ares in the back of his shoulder. Valen noticed and struggled to reach him, but two valkyries attacked him, one of them cutting across his arm as he raised it to summon his lightning.
The second valkyrie suddenly dropped to the ground, and Valen looked over his shoulder. Keras followed the line of his gaze. Esher. He stood on the thick wall of the palace, fending off a Ker as he looked at Valen, blood covering the left side of his face and chest.
A silver blur shot towards him.
Lightning struck it before it could hit him, so bright it dampened Keras’s vision. He looked up to his right, seeking Oizys, deeply aware that he had to stop her.
He spotted a cave high on the side of the mountain that loomed over Nyx’s palace. She had to be hiding there. Before he could step to check it out, Calistos unleashed an agonised bellow that chilled Keras’s blood.
He whipped to face his youngest brother, growled as the Ker he was desperately fighting lashed at him with sharp talons, slicing through his black armour and nicking his throat. Mari hissed and released Meadow, leaped on the female death spirit and ripped at her bloody wings.