Page 27 of Harbinger

The Goddess screamed as the blades pierced flesh and skewered tendons and bone. Gold flashed in her pupils.

Pain drained her features of color as she regained some semblance of her normal appearance. The plague mist started to dissipate, revealing her tattered, golden dress.

Her tortured gaze clashed with Cassius. Awareness filled her face.

“Icarus?!”

Cassius’s pulse stuttered.I—I know her!

A name came to him then. One he had not uttered in hundreds of years.

“Tenebra?!” he mumbled.

Recognition flared in the Black Fate’s golden eyes at the sound of her name. Sorrow swamped her ashen features when it faded on the wind.

Cassius knew instinctively she was not acting of her own free will. He started toward her.

“Stop!” Loki barked.

Cassius froze, sensing the overwhelming force the imp had detected an instant before him. It was swarming Tenebra’s soul once more. Goosebumps broke out on his skin when he recognized its pungent aftertaste.

That’s Elios’s power! He’s—he’s stronger than before!

“Is her mind being controlled by Elios?!” Cassius asked Loki.

The imp scowled. “Yes. And I’m pretty sure he subdued her the same way he did Boreas and Demetrius!”

Cassius clenched his jaw. “We have to free her!” His heart thundered as he focused his divine powers and sought out the corrupt seed Elios had embedded within the Goddess. “There!It’s in her—!”

He grunted as darkness exploded around Tenebra. The blast sent a cursing Loki crashing into the ocean with Eden. It would have cast Cassius there too, had he not braced his wings and used Heaven’s Light to buffer the impact of the detonation.

Tenebra spun around and bolted toward the city, her eyes full of madness, the plague thickening and shrouding her once more.

She got to within one mile of the shoreline before smashing into an invisible wall.

Golden sparks erupted as she bounced off the barrier with a cry, the force of the collision briefly dispersing the shadows around her. She recovered and glared at the translucent dome protecting San Francisco.

Her gaze found the demigod responsible for it. “You! Is this your doing?!”

Theo smiled savagely where he hovered some hundred feet above the divine shield. He raised a hand and barked out a command.

“Suspend!”

Tenebra cursed as the time spell froze her wings and limbs. The Spear of Light whooshed out of Theo’s grasp and sailed toward her. His weapon glanced off the plague currents that had shot out to protect Tenebra.

Theo scowled.

A grimace distorted the Goddess’s features as she fought the spell. It broke with an audible snap. She came at him, murder in her dark gaze.

“Dimensional Gate!” Theo snarled.

He vanished just as her claws carved the air where he’d been. Tenebra cursed and pulled up sharply. A grunt left her when Cassius smashed into her.

She twisted around, her talons scoring his Stark Steel armor and raking his skin as he drove her relentlessly toward Theo’s barrier.

Cassius ignored the slashes and gritted his teeth. “Now, Theo!”

Tenebra’s shriek of rage choked off into a soundless gasp.

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