Page 97 of The Coven of Ruin
“Then I suppose she can be discarded.” Thel’s voice reached her even through the sound of her blood pounding in her ears.
Ares broke free from the mages and stalked forward, but Thel’s knife cut into her neck, halting the god again.
“Say it,” Thel snarled.
Ares’ gaze traveled to her. Golden armor fell away and reformed before he looked back to the god. “She is everything.”
The pressure released her, and she dragged air into her lungs desperately.
Thel’s knuckles skimmed over her cheek. “That’s what I thought,” he purred. “You are in luck, as she and I have anagreementof sorts.” The way the ancient being said the word gave an implication of intimacy. Ares’ eyes tracked the movement as the shadowy hand left her face to rest on her hip instead.
“An agreement,” Ares repeated.
Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her dagger. In the distant field, mages were fighting, but it wasn’t until a breath of fire lit up the night and the face of a dragon that she realized Ares wasn’t alone.
Whatever mage that was fighting for them was cutting thick trails of fire into the clearing. But the most hopeful fact was that if Ares was there, Grae and Brune surely were too.
She was the weakest link. They could have a chance if she could just get out of the shadow god’s grasp. Trista willed Ares to look at her, to understand what she was about to do. But when his eyes didn’t so much as flick to her, she had to trust he would act anyway. She moved quickly, bringing her dagger out and sinking it into Thel’s thigh.
The war god moved almost at the same time, brandishing his sword in one fluid motion.
Thel merely chuckled behind her as if she had only pricked him with a needle. “I have use for you yet,” he murmured to her and then twirled her away from him, another mage she hadn’t noticed catching her roughly in his arms.
Thel’s dagger disappeared, and in a wave of his hand, a fierce shadow of a longsword appeared. Trista struggled against the mage who held her, but without her own weapon, she had nothing to defend herself with.
Ares’ words cleaved the air as sharp as any weapon. “If you had been there that day, you would have met the same fate.”
Thel’s eyes darkened, his only tell before he struck at The God of War. Their swords met in a display of black and gold sparks.
A battle cry sounded nearby, and she looked for its source to find a bronzed god dealing death.Grae. Absent was the god of easy smiles and clever comebacks. In his place was a god of war.
He fought the same way he spoke—cunningly and always a step ahead. When he got to Kace, who failed his attempt to put distance between them by running, he swung his sword in a perfect arc, cutting off his left arm.
“It is much easier to take the whole arm than just the hand,” Grae said dryly. Kace scrambled away, eyes wide with terror as blood poured from the wound.
Turning, Grae stalked toward her. His steel-toned gaze bore into the mage who held her. Sheathing his blade, he beckoned the cloaked figure forward. “Come here,” he growled. The mage clutched at her as he stepped back, using her as a shield from the god.
He was on them faster than she predicted. Grabbing her arm, Grae pulled her toward him and she ducked her head down. At the same time, his fist connected with the mage’s face with the crunch of breaking bones.
“If it isn’t my favorite witch,” he drawled as if they had met unexpectedly in a crowded marketplace. And Mother, she never thought she would be so happy to see the god and his mischievous grin. He looked down at her, assessing her quickly for injuries, his slate eyes pausing on her throat where she knew blood had smeared from the wound. “All right, Trist?”
She only nodded before embracing the god. First, he stilled, then a low chuckle reverberated against her cheek. He was the smell before rain and a promise of refuge. And she didn’t even care that he would probably make a joke about it all later.
His free arm wrapped around her, and he patted her gently on the back before saying, “Let’s go.”
Trista pulled away from the god at the same time something hit him from behind. Pushing her out of the way and whirling to meet his opponent, she saw he had been stabbed between the shoulder blades, the knife buried to its hilt. The mage threw himself at him, ducking low and wrapping his arms around Grae’s midriff. Before they even hit the ground, the mage keyed them both away in a mess of limbs.
Blinking at the empty space where the god had just been, she willed him to return. But she knew he couldn’t. Chest clenching, she pulled herself together once again.Grae is alive.She had to believe it—she couldn’t handle any more loss.
Her gaze found the dueling gods once again. Ares had been hit with an arrow, its shaft still protruding from his back. He was bleeding from a slash on his arm and leg. The shadow god was injured, too. The wetness of his injuries caught in the light of the moon against his shadowed form. Hope flared to life in her as Ares caught Thel’s black blade against his own, and it was sent flying. The dark god was left unarmed.
Thel raised his palms up as if in surrender, a low hiss of a sound leaving him. Darkness wrapped and fused around him, pulling him and the discarded blade into its depths.
Trista studied the space for a long moment, but he was gone.
Ares looked for her even as she ran to him, calling on her magic one last time. She was steps from him when something hit her. Sliding to a halt, she looked down to find an arrow protruding from her side. Detached, she studied it, but when she felt the creeping cold of dark magic, she knew. Death had still come, just in a different form.
Her gaze rose to find him again. But it was silver that caught her eye. Then shadow. Thel appeared out of the void, shifting black and formless. Ares turned to meet the threat, but the jagged-edged dagger was already cutting into him, the blade going through his arm.
