Page 57 of Demanding Discord
He backhanded me, and the world went sideways. My head hit stone. Warmth trickled down my neck. Through the blur, I saw Cinder still standing, her chest heaving but her spine straight.
“Your soul will taste divine,” Ruin hissed.
She smiled faintly. “Funny. I was about to say the same.”
He lunged at her, his forearm hitting the side of her head, knocking her to the ground. Her skull hit the ground with a sickening crack, and she fell limp at his feet.
Panic flushed my veins, frigid and sharp, and instinct took over. I called on what little power I had left, forcing myself to my feet.
Ruin lifted a taloned foot above her head, his muscles coiling, ready to crush her. I plowed toward him, dropping and sliding across the ground to retrieve Cinder’s knife. I rolled and shot to my feet once more, slashing the blade across the back of his heel, severing the tendon.
He wailed and stumbled back. Cinder groaned, lifting her head and blinking repeatedly. I allowed myself to feel a moment of relief as my witch rose to her feet, but we had no time to waste. The injury I’d caused Ruin would heal in seconds.
Cinder threw a massive fireball, the air heating as it flashed passed me and slammed into Ruin’s chest. The impact knocked him off balance, and he stumbled again. The energy in the chamber thickened, vibrating and sharpening. I didn’t dare turn around to witness the tulpa forming behind me.
“Your monsters can’t hurt us anymore.” Cinder crossed her arms as the shadow closed in around her.
My pulse sprinted, my stomach souring at the sight of darkness attempting to devour the woman I loved. But she held strong to her disbelief, and the thoughtform passed through her.
I hurled the knife, and it spun pommel over tip before sinking into Ruin’s shoulder. Cinder lunged, her arms outstretched, and pushed him backward, to the edge of the pool. His foot slipped on the ledge, his taloned toes dipping into the purple liquid before he caught his balance.
The entities trapped inside reached upward, their gnarled hands breaking the surface and latching onto his ankles.
Ruin froze, recognition flashing in his molten eyes. “No?—”
“Say hello to your little friends,” Cinder said, and together, we shoved. He teetered, his claws scraping stone, his expression one of sheer terror.
“How do you like the smell of fear now?” I asked.
He tumbled backward into the pool. The purple liquid swallowed him whole, and for one heartbeat, all was silent.
Then the water exploded with motion.
Hundreds of hands, spectral and skeletal, shot upward, clawing at him. They wrapped around his horns, his limbs, his throat. His scream echoed through the chamber as they dragged him into their depths. The last thing I saw before the surface closed over him was his face, twisted in rage and terror as the souls he’d tortured claimed their revenge.
The pool went still. Cinder and I stood side by side, panting, staring into the silence that followed.
She rested a hand on my biceps. “Think he’ll come back from that?”
I wiped blood from my mouth. “I doubt those souls will ever let him go.”
She let out a shaky laugh, brushing a lock of hair from her face. “Good. Because I am so done with demons for the day.”
The ground shook, and cracks splintered up the wall. Cinder’s eyes widened, and for a moment, neither of us moved. A fissure formed in the wall, veins pulsing around the crack as it widened.
“Seriously.” Cinder widened her stance. “No more demons today.”
Bright light spilled through the opening—not Hell’s orange moonlight, but something colder. Paler. Silver. It pulsed like a heartbeat, slow and steady, raising the vibration in the chamber and making my arm hairs stand on end.
Cinder clutched my hand. “Do you think that’s…?”
I nodded once. “Indeed.”
We had defeated Ruin.
But our confrontation with the goddess had just begun.
21
