Page 60 of Releasing the Gods
He was saving himself.
My inner voice continued to remind me of that, but I’d heard the genuine concern in his voice, and he hadn’t mentioned even once it was concern for his own life. It was for me.
I’d never thought there would be anyone that cared enough to fight for me.Fuck.
This big lump of Titan was crawling under my skin and burrowing into my heart. I was afraid that when this was all over, if we managed to save the world, he’d leave and go back to whatever Titans did.
And I’d be alone again.
“Hold on tight,” he said bluntly, snapping me out of my morose thoughts. “They’re gaining on me, and it’s at least two of the sins this time.”
“Turmoil and Strife?” I whisper-yelled back.
Cronus shook his head. “No, they’re likely occupied with Crius and Koios. These are two of the last, the ones connected to Hyperion and I. They’re clearly here to ensure Hyperion does not rise.”
Clearly, Hyperion was damned important; Cronus had not been underestimating that. I wondered what the two last ones were.
“Their powers are limited because they haven’t manifested, right?”#ThereIsAnOrder #GetInLine
“Right,” he said, and then we were flying across a huge chasm, a scream choking on my lips as I barely managed to hold myself together.
Cronus spun around then, and some sort of energy shot from his hands, the blue light of his powers illuminating the cave. It was so cold back here that ice coated everything, even the walls, and the drop, from what I could see from my perch, was one dark abyss, with no bottom in sight.
On the other side were two somewhat familiar gods. One a woman, standing well over six feet, with heavily muscled arms and upper body. Her hair was the color of fire and her eyes glowed with burnt embers. She’d been hitting CrossFit a little too hard. Not that I didn’t admire women who could build muscle like that. If only she wasn’t hell-bent on killing me with it.
“Step across and you will fall into the abyss,” Cronus said, staring them both down. “Your power has nothing on mine right now, and Iwillbring Hyperion into this battle.”
The other sin was a small man, no taller than five foot; he looked frail in comparison to the woman. But something told me he was the scariest, the one we needed to keep an eye on.
She stepped forward, toes right on the edge of the cliff. “You can bringallof them back,” she murmured, and I felt the heat of her words. Literal heat. It started to melt the ice, causing some of the ceiling ice to shatter down. “It won’t be enough to defeat us. We are stronger this time. We have been waiting for a thousand years, and now … now we will do what we should have so long ago.”
“We will end the plague that is humanity.” This was from the male. The small, unassuming dude, and unlike the woman, his words were laced in a cold so intense that it hurt my skin. Then they turned and walked away.
“Which sins were they?” I asked as Cronus set me down, tucking me into his body beside Hound.
Cronus cleared his throat. “Eight and nine. Fire and Death.”
Jesus.
“At full power, they have no equal,” he added. “At full power, the world will burn, and every living thing will die.”
“We have to stop them,” I gasped out, my right hand releasing Cronus to grab at the necklace. No matter that we’d learned the box was fated to open after a thousand years, I still felt guilt. Immense guilt.
“It’s my responsibility to get these assholes back in their cage,” I murmured. “Maybe, until we figure out this box thing, we can put them into the necklace. There’s a reason it attached to me. A reason I was the one called to it. I think it’s time we start trapping them again.”
Cronus made a noise from the back of his throat, and it wasn’t a happy sound. I wasn’t sure which part upset him, but something I said bothered him.
“Hyperion and Selene were the ones to devise the box initially to trap them,” Cronus said. “Hyperion will know the best way to trap them. We don’t have much time though—Rhea is losing strength. I can feel her from here. We must hurry.”
Feel her from here?Jealousy flared within me.
#No #ThatsFucked #MaybeWeCanTrapHerToo #IKnowAGreatPrison
Thankfully he didn’t pick up on my jealous, bitchy thoughts, and instead continued on, with less speed this time, until eventually we reached a fork in the cave system. Hound didn’t even hesitate, turning right, and when we ended up at a dead end I wondered if the sins had left so easily for another reason. Maybe we couldn’t get to Hyperion’s remains. Maybe it was too hard.
Cronus and the Hound stared at the wall for many long moments, and I stared too, pretending to be focused like they were. At some point, I napped for a bit.
Cronus jolted me awake when he jerked his arm back and slammed his fist into the ice in front of us. The wall—and the entire fucking cave—shuddered, and he didn’t stop there. He pulled his arm back again and again, punching in slightly different spots every time.
