“We really need to go, Tae,” Varga shouted, wincing from the last round of thunder. I could barely hear him.
Massive shards of ice sprang from the eastern side of the mountain, which overlooked the ocean. They spread out and expanded like thin sheets, cloaking us in a crystalline cocoon, while the fire continued to destroy everything that came at us from the western ridge. It didn’t take long for Eira and me to understand what was happening.
“Sebbi and Leb are trying to get us, but Inalia and Acquis are opposing them,” I said.
Go, Taeral. Go down below the temple and take what you need, a familiar voice echoed through me, filling me with warmth and genuinely good feelings. How did she know we were here? We had the Devil’s Weed on, and we were invisible, too.
“Inalia?” I asked, barely able to hold back the tears upon recognizing her inside my head. “How’d you know we—"
It’s two against two, now, she cut me off. We’ll hold them off until Brendel shows up. Just go, Tae. You’ve got Acquis and me on your side… Go!
This time, I didn’t hesitate. Suddenly energized, I took hold of Eira’s hand and gave her a confident smile. “Hang on,” I said. She nodded and caught Eva, who linked us to the rest of the crew, including a dazed but still breathing Nethissis. One deep breath, and we were gone.
Inalia and Acquis had temporarily saved us, and I still couldn’t believe it.
Amelia
Taeral brought us closer to the temple of BemHur. We’d all nearly crapped our pants up there, but we clearly weren’t meant to die just yet. The four elements battled it out on top of White Peak, about two miles above us.
Fire burned violently all around the temple, forming a protective circle that stopped the Shills from getting any closer. Those who dared were instantly carbonized.
“Geez, that was… yeah, sorry, I don’t have a word for it,” I croaked, wiping the sweat from my face. We’d gone from cold to blazing hot a little too fast for my vampire nature.
Two large stone beams rose in front of us. Faded lines of old carvings were still faintly visible here and there. “These used to be the temple’s gates, I think,” Eira murmured, and looked at Taeral. “Inalia… Can you believe it?”
He gave her a soft smile. “Yeah. She came through, in the end. And your father, too.”
“How did they know we were up there? Did they just follow the bugs?” Raphael asked.
I offered a mild shrug. “Probably. The stinkers either caught our scent somehow, or someone sent them our way from the very beginning.”
“Oh, we both know Medina had a hand in this,” Herakles grumbled. “She probably didn’t know Inalia and Acquis would switch sides.”
“Ugh, guys?” Varga blurted, staring at what was left of the temple, past the two stone pillars. “We’ve got company.”
Nethissis cursed under her breath, looking at us. “That’s not the worst part,” she said, showing us the red lens in her hand. “I can see you without this.”
My blood ran cold.
Figures moved between the large blocks of grayish marble that had once held a legendary and downright majestic building. Tales of the temple’s grandeur had been passed down across generations, mentioned in historians’ scrolls and ancient poems. I could only imagine what it must’ve looked like in its heyday—but I was pretty sure it didn’t include the two dozen Cerixian cult members who walked toward us, a little too casually for my taste.
Black silk robes and porcelain masks. Hands glowing green and white. They were borrowing elemental energy from Leb and Sebbi, this time. “I think Inalia cut them off,” I whispered to Raphael. “They can’t use fire on us anymore.”
“Chances are they can’t use water, either,” Eira replied, glowering at the cult members, who stopped just twenty feet from us.
“Yeah, well, the problem is that someone or something tampered with our invisibility spell, and they can see us!” Herakles snapped.
Taeral raised the scythe again. We could all hear it, now. I recognized the hum as it resonated deep inside me. I didn’t need to be a Reaper to understand what it was saying. The thoughts grew in my head, until I knew, with the same certainty as Taeral himself when he said it. “Eirexis is somewhere below this temple.”
“Sorry, you’re not allowed to go through,” one of the cultists replied, his voice skewed by the mask on his face. “Medina sends her regards, though.”
Taeral smirked. “Yeah, figured she had to be in on it.”
“Word of advice? You people really need to up your game,” Raphael said. “We could see through Medina’s lies from a mile away.”
“I’ve had enough of this crap,” Riza spat, drawing her pulverizer weapon. “Let’s get this over with.”
The cultists stilled. Something told me they hadn’t seen this coming. They had no idea what our weapons could do, and the mere thought filled me with so much self-confidence that my fingers were itching to pull the trigger. I took out my own pulverizer weapon and aimed it at the cultist who’d first spoken.
“The Hermessi can keep sending their underlings after us. It won’t stop us,” I said. “You all need to get something through your thick, brainwashed heads.” I fired the first shot and turned the cultist into a cloud of ashes. It startled the others, prompting them to step back. “No amount of Hermessi crap will stop us now!”
They tried to use their air and earth elemental abilities against us, but the crew and I were quick and merciless. Pop, pop, pop, it went, and they were all reduced to ashes, thanks to our pulverizer pellets. The mountaintop roared as the battle continued to rage between Inalia and Acquis, and Leb and Sebbi. But we’d just gotten ourselves one step closer to Eirexis. I could almost feel it within my reach.
We moved past the gates, analyzing the tomb-like silence of the place. Yes, we’d just killed two dozen Cerixian cult members in less than a minute, but still… there was something else going on.
“This feels too easy,” Raphael muttered, taking the blasted words right out of my mouth.
“Dammit, don’t jinx it!” Herakles shot back with a low hiss.
We moved between the stone blocks, looking for a way down. There had to be a tunnel opening or something. Varga used his True Sight to scan the ground, searching for it. Fallon gasped and cursed under his breath. That was enough to get my adrenaline pumping, because I knew it didn’t mean anything good, given his history thus far.
“Hermessi…” he managed, the veins throbbing and bulging on his neck. He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes for a moment, working on his self-control. “She’s trying to come in.”
“She?” I asked. “Oh, sh—”
“I don’t really need to, these days, but I was hoping I’d make a more memorable statement if I tore you apart from the inside,” Brendel’s voice shot across the temple ruins. “Then again, I can still rip your limbs off like this, too.”
A fiery figure emerged from behind a cluster of tall stone blocks. Brendel herself had come here to stop us from touching Eirexis, and we’d known this would happen. We’d naïvely hoped it wouldn’t, but this moment had been inevitable from the moment Death had put us on this path. I’d tried to avoid the thought as much as I could, but my brain had already prepared me for this encounter.
