Page 140 of Fallen Stars
“You know, some of the Stars, the more weak-willed, were happy to let you live until you inevitably killed yourself. Eli, Torra, Leone… But the rest of us…” He shook his head slowly. “We remembered when they so easily forgot. Exactly what it felt like to be under your rule—our base needs and desires locked and suppressed, forced to begood.”
His charm began to envelop Elara, and she gagged, an acrid, metallic stench wafting over her. A movement flickered out of the corner of her eye, and she saw Leo, a finger pressed to his lips as he crept towards Scorpius. Elara shook her head ever so slightly, looking to Merissa then back to Leo and the ropes above him.
Leo’s eyes narrowed as Elara willed him to understand what she was trying to say. To get Merissa safely off the ship. She looked once more to Merissa, still behind her, and understanding dawned on Leo’s face.
“Only one of you understood us—the Darkness herself. And Ariete, fool that he was, bound her too.” Scorpius droned on, and Elara let him talk, pivoting slightly as she backed up to the edge of the ship.
Scorpius closed his eyes, the demented gleam gone in a second as a toxic green starlight began to shine from his hands. “But not for long,” he whispered. “We feel her, even now, trying to get in. And she will. Oh, she will.”
Elara’s eyes widened. This darkness the Stars spoke of, the lingering shadows that she had felt—watching her, invading her dreams and Eli’s. She tracked Leo, climbing stealthily across the rigging towards Merissa.
“But no matter,” he murmured as the green starlight began to flood the deck. “You’ll be dead by then.”
Leo flew from one of the ropes, his sword outstretched as it hissed against Scorpius’s skin. The Star roared, staggering back as rivulets of glittering blood ran down his chest.
As Leo swung to Elara, he made to grab them both.
“Just Merissa,” Elara screamed. “You can’t take us both. Get to Enzo.”
Leo growled as Elara dodged him, the sound of a far more animalistic roar below them.
“Elara, no!” Merissa screamed, now safely in Leo’s arms as the commander grunted, swinging back to push against the broken mast.
“Go!” Elara snarled, and Leo gave her one more look before pushing off the side with Merissa.
Elara heard Enzo shout, realising that she was left behind, as she turned back to Scorpius, now incensed with the wound on his shoulder.
“You’re going to pay for your friend’s folly,” he growled. “Let’s see how you like to play with my little pet.”
The roar sounded again as a mammoth tentacle sprouted behind Scorpius, and another as the Star cackled, the two limbs wrapping around the edges of the ship andpullingit apart.
“You will drown in my oceans, and you will realise you never had control over them. You and your titan of water thought you could rule them together. Now, you never will.”
Elara shrieked, anger in her veins, her power whispering in her ears to unleash upon him.
It rushed out of her, moonlight rippling from her in an explosion as it reached Scorpius, promising death. She wrapped it around the Star, squeezing and choking the life within him. But unlike the sailors earlier, who had crumbled beneath her devouring magick, Scorpius didn’t. She was met with a case of cool armour as her power wailed and shrieked to be let in.
Her moonlight dimmed, Scorpius’s green light shining brighter. He was laughing, untouched.
“It’s going to take more than just your power to kill me. Our charm makes us untouchable, remember?!”
He pointed his trident at her, and jagged starlight flashed through it, narrowly avoiding her. She glanced over to the Svetan ship, seeing Enzo’s blurry figure jumping up and down, still shouting over to her.
Another tentacle slammed out, lashing her across the stomach. The breath left her body, winded, as she rolled towards the edge of the deck.
Scorpius’s light slammed again, too fast for her. She might have been a more powerful goddess, but Scorpius had eons over her to master his powers, and she was only just relearning hers.
The green light touched her skin, and she wretched as a sickly feeling washed over her, as though her very blood was poisoning her.
He laughed again as the oceans parted and a shadow rose above Scorpius. Elara paled as his monster finally came into view, head erupting from the surface.
This was not an octopus. Or a kraken. Oh gods… The creature before her was the stuff of nightmares. It looked like part eel, its maw open to reveal row after row of jagged, pointed teeth. Its eyes were blank like those of a fish, and its body was thick and scaled like some kind of sea snake. Tentacles grew from the ridges down its spine, and the behemoth was riddled with them. The monster shrieked, and Elara winced as a tentacle recoiled, readying to strike. Elara tried to muster her moonlight, but her stomach roiled as Scorpius’s charm swept in, coating her insides with toxins. She had never felt so weak as she struggled, Scorpius nearing.
And with a final cackle and a whistle, he hit her with one last ray of starlight as the monster’s tentacle slammed into her, wiping her off the deck and into the black waves beneath.
Adrian knew what he had to do the moment he saw the goddess tumble through air into the waves, an ocean between them.
With a grit of his teeth, he closed his eyes, feeling for the current. It felt tied to his blood after all. When he sought it out, he could feel it—a sharp, insistent tug as he located the current and wrapped it around a wrist.