Page 147 of Fallen Stars
Adrian looked around desperately, his vision blackening as his eye latched onto Elara’s. She was looking at him, a strange expression on her pale face, one that looked an awful lot like determination.
The ship dropped again, and he saw members of his crew fall into the waters, screaming. Adrian screwed his one good eye shut as panic began to drown him.
“Distract him,” he heard Elara grit out to Enzo, the two sharing a charged look.
“You know, Scorpius, out of all the gods, I’m guessing you’ve got the smallest dick,” Enzo drawled, pacing closer.
“What?” Scorpius hissed, halting his trident.
“You know, a jealous and possessive man… They never have big cocks. If they did, what would they have to be jealous about?”
Scorpius’s face darkened.
“I bet you never satisfy Cancia,” he continued, grinning as fire began to bounce from a palm. “I bet that’s why she spends so much time in Altalune. No wonder you’re such a bitter god.”
Scorpius roared, both pained and angered as he aimed his trident at Enzo, green-blue starlight shining in sickly radiating waves.
Enzo snorted, flicking a wrist as fire set it alight.
The ship lurched, and Adrian cried out as it tipped, his body flung to the edge.
Isra tried to grasp him but fell to the other side.
He gripped with all of his might onto the netting as it keeled, scrambling to keep his body away from the poisonous water, focusing on not passing out from the pain in his eye.
“Fire is cleansing. And your weakpoison won’t touch me. You see, fire isn’t sly or grudging. It doesn’t seep into the system. It doesn’t have a sting in its fucking tail,” Enzo said, diverting another strike of Scorpius’s light with pure ease.
Adrian saw movement out of his right eye and realised that Elara was beginning to haul herself along the deck to him as Enzo distracted Scorpius, Leo pulling Merissa and Isra to the rowboats.
His eye widened as he shook his head, and she only spared him a terrifying look of warning before continuing.
“Fire does not care who lives or dies. It does not remember what did it wrong. It simply burns,” Enzo finished. And with a smile, the ocean ignited.
Acrid smoke reached Adrian’s nostrils as Elara continued to inch towards him, Scorpius roaring as his control over the ocean slipped, the poison turning out to be a perfect accelerant for Enzo to set alight.
The titan was glorious; Adrian couldn’t look away. A burning god, Enzo was, coated in flame and light, moving with the grace of a seasoned warrior as he punched flame after flame into Scorpius’s skin.
Elara finally reached Adrian, pulling him close. “Adrian, we don’t have much time, and I wish I could explain this better to you, but I need—”
Her sentence was cut short as Adrian gasped in horror. The ship groaned, Adrian still clinging to its edge, and with a last keening wail, submerged completely into the ocean.
Chapter Fifty-Four
“Abandon ship!” Leo yelled, haulingMerissa and Isra over each shoulder as he pounded down the deck. “To the rowboats. Don’t touch the damn water!” He spun. “Elara? Enzo?Run.”
“Not a fucking chance,” Enzo hissed. “Take Mer and Iz.”
Leo grimaced before adjusting a screaming Isra, who was pounding against his back and demanding to be put down, and a stricken, silent Merissa, disappearing out of sight.
“Adrian!” Elara screamed, still clutching onto a solid part of the ship for dear life. The ship was deep in the water now, deck nearly submerged as she hauled herself along. She looked wildly to the burning water and the churning where Adrian had been sucked under.
She heard Scorpius laugh and turned with a vengeance to the Star.
“If my poison doesn’t get him, Lorenzo’s fire will,” he rasped.
Enzo’s onslaught was vicious, fire and light erupting in a symphony against the Star, pushing him and his creature away from the ship.
“Elara!” Enzo roared. “Follow Leo.”