easy it sounds. Rawana roared under the brutal operation, but held himself remarkably still. His other two eyes blinked rapidly with pain. Finally, I held the slimy organ in my hand.
He caught my hand and held it. “The Kronos Eye will tell you much, but remember, nothing comes without a price. Our paths are not mapped; they’re made.”
“Wait. This is the Kronos Eye?” I asked.
It was too late. Rawana’s three eyes shut for the final time. On his arms, the tattoos disappeared. At last, his spirit flew free.
The black lion sprang up, also released. Matt bounded down to me. He picked up the apple with his mouth. I dropped the red-stained scythe. He ran alongside me to the edge of the boulder. I dipped the eye into the river. As soon as it touched the water, the organ shrunk and hardened into some kind of crystal. I squeezed the round ball. It didn’t give.
The Kronos Eye.
Matt dropped the apple into my hand. The black lion nudged me. I used his mane to climb on top of him. Wind blew furiously around us. Rough waves sprayed us. Above us, the sky dimmed. We had run out of time.
Then, I tried not to gag as I put the eye into my mouth and swallowed it.
The crystal hit my stomach. Darkness engulfed me.
I floated in a sea of nothingness. My body had no weight. More precisely, I had no body. Only my soul anchored me to the brightly burning stars that dotted an otherwise black space. Shiny balls of gas and dust spun around the stars. In the cradle of space was a bright spot, a yellow sun, sitting at the center of its children, one of who was a small, blue planet.
Home.
For what seemed like an eternity of time, I watched our solar system spin. It offered a quiet serenity that soothed even the most troubled soul. I sat in a place far away, a place high up on the branches of a celestial tree. The golden apple bobbed happily in front me like a guide.
I didn’t see Matt or the lion anywhere.
A sharp light off to the distance drew my attention. Against the canvas of space, bright pinpoints of light outlined a shape in the stars—a hunter with a bow and arrow. On his shoulder, a red star grew dimmer in its last moments of life. Then, in brilliant death, it exploded in a fury of fire and brimstone.
An invisible tsunami spread out of the supernova, shaking the branches of the celestial tree that rooted the galaxy with its tremendous power. The dark hand of the wave sent me whirling along with it. I managed to pluck the golden apple from its spot before being carried off. The wave swept over its closest neighbor, the yellow sun.
Under pressure, the steady sun bared its teeth for the briefest moment in time. Tentacles of fire flared out as it spun. I narrowly avoided the tentacles as they struck out with unintentional wrath. One tentacle, simply and silently one, sent a lash flying at its most fragile child. The flare penetrated the planet’s thin barriers, meeting little resistance.
Under me, on the blue planet, the fruit of life—my life—burned.
I fell down into the apocalypse that engulfed my home. Flames consumed the dark land, evaporating the oceans and melting away all civilization. Yet, I didn’t see any people. The world stood empty and hollow as if they didn’t exist in this plane. I could only imagine the quiet horror of billions of people at the end of existence. The day of reckoning.
I kept falling past the clouds and open air. The stench of sulfur and death scorched my nostrils and throat. Out of black night, I plummeted down to a large island and over a circle of nine stones.
The land widened as I neared the ground. In the middle of the rubble lay the sword inside the stone. Excalibur’s metal remained immune to the fiery heat. Its untouched glory clear for me to see as I fell with extreme force onto it. I screamed.
But I never met death.
I hung suspended in the air, the hilt of the sword scraping the unprotected expanse of my stomach. The planet continued to burn around me. I reached out and touched Excalibur. As soon as I did, a bolt of electricity went through my body and I dropped to the ground. I fell scraping my shoulder against the sharp edge of Excalibur’s blade. Blood ran from a gash on my