Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,128

ever wanted.”

“Your hate has twisted you.”

“It gave me purpose,” she snapped as we continued on.

I was thrown over the six-foot-high fence into the pen with the creatures, none of whom moved. They simply all turned to look at me.

“Your screams will give me sweet dreams,” Demeter said, and she walked away chuckling to herself.

The creatures were beginning to realize that they had some food in their midst. There were growls. One of them rushed toward me, and I punched it in its face, knocking it to the ground. The rest moved around, watching me, as I tried to get myself toward a fence simply so I could have something against my back.

Several of the creatures screamed and charged. I put the sorcerer’s band in my mouth and ripped it free.

Shadows sprang from the ground, wrapping around me as the hands of the wraith shot up out of them. The shadows encased my body the moment the sorcerer’s band exploded. The heat was incredible, and I was dragged down into the shadows as it tore the shadow magic apart. I screamed in pain as my arms and face were badly burned, my armor doing nothing to stop it. I continued to scream until there was nothing but the shadow realm.

I lay on the ground, panting, my entire body hurting, my magic only now kicking in to heal me. The wraith was devastated. Its body was a mass of burned shadows, and whatever passed for skin was covered in burns.

It stepped into the light, its hood almost burned down to nothing, revealing a face that looked identical to my own.

“Are you okay?” I asked, wincing as I got to my feet.

“I will survive,” the wraith said. “I protected you.”

“You did,” I said. “Thank you.”

“I am part of you,” it said, placing its ruined hand against my chest. “We are one.”

I gasped and felt the kick of power as my magic flooded my body.

“Erebus was part of you,” the wraith said. “Erebus was darkness. He was your magic. I am darkness.”

“You’re Erebus?” I asked, confused.

The wraith shook its head. “No. I am you. Part of you that was always there. The darkness. The power. You were made to kill gods. And devils. Your father and mother knew that. Erebus knew that. Erebus ensured that you could do what you needed to.”

The skin on its body was healing, and at the same time its powers of speech were improving. I looked down at the pink skin on my arms, which had been charred and blistered a moment earlier.

A ball of pure magic appeared in its hand, the smoky tendrils billowing out around me. I took it.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“You are not pure magic,” the wraith said. “You are darkness personified. Death personified. It is why they gave you that name. Arthur fears you because you can beat him. I will always protect you. I am your wraith. But you are Death. It is time you showed Arthur just what he has come up against.”

I looked down at the pure magic sphere as my wraith placed its cold hands on mine and pushed it into my chest.

“Your magic,” the wraith said. “Arthur removed your magic. But I was still here. Cut off from you, but with access to your power. I have gathered it. I have nurtured it. This is your power given to you all at once. Burn them all.”

I stepped into another pool of light and arrived back in the pen, the inferno from the sorcery band still ongoing. I’d been gone mere fractions of a second. The screams of the creatures as the inferno tore through them were horrific, and shadows leaped out of the ground, taking dozens at once as the inferno covered me.

I let the heat bathe me, comfort me. I allowed it to swirl around me, and I breathed in, my own fire magic touching that from the sorcerer’s band, and as the inferno vanished, all that was left was me standing in the destroyed pen as Arthur and his crowd cheered, before it slowly dawned on them all exactly what they were seeing.

I breathed out the fire, a huge plume of dragon-like breath high into the sky above me.

“Arthur,” I roared, my air magic carrying the words to all around us. “Time to face your destiny.”

Chapter Thirty-One

NATE GARRETT

Washington, DC, United States, Earth Realm

The Washington Monument was not created to withstand a blast of pure magical power. Even so, I threw enough to hopefully force Arthur back and