Horsemen's War (The Rebellion Chronicles #3) - Steve McHugh Page 0,134
single second of the pain he’d suffered. If I’d had my way, his ashes would have been shot into space.
Washington was a mess, which pretty much summed up most of the world at this point. The KOA had attacked cities all over the globe, and there were millions of dead. The human race had a long way to go before it would heal from the wounds that had been caused, and probably an even longer way before they’d trust anyone who wasn’t human. We’d stood shoulder to shoulder with many of them, and I hoped that would help.
Arthur hadn’t wanted to just rule over the realms; he’d wanted to punish all of those who had stood against him in the past. That had been his downfall: his arrogance and hatred of having people say no to him.
I found myself sitting up against the gate of the White House, which was pretty much a charred ruin by this point.
Layla sat beside me. We’d both lost people we cared about; we’d both had to fight for our lives. And judging from the expression on her face, neither of us had any idea what we were going to do next.
“Are we actually done?” she asked me.
I nodded. “I think so,” I said. “I hope so.”
“I’m not even twenty-five, and now I have to figure out what I’m going to do with my life now that the war is done.”
“You want some advice?” I asked.
She nodded and smiled. “I really do.”
“Take a break. Go find yourself. Go backpacking through the realms. Whatever you need to do. There’s no hurry.”
“Backpacking through the realms?” Layla asked with a chuckle.
“Ah, it was that or get high as fuck and try to figure out the mysteries of life.”
“Why not both?” she asked.
I laughed, and she hugged me.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “Raise my daughter. Be with Selene. I don’t really have any enemies to lay waste to anymore. Maybe build a house somewhere quiet.”
“There’s still a lot to do,” Layla said.
“I know,” I agreed. “But that won’t take forever. We’ve chopped the head off the snake—the rest will crumble. The KOA will be hunted down. Arthur’s allies will be hunted down. Shadow Falls will be fixed; hopefully Asgard can one day be fixed.” I watched as Kase and Harry walked along the street in front of us, hand in hand.
“Both are happier,” Layla said. “Kase was pushing everyone away in her anger.”
“I know something about that,” I said. “Still not sure what they did to Tommy.”
“Ask,” Layla said, pointing to Zamek, who was walking toward us.
“My friend,” I said, getting to my feet and hugging him. “I’m glad you’re okay. Thank you for the timely assist.”
“My pleasure,” he said, taking a seat on the ground.
I sat beside him. “Worked out for the best. A few minutes later, and I’d have really been in trouble.”
“We like to do these things,” Zamek said. “It’s more poetic. The early save isn’t nearly as romanticized.”
“I’m sorry about Jinayca,” Layla said. “I will miss her very much.”
“Me too,” Zamek said. “She was a force of nature like no other.”
“You seen Mordred?” I asked.
“He’s helping to round up the KOA and creatures,” Zamek said.
“And Tommy?” Layla asked.
“Tommy has blood magic curse marks on him. Marks we can’t remove without killing him,” Zamek said. “So we altered them.”
“Meaning what?” I asked, apprehensive.
“The blood curse marks were put there to make him want to kill everyone he loved. Starting with you. Thankfully, unlike Mordred’s marks, or your marks for that matter, Tommy’s were placed on there in considerably less time, so they were still in a sort of flux. We changed the marks so that instead of wanting to kill them all, he wants to kill the person who put the marks there. Merlin. Who is now dead.”
“So his marks are redundant?” I asked.
Zamek nodded. “We can try and remove them normally, and I can’t say that Tommy is going to have a fun time of it, but he’s safe from going after people he cares about.”
I got to my feet. “Good. I’m going to go find out just how badly things are going everywhere else, and then I’m going to try to find Selene and Astrid.”
“I’m sure they’re okay,” Layla said. “Selene and the rest of us were out in DC fighting those damn creatures and Horsemen when Arthur appeared. We hunted down the shadow elves that were helping Merlin and Arthur. We killed them all.”