Arcana Rising by Kresley Cole, now you can read online.
1
Day 382 A.F.
Death kept taking me farther from Jack. I stretched my arms out, fingers splayed toward the heat of that seething pool of lava. “He can’t be dead,” I sobbed. “Can’t. NO, NO, NOOOO!”
“You want to follow the mortal?” Aric demanded. “Get your revenge first. The Emperor mocks your pain.”
I could hear that fiend in my head—laughing.
The red witch exploded inside me, a force that could never be contained. I shrieked, “You will PAY!”
As the Emperor laughed, Death murmured in my ear, “I have your grandmother, sievā. That was the gift I spoke of. We’ll teach you how to kill the Emperor. You’ll avenge Deveaux.”
“Don’t you understand? Jack’s not DEAD!” I screamed that over and over. “He’s alive!”
With my mind teetering on the brink, I spied something in the skies above us. I gaped, disbelieving.
Real? Unreal? Just before oblivion took me down, a mountain of water curled over our heads, racing toward that hell of flames.
Circe’s towering wave. Taller than a skyscraper. —Terror from the abyss!—
—Quake before me!—
Circe’s and Richter’s calls boomed in my mind, jolting me back from the blackness.
“Come!” Aric snatched me into his arms and sprinted from the clash. “When they meet, the blast and then the flood . . .”
I stopped fighting him; the need to turn Richter’s laughter into screams clawed at me, which meant I had to survive.
Aric gave a sharp whistle; a horse’s nickering answered. Thanatos. With me secure in his arms, Aric leapt into the saddle, and spurred the warhorse into a frenzied gallop.
We all but dove down a slope—passing the mangled body of my own dying mount—then charged up the next rise.
I gazed over Aric’s shoulder as that tidal wave crested above Richter’s lake of lava.
Heaving breaths, Aric kept Thanatos at a breakneck pace. Up another mountain. Down another slope—
Circe struck.
A hiss like a giant beast’s. A detonation like a nuclear bomb. The shock wave was so loud my ears bled. As loud as the roar preceding the Flash.
The air grew hotter and hotter. The world rocked as a blast of scalding steam chased us.
BOOM! The force sheared off the top of a mountain behind us. Boulders crashed all around as we careened into yet another valley. Still we rode.
“Surge comes next,” Aric grated.
The ground quaked from the weight of an ocean of water. I could hear the flood roaring toward us. “Aric!”
He got as far as he dared, as high as he could. “Hold on.” Clutching me tight, he dropped from Thanatos, who kept galloping away. Behind the cap of the tallest mountain around, Aric braced for impact. He wedged his metal gauntlet between boulders, wrapping his other arm around me.
Gaze locked on mine, he yelled, “I’ll never let you go!” We each sucked in a breath.
The searing water hit. The explosive impact ripped me from his chest, but he caught my arm, clenching his fingers above my elbow.
Death’s grip. The ungodly force of that flood. My watery scream . . .
Aric never did let me go—