Helena rushed her, grappling with her and avoiding her pincers until Cancer swiped her legs out from under her. Helena was on her feet in a second, but wasn’t quick enough.
In a blur, Cancer was in front of me, snapping at my head with her powerful pincers. I ducked to avoid her and ran behind another column, only for her to reappear and snap again. As Helena went on the offensive, I took a deep breath and readied myself, gripping my knife tightly. When she slammed Helena against a column and appeared in front of me, pincer already diving toward my throat, I did the only thing I could think of and sliced at it, at the base, at the weakest place – where her wrist should’ve been.
The knife must have been a special one, because it sliced her skin like a hot knife through butter, the disembodied appendage clattering to the ground. Cancer shrieked and scuttled away, nursing her wounds in the darkness.
Helena gaped at me from where she’d stood behind Cancer, poised to jam her knife into the back of Cancer’s shell. “How did you do that?” she breathed.
“Is this knife magic or something?” I panted, still in shock.
“No,” she answered. “I stole it from an abandoned Comic-Con venue. I wasn’t even sure it was sharp.”
I breathed a laugh. “Thank God for nerds.”
“Absolutely,” she agreed, shaking her head in disbelief.
We turned our attention back to Aries and my brother just in time to see Leo pounce, his claws slicing through Aries’s tunic. In a coordinated attack, Sagittarius reared back and plucked a golden arrow from the deer skin quiver strapped across his back, aiming at Kes.
“No!” I took off running. “Kes, disappear.”
His eyes widened in fear when he saw me but he did as I said, vanishing before the arrow could strike him. Sagittarius roared and cantered to face me.
Just then, the ground shook under our feet, knocking me off balance. I stumbled over a large boulder that had pushed up through the craggy ground and fell, catching myself with my palms. The grit stung my hands and pinpricks of blood bubbled to the surface.
Sagittarius reared back at the sight of me on the ground. “She is wounded!” he shouted triumphantly.
Aquarius appeared in front of me, slashing at the centaur with his trident. Golden Boy could fight!
Helena helped me up as Kes appeared a few steps away from us. I grabbed my knife before either of them could. “You’re in danger here,” he said urgently. “We have to go.”
“No,” I refused, pulling my arm out of his. “Not until he’s safe.”
Kes cursed and knocked the knife out of my hand, clamping his free one onto my shoulder. I screamed as the scene began to melt, but not before I saw the worry reflected in Aries’s pink eyes. In the span of a blink, we reappeared on the mountain.
“What the hell, Kes? You have to help him. You’re his Guardian!”
“I am his Guardian, which is why I was fighting alongside him until you came outside. Then his attention shifted to you! His priority is to keep you safe.”
“Well, mine is to keep him and you alive!” A sob tore from my throat, the pain from my shredded hands beginning to throb. The stone pillars were still quaking as the behemoths fought. With so many of them united against only Aries, Aquarius, and a handful of Guardians, I was not optimistic that they’d win.
He changed the subject. “You figured it out, huh?” he asked, bracing his hands on his knees.
“Figured what out?” I asked, wincing when I flexed my hands.
“How to hurt them. You did it. You hurt Cancer. Not enough to kill her, but enough that she’ll need time to heal.”
I didn’t figure out shit. I just got lucky.
“Does she heal fast?”
“If it was a bruise or a cut, yes. But a whole pincer will take a little longer. She backed off because she was afraid you’d cut off the other one, leaving her completely defenseless.” He stood up and looked me in the eye, a proud gleam twinkling in it. “You did it.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Kes groaned and slid a heavy hand down his face. “The clues are all around you, Larken.”
There was nothing around me. Nothing but Kes, rock and ice, clouds and stars. The thundering below suddenly stopped and Kes waited to see if the peace would last, or if there was just a lull in the fight. After several minutes of silence,