Traitor Born (Secondborn #2)(36)

I slide the crown back on my wrist, clutch the dying man to me, and use him as a shield. The Death God behind him shoots his accomplice several times in the back, struggling to hit me. I position my fusionmag under the now-dead man’s armpit and fire pulses into his partner. The hit man falls back, his head in pieces. I shrug off my human shield, letting him fall to the ground.

I peer into the room. It’s a bloody mess of body parts. A strange sound chokes from me. Beyond the dead assassin on the floor is the body of my father and two of the women he arrived with. They’re in pieces. Kennet’s tongue has been cut out and placed in his hand. The ram’s horns are twisted into his head for real. His eyes have been plucked out.

Two more Death Gods infiltrate the winter corridor. Hawthorne picks them off. He looks past me into the room and swears softly. “Don’t look,” he whispers. My shoulders round. I’m rooted in place. “We can’t help him. He’s gone. Move! Put your hand on my shoulder.”

This isn’t happening.

“Put your hand on my shoulder!” Hawthorne repeats.

I put my hand on his shoulder. Hawthorne takes another step backward, nudging me to do the same. A fusionmag pulse strikes the front to his shield. He swears again and returns fire, hitting one of the handful of Death Gods at the mouth of the winter corridor.

Something inside me clicks.

I maneuver around Hawthorne and his shield, raising my fusionmag. Squeezing the trigger in rapid succession, I strike each enemy in front of me with a shot to the head.

“Roselle!” Hawthorne howls.

I sprint toward the gallery. Behind me, Hawthorne’s feet pound as he tries to keep up. “They’re looking for you, Roselle. They’ll kill everyone until they find you.”

“Well, here I am!” I snarl as I rush into the gallery.

Then I stop, overlooking the ballroom and the Gods Table. Carnage everywhere. A crush of firstborns is trying to move up the glass stairs. The gallery is lined with Death Gods firing into the mob. The black-clad devils are swarming the Gods Table as well. The door to the balcony where I last saw Clifton and Dune has been barricaded against the horde.

I pick off a handful of Death Gods without even trying. Another one rushes at me from the side. I swing my iron crown, slashing his face and blinding him. I cross my arm over my abdomen and shoot him in the chest. Blood spatters the wall.

Touching my moniker, I engage the hoverdiscs on the soles on my boots. Skating forward as if on ice, I gain momentum. With my arm out straight, I shoot every Death God in my path. In my peripheral vision, a black-clad figure, the feathers of his raven wings stretched wide, flies right into me, knocking me over the gallery railing. The hoverdiscs thwart our fall as the winged assassin seizes me around my waist and lifts his gun to my temple. Before he can fire, I throw my head back, breaking his nose. I trigger the bracer on my left arm, and the blade thrusts out. I stab downward, cutting open his thigh. He lets go, but his hoverpack keeps him airborne.

I touch my moniker, and my hoverdiscs turn off. My hair whips past my face as I fall toward the ballroom floor. I reengage the hoverdiscs just inches from the glass tiles. Lifting my fusionmag, I aim at the dark-winged god above me, shooting him out of the air. When he hits the ballroom floor, he doesn’t move.

A horde of Death Gods on this level does battle with a few of Valdi’s security personnel. Bodies litter the ground all around me. From the pocket of my leather costume, I extract the rose-colored goggles Crystal gave me and set them on the bridge of my nose. Lifting my right arm, I twist the rose-shaped emblem on the bracer. Red powder sprays out in a sprawling crimson cloud that billows like a shifting sandstorm. The dust swirls, blinding the Death Gods and everyone else in its path. Blood-red tears—the hallmark of the Goddess of War—weep from my victims’ eyes.

I stride through my hunched-over enemies, blowing holes in their heads. When I reach the far end of the ballroom, a Death God, standing by the wall of glass, holds up a grenade. Crying tears of blood, he pushes the detonator down with his thumb. Rapid flashes of light pulse from it, warning of impending destruction.

First yellow. I engage my hoverdiscs and skate toward him.

Then orange. From somewhere above me in the gallery, Hawthorne calls my name.

Then red. I plow into the Death God and hug him to me, knocking us both through the window and out into the night sky. Jagged shards of glass scatter around us like a thousand stars, cutting us both. He lets go of the grenade, which falls from his fingers. Silently, I brace myself, counting the seconds to detonation. And then—boom.

Fire blows out in every direction. The wind from the explosion push us upward. The Death God clings to me, screaming. As he hugs me, I clutch the fabric covering his chest, holding him like a shield from the impact of the grenade. His body blocks the shrapnel and keeps the flames from engulfing me. Metal riddles his back, but I remain mostly unscathed. His grip loosens, and I let go of him. He falls from me into the black cloud, disappearing from my sight.

I begin to fall as well. I try to gain control of the hoverdiscs on the soles of my feet, only to realize that one has been ripped from my boot. The other one can’t keep me aloft on its own. I lose altitude, slowly at first, but as I fall into the choking black cloud of smoke, I gain speed. I can’t see anything except for the lights below me, growing closer by the second. I dial up the power of the hoverdisc, which slows me down some, but it won’t matter when I hit the ground at this velocity. I’m going too fast.