Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3) (29 page)

Finally…finally, the Mother looks ruffled.
One perfectly manicured hand goes to her hip. “What are you doing here? You
can’t possibly think you can claim them from me.”

“Claim them?” Tū scoffs. “I had my
chance to
claim
them a while ago.”

“Then why didn’t you?” she demands.
Clearly, she doesn’t like not knowing things.

Tū saunters around the back of us to
stand just in front of and to the side of Mason’s left shoulder. “Why? Because
I had a much better use for them.” He pauses, meeting her eyes and not
bothering to hide his hatred for her. “As allies.”

Now the Mother really looks startled.
“No,” she says slowly. “They have Tāwhiri’s power. They’re his puppets.
You would never join your brother after he abandoned you during the war.”

“Never say never, Mother,” Tū chides.
The playful tone of his voice is laced with acid. “Everyone has their limits,
and I reached mine a long time ago.”

She surprises me by taking a step back.
Her fear gives me a little shot of hope. Maybe this will be enough? That hope
dies a quick death when I realize her backpedaling was only an effort to
solidify her stance. She’s not running. She’s getting ready to fight. No, no,
no, no…we’re not ready yet. We need the Father, and Hayden and Sloane. We need
very spec of power we can get. We need to fix Mason’s memories so he knows how
to take their power. I’m holding fast to my faith that he’ll realize the answer
in time, but we can only hold out so long. If no other help is coming, we at
least need that one thing!

Think, Olivia, think! Tāwhiri had the
ability to alter memories. I have enough of his power that I should be able to
do it. I have to be able to do it. Desperate, I shove my power into Mason as
quickly and as inconspicuously as I can. Crossing my fingers that Tū will
keep the Mother distract enough that I can work, I send my power straight to
Mason’s head and hope.

As soon as I locate Tāwhiri’s power
nestled around his head, I beg it to help me. Nothing I do has any effect until
I feel Mason gasp beside me. His half of Tāwhiri’s power begins to
respond, but not to my command. To Mason’s. He guides it to mix with mine, to
find a purpose. That’s when it clicks. I can’t fix Mason’s memories. Neither
can he. We need more. We need his power combined together, his abilities mixed
with ours.

Drawing on my own power, I combine it with
Tāwhiri’s to seek out the damaged portions of Mason’s memories. While I
search, Mason’s more methodical side takes each broken piece and begins fitting
it back together with purpose. He’s a Warden, born to protect, but also born to
destroy. The weapon he needs is locked in these memories somewhere, and he is
determined to find it.

I can feel how close we’re getting as
Tū and the Mother argue, every word becoming more and more heated, more
likely to explode at any second. We work as fast as we can to patch Mason’s
memories back together, but it’s not enough. Tāwhiri’s power holds each
bit back where it’s supposed to go, but there’s not enough to repair all the
damage. My breathing stalls and panic begins to claw at me again.

The heavy grip of a hand on my shoulder
almost makes me call out, but the voice attached to it sets everything right a
moment later. “Take it back,” Hayden whispers. “Finish this.”

The second the words leave his mouth,
power follows. It flows into me, everything he brought back from the Aerling
world. The sudden quiet of the world around me tells me I only have seconds to
work. No doubt Hayden’s sudden arrival draws the Mother’s attention. Soaking up
everything Hayden shoves at me, I race with it back up to Mason’s mind, to
snatch the last few pieces still in need of fixing and cram them back into
place.

Seconds later, Mason’s eyes open to the
sight of the Mother stalking toward us like a destroying angel, but there is a vicious
smile on his face as he looks up to meet her.

Chapter 31

Escape

(Mason)

Olivia’s power is still burning its way
through me. It jumps at my command, and a second later Olivia relinquishes full
control to me. All I can do is hope the others are on the same page with me
because we’re out of time. Lashing out, my power slams into the Mother. It’s
barely enough to make her pause. It does, however, make her realize I’m not a
toy to be tossed around.

Her expression darkens as she starts
forward again. I dig deeper, twisting mine and Olivia’s power together, letting
the bond between us draw in excess power from the world around us and strength
it, just like Conner and Shane told me to when we talked last night. Calling in
the air around me, I quickly compress it between my hands until the energy
begins to twitch and spark. The second of preparation passes as she takes
another step. I hurl it at her, Sloane’s and my wind spirits speeding along
after it to intensify the impact.

The Mother’s body shudders under the
electric charge when it slams into her body, but she doesn’t stop moving. I
didn’t expect her to, but the first two attacks have given me information about
her weaknesses and strengths. I only need one more. Dragging Tāwhiri’s
power into the mix alerts Tū. I feel his own power rise and reach out.
I’ll need him soon enough, but not yet.

Drawing on my anger, my fury and hatred
for this cowardly, cruel woman, the air around me freezes. In one swift motion,
I pull it all in, turning the moisture in the air to solid ice and pitching it
straight at her head. This is the easiest of all the attacks for her to defeat.
The ice canon bursts into snowflakes a good foot before it reaches her. Now I
know how best to attack her. Tū growls in frustration behind me, but a
quick hand gesture shuts him up and sets him in motion. We’re not done yet, but
I need one more thing.

“Are you so eager to meet your own
destruction?” I ask the Mother as she stops just outside my range.

“Eager to be done with this,” she snaps.
All signs of her plastic niceness is gone. “I’ve grown tired of watching you
all hobble around like crippled ants, trying to save everyone.”

“Then take your best shot.”

Her eyes narrow for a moment, suspecting a
trap of some kind, but her confidence wins out. In that fraction of a second, I
reach back, hoping Tū understood what I needed. I latch onto Tū’s
power as my hand makes contact with the bare scalp of an immortal being. The
second the Father’s power rears against me, the Mother’s eyes fly as wide as
they can possibly go.

“No!” she shrieks. Hidden behind us, she
can’t see the Father, but she senses his presence. “No! How is he here? Where?
How did you manage this?” Frantic, her power tosses everyone but Tū and me
aside. Standing my ground against her requires every ounce of power I have, but
I refuse to bend to this woman.

From the corner of my eye I see Olivia
scramble up from the ground where she was thrown into the car. She winces as
she gets up, fueling my fury even more. With her no longer beside me, the
Mother has found her prize. The Father doesn’t even bother to look up at her. I
can feel what is left of Tāwhiri’s bonds keeping him bound, but aside from
his power’s instinctual rebellion against me, there is no fight left in this
creature.

“Fight!” the Mother screeches at him. “We
are stronger than they will ever be! You’re finally free. Now help me end
this!”

Finally, the Father lifts his head to meet
her gaze. His hollow eyes are dead as he looks at her. “There is nothing left
for me here.”

The battle I was preparing myself for to
take his power never comes. Instead, he releases everything that made him the
god he once was. Olivia’s eyes are round as the power hits us both, soaking in,
building up, transforming us into something more, something we were never meant
to be.

Olivia slips from my mind as the influx of
power assaults me. My skin buzzes and my blood sizzles, trying desperately to
contain what’s being poured into me. I have to shove it down deep, bury it all,
everything but one tendril I can hold onto and draw from. It’s too much, but
Tū’s power encases me like a glove, holding everything in as I face the
Father and watch him vanish from sight. 

Turning to glare at the Mother,
electricity races up and down my arms, ice crystals form and burst all around
me, the air is so heavy I know she can feel it pressing down on her. Terror and
amazement are plastered across her face, but unlike her partner, she has no
intention of giving up. “You have to take it from me,” she hisses.

“I won’t leave you to hurt anyone else.”

Her jaw tightens to the point that her
lips turn white with rage. “It will destroy you.”

“Possibly.”

“No one can hold so much power!” she
shrieks.

Gathering everything in, I say, “I’m not
holding it alone.”

Her eyes snap behind me, to Olivia I
assume, but there is no time for her to attack. Moving through the air as if I
am part of it, I am in front of her, fingers clamped around her neck before she
can even complete her thought. Everything she has, everything she is, it all
rebels against me. Power lashes out in a frenzy. Tū and my friends are
dashing for cover as lightning bolts tear apart the ground and whirlwinds laced
with ice spin through the air, devastating everything in their path.

A feral scream rips past the Mother’s lips
as my hand tightens around her neck. The panic in her eyes almost gives me
pause, but as her power beats against me I’m reminded of how much of that was
stolen from innocent children, and any spec of hesitation I have at destroying
her disappears.

“You can’t,” she wheezes. “I’m the only
one…who knows how.”

The memories unlocked by Tāwhiri’s abilities
flood my mind as the power within me builds. Attacking Tū was an instinct,
one given to me purposely. Wardens are meant to protect, but I was chosen for
more than that. Tāwhiri’s gift of power the day I was born contained more
than a mark. It contained knowledge.

Aerlings are made of power. They cannot
kill one another in violence, but power is like water, always drawn together.
Slowly, I begin to pull. The Mother recognizes my actions immediately and her
struggle to get free increases along with her screaming. Tū, Hayden, Sloane,
Olivia, they all rush forward through the storm of power, lending physical and
inborn strength to subdue her as I continue to pull.

Shoving all the power I now contain down
into my center feels like pouring gallons of water into a balloon, stretching
it, knowing it will burst if it doesn’t stop soon. My own tortured screams pour
out of me as I drag it all in. Hitting the end of my power provides no relief.
As my power ends, the Mother’s begins. Agony fills the whole valley as I tear and
twist and pull away her essence.

The power cramming itself into me begs for
release. My skin feels ready to split in two. I howl in agony as it tries to
tear me apart. Forgetting my promises to bear it all myself, I do the only
thing I can to keep from being torn apart. Shoving the power across our bond,
it slaps into Olivia in a rush. Dropping to her knees in shock, she cradles her
head in her hands as the power keeps pouring in.

Wasted, shriveled, the Mother’s weak voice
begs, “Please,” but my heart is buried under the pain and power and I have
nothing left but fury.

Silvered-eyed, I glare down at her and
say, “This is the end.” With one last tremendous effort, I pull away the last
of her power and watch her vanish into the frigid air.

Sighs of relief burst around me like
balloons popping, but I’m not done yet. The memory of what happened the night I
killed the Sentinel blasts to the front of my mind, clear and uninterrupted. Spinning
and lashing out, daggers of pure power impale themselves in Tū’s chest, pinning
him to the ground and drawing out a furious yell. They aren’t enough to kill
him like they did Alex, but there is no chance of him escaping me now.

“Get out of my way!” he screams. “The
Aerlings are mine!”

“The Aerlings were Tāwhiri’s children,”
I say in a strangely calm voice. “You have no claim over them.”

“I am the last Aerling god! I will not
submit to you!” he growls. Fury bristles around him, his power pulsing,
fighting to escape, but he is no match for me. “I’ve done nothing but protect
my home all these centuries!”

“By killing children,” I snap. “There is
no understanding or forgiveness for that.”

Calling every last spec of power he
possesses, Tū pushes up from the ground to his knees. Bowed over under the
weight of his captivity, his eyes are flooded with silver, but not even he can
muster enough strength to break free. “You’re only a vessel. Not a god. They
belong to me.”

“If I have learned anything from dealing
with Aerling
gods
,” I hiss, “it’s that power is the only true ruler. You
want it, but I have it.”

Tū’s hands ball up in fists, but he
knows he is defeated. Playing the only card he has left, he says, “Destroying
me has a cost. Every Sentinel in the world is linked to me. Destroy me and
you’ll be condemning every one of them to death. Is that a price you’re really
willing to pay?”

For the briefest moment, I hesitate.
Without the massive amount of power running through me, begging and clawing for
more, maybe his words would have an impact. Maybe not. Memories of the night I
watched my Caretakers die flash in front of my eyes. It wasn’t just Tū. He
came for me, but the others with him delighted in tearing apart the lives of a
loving family. They don’t deserve my sympathy.

“The Aerlings belong to no one,” I say as
I start pulling.

The scar I gave him thirteen years ago
widens as his power is torn out of him. The desire to look away as I strip him
of his power is almost too much to ignore, but I force myself to watch. This
was my choice. The consequences are mine. The image of his past slowly
consuming him makes me sick, but I don’t look away. I keep staring until all
that is left of him is the remnant of his power buzzing inside my pounding
skull.

Agony presses itself around me like a
blanket, but I don’t know what to do with it. Turning to my friends for help, I
try to contain my fear and pain, but one look at Olivia sets it free. I step
forward to reach her as her eyes roll back in her head and she falls to the
ground, her body convulsing as the power she carries begs for escape.