The hall moaned as though Ion was inside of a singing whale. Then silence came, and Mother looked over at him with a smile so sly he would have sworn Solara was the one hovering before him.
“You should have listened to Vinya,” she said, with a voice ghostlier than death itself.
An arm exploded out of the sand, as dark as night and as long as Othum was tall, moonlight gleaming off long fingers of sharpened glass. Another tore out of the earth, and as sand flew in every direction, Ion felt guilt seize every muscle and bone in his body. The arms crashed down upon the floor of the hall and the statues of forgotten heroes fell to the sand, shattering all at once. The glass fingers scraped through the sand, and Ion realized they were working to pull something much bigger up. Shoulders appeared first, ones capped with more jagged glass spears, then the head. Ion stared into two maddened red eyes and a mouth filled with black, needle-like teeth.
It thrashed and freed its chest, with only a few strands of decayed muscles holding its rib cage in place, which held back a pair of moaning, silvery spirits like a prison of bone. By the time the creature stood upon its equally tattered and disgusting legs, Ion wanted to puke—both from what he was seeing and how he felt about freeing it.
“W-what’d you make me do?” he whimpered to his mother. But she wasn’t his mother. She couldn’t have been. He knew that now. “Who are you?”
The spirit in the banshee’s dress simply stared back at him, her eyes empty and emotionless, so unlike Mother’s. How did he not see this before? Perhaps...perhaps he had seen it, but refused to believe it. Refused to think that all of this was a lie, a scam that preyed on his desire to be happy and normal again.
The monster sucked in a deep, cherished breath of air, and with a hollow, deadly voice, it said, “I can taste your fear, Ionikus Reaves.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE BETRAYAL
“W-w-who a-are you?” Ion asked.
The monster smiled a shark’s smile. “You haven’t the slightest clue?” He dug the heavy chain out of the sand and uncoiled the last bit of it from around his ankles. “Quite a clever invention, don’t you think? Chains that can restrain a god and sap him of his powers.”
Ion reeled. “You...you were...you were imprisoned b-by Othum.”
“Ahhh, very good,” the monster said.
“K’thas,” Ion whispered, frightened to say it any louder. “Your name is K’thas.”
“You’re getting so good at this game!” said the monster, who wasn’t just a monster now, but the exiled Lord of the Darklands. “That look on your face is priceless, Mr. Reaves. I just love it when children realize how truly terrible they really are. Here Othum went to all this trouble trying to contain me, and here I am...uncontained, and by the will of a helpless little boy.”
Ion looked to his mother, that ghost he had trusted so foolishly. “M-my mother? How did you—”
“Your mother was a puppet,” K’thas said, and Ion’s mother floated over to the god to hover at his feet. “Her movements, her voice, her laugh, even her wonderful smile was all mine to control. Though I have to admit, I did feel a bit guilty about delving into her precious memories, but what was a god to do when the only thing separating me from my freedom was a boy and his desperate need to save his family?”
K’thas waved his hand through Ion’s mother and the spirit collapsed into a cloud of silvery smoke. Ion wanted to cry—cry harder than ever before. But he kept it in.
“You tricked me,” Ion snapped. “You lured me in with my own family!”
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” said K’thas. “You lured me in.” He gripped the air and closed his eyes in sheer delight. “I could taste your uncertainty and fear: fear of the gods, fear of being teased, fear of being tricked by Othum. All I had to do was assure you of how very frightening those things were, and freedom was as good as mine.”
Vinya’s words rang so loud and clear in Ion’s head, she might as well have been right beside him. “Y-You’re the Hand of Fear! You’re the big thing coming. Vinya...she was right.”
“And as your mother told you earlier,” said K’thas, “you should have listened to dear Vinya. However intrusive and utterly annoying she might be, she could have saved you from this. In fact, had a minion of mine failed to convince Othum that Vinya was a problem, you would have never seen your ghostly mother at all.”
“W-what’d you mean?”
“No matter what I tried, your mother’s spirit wouldn’t shift out of its banshee form above this hall,” said K’thas. “Then I realized Vinya was closer to you than I had thought, and found that her love was the thing distorting your mother’s face—to protect you from harm, see—so I quickly had her exiled. Illyria is rather easy to manipulate these days.”
Ion clenched his jaw. “The Illyrians won’t allow you to be free, K’thas. They’ll fight to see you back in chains!”
K’thas pulled back the edges of his mouth and let out a laugh that could have chilled the fur off a dog. “But alas, Illyria fears. And so long as they fear, my boy...the death of Illyria is mine.”
All at once, K’thas dropped to one knee and thrust his glass nails into the sand. As he dragged them through the earth, streams of moaning, screaming, roaring spirits exploded out of gashes left by the nails. Ghosts tore through the air—their cries filled the hall, so loud now Ion couldn’t do anything but drop to his knees, hands clamped over his ears. More and more spirits poured out of the wounds in the sandy floor until Ion could hardly see K’thas.
“I hate to do this so early,” came the monster’s voice, muffled by the screams of the ghosts, “but I really must be off. Important matters to attend to.”
Ion wanted to fire a great, writhing bolt of lightning at this monster, a blast of wind, the chill of a blizzard, anything, but the cries of the ghosts were so great he couldn’t remove his hands from his ears. He had to watch in agony and horror as K’thas smashed through the ceiling with his monstrous fists, glass tiles and dust collapsing to the sandy floor as K’thas climbed to the surface—just where he didn’t belong. The spirits followed suit, sweeping out of the hall and flying into the surrounding corridors of the fortress until the forgotten hall had been evacuated.
Ion pulled his hands from his ears and squinted through the veil of dust clouding the air. He didn’t want to follow. Really he didn’t. But he’d done a horrible, horrible thing, and if he was to reverse it, following was where he’d have to start. He swallowed, gathered the Omnus Staff from the sand along with a bit of courage, and snapped his heels together. He flexed his calves, brought out his arms, and the next moment, Ion was riding a column of wind to the surface.
When he reached the courtyard, there were no massive footsteps, crumbled walls, or raging spirits to show which direction K’thas had went.
Then he heard it.
“Help! Help!” it screamed, perfectly spoken even in desperation.
“Oceanus!” Ion gasped.
He followed the pleas, landing at the foot of the entrance hall. Dim blue light flickered from the candles hovering around the corridor, but even then, Ion wasn’t so sure what he was seeing was actually what he was seeing.
In the center of the hall, sitting just above the stone floor, was a head. A head with long brown locks of hair pulled up into a ponytail by a blue ribbon.
“O-Oceanus?” Ion asked, aiming the Omnus Staff at the head, hesitant to get anywhere near the thing.
“Of course, you oinker!” she barked, and Ion was suddenly sure.
He rushed up to her and knelt beside her head. If the world wasn’t about to end, this would have been hilarious, but instead of laughing, he asked, “What happened? How are you—”
“Never mind that,” she snapped. “Go get me some water. Now!”
And without another word, Ion raced off to the small fountain nearby, cupped the water into his hand, and raced back over to his sister.
“On my head!” she ordered. “Drop it on my head!”
> He sprinkled it over her hair, and watched as every single drop slid down her hair and face, and seeped into the crack between her and the stone floor. Oceanus widened her eyes, and icicles protruded off her skin and pierced the earth encasing her. Ion stepped back, and Oceanus gave a twist and another and another after that, until finally she’d sifted herself out of the floor.
“Treason!” she yelled as she brushed the icicles from her skin as if they were only dust. “They’ve all committed treason!”
“Who?” Ion asked.
“The twins!” she snapped. “One moment I was yelling at Othum for lying to you, the next, I was being eaten by the stupid hallway floor while Spike slapped these weird, silvery cuffs around Othum’s wrists, which apparently sapped him of his powers. Solara appeared over us and started talking about some Hand of Fear thing and—and freeing it, but I was so angry it all sounded like gibberish to me.”
Ion swallowed. “Oh, no.”
“That’s what Spike will be saying when I get a hold of him!” Oceanus said. “I’m going to ring his fat neck with the tightest whip of water I can muster and then I’m—”
“Shh!” Ion said, smashing his finger against Oceanus’s lips. The shushing clearly enraged her, but he didn’t care. “Solara and Spike weren’t speaking gibberish—the Hand of Fear is real. He’s a god. An evil god. And...I sort of freed him. Like, just now.”
“What’re you talking about, Ion?” Oceanus said. “And wait...where’d you get that staff? And are those eyes on your chin?”
“I’m so sorry, Oceanus!” Ion whimpered, staring down at the Omnus Staff and hating himself even more. “For everything! For pushing you away and being mean to you at the beach—all of it! I should have included you! You would have questioned all of this, and none of it would’ve happened!” Ion explained what he had done, which took longer than he’d believed it would: finding the Hall of Forgotten Heroes and thinking he was talking to Mother; stealing the staff and the key and using them to accidentally free a fear-eating, needle-toothed, long-dethroned god.
Oceanus stared, clearly unable to believe the story she’d just been told. But the silence was quickly broken by the echoes of footsteps.
Ion turned, and at the end of the hall, just before the gaping hole K’thas had left in the courtyard, appeared Theo and Lillian. They rushed up to Ion and a still very quiet Oceanus, completely out of breath.
“Spirits...everywhere,” said Theo, bent over with his hands on his knees. “Attacked...coliseum.”
“No,” Ion gasped.
“Professors and Sentinels...are fighting them,” Theo continued. “And there’s...a huge hole...in the courtyard.”
Lillian rushed up to Ion and wrapped her hand around his throat, eyes glaring into his. “What have you done?” she hissed.
Ion didn’t fight the hold she had on him. “I sort of, kind of freed the imprisoned, secret, evil Lord of the Darklands. They call him K’thas, and those are his ghosts in the coliseum. I...I should have listened to you, Lillian. I know that now.”
“I’m glad you’ve come to your senses,” Lillian said, unclenching his throat. “Now, how are we going to clean up this little mess you’ve made?”
Oceanus crossed her arms. “Oh yes, brother—please tell us how we’re going to clean up your mess.”
“Well”—he searched for an answer—“we’re Guardians. So if Solara and Spike have captured Othum, then that means we need to find and free him. And I’m assuming wherever they are, K’thas will also be.”
“Wait, they took the Skylord?” asked Theo.
Oceanus nodded. “It seems they’ve been behind this from the beginning.”
“So then what do we do about the spirits?” asked Theo.
“They’re just a distraction,” said Ion. “Othum locked K’thas away, so Othum will be the first person K’thas targets, which means we need to find Othum as soon as possible.”
“Fine,” Oceanus sighed and unraveled her arms. “Solara and Spike went this way.”
They ran through the corridors with Oceanus leading the pack. With each step Ion took, and the more he thought about the horrible thing he’d done, his jaw grew tighter and tighter against his skin. When he followed Oceanus out the entrance hall of the fortress and into the moonlight cast over the Jovian Fields, the jaw clamped so hard to his face he nearly yelped.
What have I done?
Down the main road, flanked by the golden trees of summer, was K’thas. He was dragging the Skylord toward the Acropolis gates by the cuffs that had locked Othum’s wrists behind his back. Solara and Spike, of course, followed close behind.
“Stop where you are!” Oceanus screamed at once, approaching K’thas without a bit of hesitation.
Solara and Spike spun around, but K’thas turned, slow and smooth, his red eyes blazing in the night.
“We have intruders, Lord K’thas!” Spike said.
“I can see that, you idiot!” K’thas snapped.
“G-Guardians,” Othum whimpered. The Illyrian looked up, his face tired and bleeding where K’thas had apparently slashed him with his glass nails.
“Don’t worry, Othum, we’ll get you out of this,” said Oceanus. “I promise.”
K’thas threw his head back and cackled.
“And you’ll die trying to keep that promise,” Solara snarled.
“How could you, Solara?” Oceanus asked. “Betraying an Illyrian? Have you forgotten who you are? Who you’re supposed to be protecting?”
“Oh, I’ve not forgotten,” Solara said, sounding sweeter than ever. “But as you very well know, there are other Illyrians who need our protection. And it just so happens my mother is one of them.”
“Such a smart girl, isn’t she?” a voice came from behind.
Ion turned, almost unwillingly, and balled his hands into fists at the sight of Illindria walking up the main road. Her hair was extra large this night.
“I should have known,” Ion said.
“Yes, you should have,” Illindria said, smiling with her stupid, annoying face. She stopped just before Theo, and the Guardians were surrounded. “What a wonderful night you chose to free K’thas, Mr. Reaves. None of this would have been possible without you and your hopeless fear.”
A shock of heat surged through Ion’s jaw.
“Yes,” K’thas said, “I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted such an exquisite helping of fear.”
Oceanus stomped her foot. “Enough! I don’t care how this happened, or why any of you have chosen to betray Othum, or your own pantheon, for that matter—but as a Guardian, I must demand you free the Skylord at once.”
“I know of no lord,” Illindria hissed. “Only a withered, old, useless man consumed by his obsession with sweets and an illusion of harmony.”
“He will never forfeit his throne,” Oceanus returned. “So don’t even think about trying to take over Illyria!”
Illindria stepped toward Oceanus, her face twisted into a snarl. “As if I want that throne,” she spat. “For thousands upon thousands of miserable years I’ve overseen the changing of the seasons, ushering in the new one when the old one had run its course. Were it not for me, this planet would be in chaos, yet for thousands upon thousands of miserable years Othum was the only one who got any respect!
“I used to desire Othum’s throne, yes. Every day and every night. But now, I only seek to destroy it and the god who sits upon it.”
“Illindria and I wish to start anew,” said K’thas. “Create our own Illyria, our own pantheon. To rule the world as it should be ruled.”
“And destroying Othum, his throne, and his precious Illyria,” said Illindria, “will be the first step toward such a future.”
“Now, if you’ll please go back to your little school,” K’thas sneered, “we shall be on our way. You seem like a smart girl, Oceanus. So I suspect our departure will continue without any trouble?”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Ion said, voice as firm as Father’s. “At least not with
Othum.”
“I’d be careful, boy,” K’thas said. “Look around—you’re in no position to be giving orders to us.”
Ion looked to Oceanus, who looked to Lillian, who looked to Theo.
“You’re. Not. Leaving,” said Ion.
A suffocating silence fell between Ion and those he despised most.
Ionikus heaved his arm backward, and with a flash of light and a crack of thunder, a bolt of lightning appeared in his hand. He launched the spear as if he’d been taught how by Othum himself, and it exploded against K’thas’s right shoulder. K’thas screamed, dropping his hold on Othum.
And the battle began.
Theo and Lillian dashed for Othum, but Illindria had leapt over them with surprising speed and grabbed hold of his cuffs. She flung him backward, and with her hands outstretched, she assumed control of the nearby trees. Their trunks cracked and moaned, then swept down to the Fields, whacking the two Guardians away with monstrous branches.
The earth quaked with the stomp of Spike’s foot. Solara screamed, and roots as fat as Illindria came thrashing out of the earth, swiping for Oceanus, who was now dipping and dodging out of harm’s way.
In the storm of flailing roots, shuddering earth, and trees using themselves as hammers, Ion shot for K’thas. He leapt through the air, latched onto K’thas’s shoulder, and roared, delivering a surge of electricity into the god’s thick, leathery hide. K’thas flailed as thousands of volts of electricity pounded through his system. He stumbled to the left, swung his arms some more, and screamed in agony. Finally, with a violent twist of his body, K’thas chucked Ion against the gates of the Acropolis.
K’thas lumbered back around, his face lit with fury. Ion struggled to his feet, panting, ignoring how incredibly numb his arms were.
“How daring of you,” K’thas said through his needle-like teeth.
He reared his hand high into the air—blocking the moon from Ion’s vision.
This is it, Ion grimaced, death by glass nails.
K’thas cackled, but before he could finish, three quick whistles pierced the air, and K’thas’s laugh turned to a yelp. He thrashed, his hands desperately reaching for the three shining silver arrows stuck into his back.