Fire Heart (The Titans: Book One) (62 page)

“You cannot fight all of us alone and hope to win,” Serah said, and she stepped forward next to Will. “Even one of
you
will die in battle against
all
of the Titans.”

Despair laughed, his whole frame shaking with mirth. “I think not, dear Serah. You see, I—”

He never finished. With a boom that sent the ocean into a maddened frenzy, a great torrent of water exploded upward from underneath the Fallen One and engulfed him completely. Sea water sprayed high into the air and fell like rain upon the watchers, drenching them. It burned Will's eyes, and the taste of it made him shudder in disgust; gone, it seemed, was the tolerance for salt water that had come with the merfolk's gift. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes in a futile attempt to alleviate the itching burn. Involuntary tears flowed freely down his face to mix with the sea's remnants, and when he had finally blinked the majority of it away he was able to catch a last blurred glimpse of Despair's struggling form before the traitor disappeared beneath the waves.

“This be my domain,”
thundered Borbos' voice, and Will realized that the Titan had been waiting all along for the opportune moment to attack Despair.
“You may be strong, traitor, but you will never be as strong as the sea.”
With those last words, the deck began to tremble beneath Will's feet. He held out one hand to steady himself, and with the other instinctively caught at Clare's arm. She darted a glance at him but said nothing.

And then the sea exploded.

As before, great torrents of water leaped high into the air. But rather than rain down on the armada, it fell in pounding sheets that knocked men off their feet and left them dazed and dumb. Will looked up just in time to see a blanket of sea water falling toward them before it slammed into him with the force of a soggy stone wall. He fell to the ground in a clatter of armor; his ears were full of water, and his head swam confusingly. His eyes fell on Clare, who seemed to be in a similar condition. “Are you alright?” he asked. His words came out garbled and slurred, however, and Clare gave him a dazed stare. He shook his head and asked again, this time with somewhat greater success. She nodded slowly, and then blinked and shook her head to clear it.

Something out of the corner of Will's eye caught his gaze, and he flicked his head around to see...

“Borbos?” he wondered aloud, his voice a hushed whisper.

Towering high above the waves was an enormous man made entirely of water. His body ended where his waist met the sea, and the water around him swirled violently in a massive maelstrom. Will could see fish and sharks swimming within his body, weaving in and out among long strands of kelp.
No, wait...
The sea-man turned toward the
Fury
for a brief moment, and in that instant Will saw a flash of yellow where the eyes should have been.
Borbos
and
the Sea Spirit,
Will realized, and he gaped in astonishment.
So that was why we needed to rescue him.

“We have to retreat!” Feothon cried then. “Flee to the shore, or we will all die here!” The Titan dashed across the deck toward the aft end of the ship. “Serah! Give us a wind!”

“Feothon!” Leyra called, and he stopped to look back at her. Will found her amid the now frantically seething crowd of sailors; she stood like a boulder against the tide. But there was pain on her face—pain and fear, and memory flashed through Will as her premonition of death raced through his mind. “There are two of them!” she yelled, and Will saw Feothon's face fall. The Forest Lord hesitated for only an instant longer before continuing on his way to the helm without a word.

Will clambered clumsily to his feet before helping Clare to hers. She nodded her thanks, and then they turned as one to Leyra. “Can you see where the other one is?” Will asked, but Leyra shook her head in frustration.

“Visions of him are...cloudy. Insubstantial. Not that it would make a difference, though, were I able to see him clearly.” She darted a quick glance at Clare before continuing. “Will, remember what I said: I cannot see your death. You
must
be careful...both of you.”

Will nodded, suddenly fearful. Two Fallen seemed, quite frankly, unbeatable. Had the Titans themselves not said that one could duel a Titan with an even chance of success? And that had been before Pestilence's death; they were even stronger now. His eyes fell on Clare, and he felt fear twist his gut—not for his own life, but for hers.

“What do you see in Clare's future?” he asked, and Clare shot him a confused look.

Leyra cast a nervous glance between the two of them. “I...this is not her time. I can say no more.”

Will nodded. He supposed he would have to live with that. Now if only he could think of some way to fight both traitors—

His thoughts ceased abruptly as a tremendous boom sounded behind him, and he whirled around in time to see an entire ship seemingly tear itself apart. Wood and metal broke and bent and was sent careening out far away into the sea. The crew fared no better, and Will watched in mute horror as men and women were thrown screaming into the air, only to be rent apart by whatever force held the ship in its thrall. Body parts fell to the sea like a grisly rain, staining the waters around them crimson.

“Your time has come,”
a voice rumbled, deeper than the deepest thunder. It was a terrible sound, one that shook Will down to his very bones and made the air tremble around him. There was so much pain in the voice, so much hatred, that Will felt he would be smothered by it.

“Strife,” someone whispered behind him, and he turned to see Serah gazing over his shoulder. Malice darkened her face, and Will could see in her eyes the faint flickering beginnings of lightning bolts. When she moved, her body was tense with anger, and the thin veneer of control she kept over her rage frightened Will almost as much as the thought of whatever had torn the ship asunder.

“Where is he?” Will asked, and Serah turned her flashing eyes on him.

“Close,” she spat. “He will pay soon. For everything he has done.”

“Face me,”
Strife roared, as though in answer to Serah's assertion, and suddenly the skies began to darken with black storm clouds. They appeared from nowhere, roiling and billowing with unnatural speed to blot out the sun and plunge the world into darkness. Red flashed sporadically within the depths of the thunderheads, the telltale signs of some otherworldly lightning, and Will was taken for a brief instant back to his dream in the forest. He did not stop to wonder why he could only just now recall the details.

No, it wasn't lightning,
he thought, remembering.
It was a heartbeat.

But this was no heartbeat. The flashes of red came faster and faster, casting a dim, erratic crimson
sheen across the darkened waters. Peals of thunder rolled through the air, drowning out every lesser sound in their wake and deafening those who did not cover their ears quickly enough. Jagged bolts of blood-red lightning split the sky asunder and struck ferociously at the sea, boiling the waters away and instantly killing any living creature unfortunate enough to be close to their tendrils. Some found their way to the ships of Borbos' armada, and those that could not avoid the lightning's path were smashed asunder. Wood and cloth burned with an unnatural blood-red flame, and the fires leaped about  hungrily, consuming everything in their path as though of their own volition.

The
Fury
was saved from a similar fate only by Serah's intervention; each crimson lightning bolt that came to rend the ship found its path blocked by a glaring blue-white one. It was a reactive battle, however, and judging from the look of deep concentration on her face Serah seemed to be hard pressed to even ward off the few bolts that sought the
Fury.

“Stop the fires, Will,” Clare said beside him, and he turned to see her gazing out at the carnage in horror. She looked back at him, her eyes shining like emeralds despite the bloody glow. “Will, you're the only one who can do it. Just do what Borbos told you to.”

Will licked his lips nervously and flicked his gaze to the burning ships. The lightning was coming even faster now, and the flames had grown with frightening speed. Nearly a third of the armada's remaining vessels were either afire or sinking rapidly beneath the surface. “I-I don't know if I can,” he stammered. “There's so much...”

Clare seized his face and pulled him around so that he was looking at her once again. “You can do it,” she said forcefully. “Will, I know you can. Please, Will. You have to save those people.”

He held her gaze for a moment longer, listening to the pounding of his heart in his chest.
I can do it,
he thought.
I just have to concentrate. Hard.

“Alright,” he said aloud. “Alright. Here...I think...I think I should sit down.” It felt ridiculous to do so in the middle of such rampant destruction, but he sat upon the deck regardless. He could hear screams, distant and tinny, but he tried to block them out.
Calm,
he thought, closing his eyes.
I have to be calm.
But peace was not so easily achieved. With his eyes closed the sounds of battle and death seemed even louder, assaulting his ears with the cries of the dying and the roar of Void-spawned thunder.
Concentrate.

He focused on his heartbeat—it seemed the best place to start. He listened to the steady, rhythmic thumping, focused on the dull rush of blood in his veins. He felt something twitch almost imperceptibly inside of him—could it be the Other? He was unsure. He squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly and felt for the power within.

Concentrate.

~

Water everywhere—surrounding him, engulfing him, caressing him with silken fingers, swirling inside of him and giving him its strength without hesitation. Beneath the waves, Borbos no longer had any need for a human shape. Down in the depths, where the light was just beginning to fade, and the glow from the crimson skies overhead made shimmering, blood-red starbursts in the water above him, Borbos
was
the sea.

And Despair, for all his stolen power, was at a distinct disadvantage.

The traitor struggled against the strength of the Sea Lord's iron grip, the luster of his silver armor much diminished where there was little light to make it shine. His mask, normally so haughty and disconcerting, now looked terrified. Had Borbos possessed a mouth, he would have smiled. But instead, he swung a dense ball of water into Despair's struggling form.

The trick was an old one, and the same that he had used to dispose of the water demons the day before. But it was unfailingly effective, and when the ball—now roughly the consistency of soft stone—connected, the right side of the Fallen One's armor bent and warped beneath its relentless onslaught. A muffled scream reverberated throughout the sea, and Borbos' would-be mouth stretched into an even
wider grin.

“The pain you have cause
d
be nothing compared to the pain I be about to give you,”
he said, and his voice rumbled like waves crashing against a rocky shore. Despite the distorting effects of the sea, his words carried clearly—enough so that his victim would have no trouble hearing them. He hurled another ball of hardened sea water at Despair, and this time the silvered mask crumpled on one side, turning the mocking grin into an ugly, malformed sneer. The Fallen One fell limp, momentarily stunned, and Borbos prepared for the killing blow.

~

Concentrate.

Will strained with all the mental might he could muster, groping blindly through the dark recesses of his inner being for some hint of the power that continued to elude him. His heart pounded in his ears, and outside of the thin shell he had erected around his thoughts the sounds of battle beat relentlessly upon him, breaking his focus despite his fruitless attempts to ignore the din. His body didn't want to sit still and concentrate—it wanted to
fight
.

Feel the fire.

He reached out, sought for something—anything—that even remotely resembled the crimson flames, but he found nothing. A tremendous roar shook the
Fury
as yet another ship was blasted violently apart, and the explosion was punctuated by the savage screams of dying men and women.

“Death and damnation!” he snarled, and he pounded the deck with his fist, sending a shock of pain up through his arm. His eyes flew open and he scrambled to his feet.

“What's wrong?” Clare asked beside him. “Will, the fire—!”

“I know!” he said, cutting her off, and he knuckled his forehead in exasperation. “I know. I can't do it.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Wait, what do you mean you can't do it?”

“I just can't!” he cried, and turned away. “
Death
and
damnation
. We have to do something else.”

“The other traitor is close,” Leyra said from behind him, and he turned to see her standing with her eyes closed in concentration. “He...I cannot tell where he is...bah!” Her eyes flew open. “Curse this damnable fog! If only I could see clearly.”