Catherine sighed in relief and finally stopped retreating. Overhead, the evening had just begun to roll in, the sky turning a transcendent shade of purple. I had always attributed purple to treachery, and seeing Catherine all bloodied up with the paling light behind her was somewhat poetic.
"Thanks for not killing me. It's nice to know you're actually as 'divine' as you say you are." Catherine said, but I could read through her false flattery easily.
"Do not stall," Joshua said. "Tell us what we want to know."
Catherine nodded and slowly began making her way out of the deep snow. My log immediately went back up, ready to strike. She studied the piece of wood with a genuine look of confusion on her face.
"Why are you using that as a weapon?"
Joshua answered before my own words could fail me. "You're still stalling," he said calmly. His hands had already begun to glow a flickering, dangerous blue.
Catherine nodded and smiled, her hands raised in surrender. "I'm only getting out of the snow. I don't fancy my toes dying off."
Joshua turned to me and nodded. I didn't want this woman a single inch closer than she had to be, especially now that my powers were completely drained. I hadn't realized it until that moment, but if that shot she fired at Joshua had been targeted at me instead... well, let's just say the countdown would have come to an unfortunate end.
Frost God killed by gunshots in a strange forest. Father would have found a way to kill me again himself just for the embarrassment. Catherine hadn't noticed my inability yet, and I wasn't going to give her a chance to.
"It's fine, Joshua," I said dryly. "She's no threat to us."
Joshua nodded, and Catherine made her way forward.
"That's enough," I ordered when she was just a few feet away.
"Oh," Catherine moaned. "Careful… you're starting to look nervous."
Joshua snickered. I walked up to her, my steps filled with determination, and stared down. I might be without powers, but I was most definitely more than a match for this woman in a test of wills.
"Start talking."
Catherine stared back at me, her eyes steely and her gaze as strong as diamonds. "I already told you what I know."
"No," Joshua countered. "You spoke about the countdown and how it's a call to battle, but you said nothing else of importance. For one, we don't know what kind of battle we're in."
"Or if you're telling the truth," I added coldly.
"What's there to lie about?" Catherine asked, before moving around me and towards Joshua.
"In fact the both of you should be thanking me."
"For what?" Joshua asked. "Almost killing us?"
"For telling you the truth your daddy wouldn't." She said, and turned to me, watching my face for an expression.
But I had mastered the act of neutrality, even though my head was a stampede of eye opening questions.
Father was the only one I had told about my dreams, he had told me not to worry.
"We have had no words from Askarion." Those were his very words. A lie? Or was he as blind as we were?
Joshua was looking up at me, clearly out of his depth. I had to give it to the woman, she was a first grade manipulator.She knew exactly which threads to pull to make a god feel like a puppet.
"And what is this truth?" I asked dryly, my nonchalant act still in effect.
"You're kind is being prepared for an upgrade." She said while producing a dagger from her belt. "The countdown in your head and in Layla's…" she immediately burst into laughter when she saw the look on my face.
"You underestimate me still? After all this?" She gestured towards the bloodied snow and the bodies of dead Dorjets.
"I know everything." She hissed and broke into a mad fit of laughter, turning around playfully.
"Joshua?" I called my brother
My mind was already panicking.
He turned to me.
"Can you get a link with father?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I'm not certain. I don't even know where we are."
"Can you try?"I immediately added. He turned from me to Catherine and then to me again. He understood.. I needed him out of earshot, and I needed to know if our lifeline was truly cut.
"I'd need to get to someplace high, maybe the top of a tree." He said. I nodded gratefully. He might be an idiot sometimes, but we still understood each other, even without our neural links.
"Yes," Catherine mocked. "Run along now. The grown ups are talking."
The temperature plummeted immediately, frost forming from the air. Joshua's eyes were already glowing blue in anger. But nonetheless he left, blazing up into trees, leaving a trail of frost behind.
"Careful up there." Catherine whispered, before settling her eyes back on me.
"And then there were two."
"I told Layla I would find out who was pulling the strings." I said, more to myself than to her.
"You've fallen already? Oh darling," she tested the daggers edge of her fingertips, drawing blood. "If only you knew the things I know."
"Then tell me. Tell me everything." I ordered.
Catherine placed her hand on her chin in mock contemplation, a slow, taunting smile spreading across her face. "Let me think about that."
Her hand returned to her side, the dagger catching the last of the purple light.
"No."
"No?" I could not believe my ears.
"You heard me." She retorted.
"You forget who you're talking to?" I said, my voice filled with quite anger
This woman knew the answers to questions that had plagued me for weeks. I was going to get the answers out of them.
My grip tightened around my log. Catherine's eyes went down to them and then back to me, before bursting into a fit of laughter.
"Actually…" she said, wiping tears from her eyes. "I do know who I'm talking to."
"Then you know what happens when you anger a god."
She smiled with genuine sympathy. "My dear Magnus, you sent the only person with godly powers into the sky."
I furrowed my brows in confusion. Her statement had completely caught me off guard.
"You still underestimate me." She pointed at my stick with her dagger "I knew your powers were spent, that's why I made you make Joshua leave."
She reached behind her back, and this time, she didn't pull out a dagger. The metallic slide of a Desert Eagle caught the purple light of dusk as she leveled it at my chest.
"Who's the god now?"