Chapter 22

     The wind howled across the marshland, pulling at our coats and stirring the mist into twisting shapes that seemed to dance just out of reach. Ava stood at the shoreline, her back to us, but her power filled the air, making the very earth beneath our feet pulse with heat and the promise of something ancient awakening from its long slumber. Tony was tense beside me, his eyes locked on her, his fingers twitching toward the knife he always kept at his side.

     “She’s close to finishing,” Tony muttered, his voice barely audible over the wind. “If we don’t stop her now, we won’t get another chance.”

     I nodded, but the weight of what we were facing was growing heavier by the second. Ava wasn’t just drawing power from the land—she was shaping it, twisting it into something dark and uncontrolled. And Achilles, for all his cunning and manipulation, hadn’t counted on her being this strong. I wondered, briefly, if even he knew what Ava was truly capable of.

     She was the "fathom bawd"—a manipulator of the depths, a figure who thrived on the hidden rot and decay that had festered beneath the surface for centuries. She wasn’t fighting for control of the city in the same way Achilles was; she was embracing the chaos, using it to bring something even older to the surface.

     Tony shifted beside me, his frustration boiling over. “She’s not invincible,” he growled. “We just have to get close enough—”

     “Wait,” I said, grabbing his arm before he could rush forward. “We can’t just attack her. She’s feeding off the land, off the warmth. If we go in without a plan, we’ll only make her stronger.”

     Tony’s eyes flashed with anger, but there was something else in his expression—something I hadn’t seen before. Fear. For all his bravado, he was afraid of what Ava could do. And I couldn’t blame him.

     “We need to cut her off,” I said, my voice low and steady. “She’s not invulnerable, not yet. She’s drawing power from the land, but that’s also her weakness. If we can sever her connection—”

     “How?” Tony snapped. “She’s buried herself in this place, and it’s not like we have an army to dig her out.”

     I thought of Achilles, the "wounded regent," who had been orchestrating this game from the beginning, using us as pawns in his twisted bid for control. He had positioned himself as a ruler of sorts, manipulating the city’s past and present to secure his future. But now, he was losing—Ava’s power was something even he hadn’t predicted.

     “Achilles doesn’t have the upper hand anymore,” I said, my eyes still on Ava. “But that doesn’t mean he’s out of the game. He’s wounded, yes, but he’s still playing.”

     Tony’s expression twisted in frustration. “So what? We wait for him to swoop in and fix this?”

     “No,” I said firmly. “Achilles won’t help us. But we can use what we know about him. He was never about brute strength or power—he was about authorship, about controlling the narrative, shaping events from the shadows. If we can disrupt the story Ava’s trying to tell, we might stand a chance.”

     Tony frowned, his frustration giving way to a glimmer of understanding. “So, what? We rewrite her story?”

     “Something like that,” I said, glancing toward the horizon where the Atlantic roared just beyond the marsh. “We make her lose her footing. She’s drawing power from this land, from the rot she’s cultivated. But if we can force her into a position where she has to act, where she has to rely on something she doesn’t fully control... she might make a mistake.”

     Tony’s eyes narrowed. “How do we force her hand?”

     Before I could answer, the air around us grew even heavier, and Ava’s chant shifted. Her voice rose, no longer a low, rhythmic hum, but something sharp, commanding. The heat in the air spiked, and I could feel the ground beneath us trembling, as though something deep within the earth was beginning to stir.

     “She’s calling something up,” Tony said, his voice tight with dread.

     “We need to move,” I said, my heart racing. “Now.”

     We moved toward Ava, cautiously but quickly, keeping low as we approached the shoreline. The air was thick with power, a raw, untamed energy that made my skin prickle. Ava’s chant grew louder, her hands raised toward the sky, and I could see the faint shimmer of something gathering around her—something ancient, something deep.

     She was drawing on the very heart of the land, pulling from the depths, the "fathom bawd" at the center of it all. But in her focus, in her arrogance, she didn’t see us coming.

     Tony moved before I could stop him. He darted toward Ava, knife in hand, his expression set with determination. I knew it was reckless, but there was no stopping him now. He was driven by something deeper—anger, fear, maybe even guilt.

     He was halfway to her when the ground beneath him shifted. The earth rippled like water, and suddenly, Tony was thrown back, his body hitting the ground with a sickening thud. I rushed toward him, my heart pounding, but before I could reach him, Ava turned.

     Her eyes met mine, and for the first time, I saw the full force of her power. She was no longer just a woman standing at the edge of the Atlantic—she was something more, something primal and untethered. The heat around her radiated like a furnace, and the air shimmered with the weight of the forces she had unleashed.

     “You think you can stop this?” she said, her voice a low, dangerous whisper. “You’re too late. The story’s already written.”

     I stood my ground, my mind racing. Achilles had always been about control, about shaping events to suit his needs. But Ava—Ava was about chaos, about embracing the rot and decay that had been festering for centuries. She didn’t want control. She wanted to tear everything apart.

     But in that desire, in her need for destruction, there was weakness.

     “The story isn’t over yet,” I said, my voice steady.

     Ava’s smile widened, but there was something sharp in her gaze. “You’re a fool if you think you can change this.”

     Behind her, the Atlantic surged, the waves crashing against the rocks with a force that made the ground tremble. But I wasn’t focused on the water—I was focused on the land beneath her feet, the warmth that was fueling her, the very rot she was drawing on.

     And then it hit me. The warmth wasn’t just power. It was history. It was everything that had been buried beneath the city—the stories, the lives, the forgotten legacies. Ava was feeding on it, yes, but in doing so, she had made herself part of it. She wasn’t above the decay. She was *in* it.

     I took a step forward, my eyes locked on hers. “You’re not as untouchable as you think,” I said.

     Ava’s smile faltered, just for a moment.

     “You’ve tied yourself to this land, to the rot and decay,” I continued. “But that means you’re part of it now. And like everything else that rots, you can be undone.”

     The ground beneath her feet trembled, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. She was powerful, yes, but she wasn’t invincible. She had made herself part of the story, and that meant she could be rewritten.

     Tony groaned from where he lay on the ground, but I didn’t take my eyes off Ava. The tide was turning, and for the first time, I felt like we had a chance.

     Ava’s eyes narrowed, and I could see the storm gathering behind them. But the ground was shifting beneath her, the warmth she had been drawing on beginning to falter.

     “You’re wrong,” she hissed. “This land belongs to me.”

     But I knew the truth now. She had made herself vulnerable, tied to the very thing she sought to control.

     And that was her undoing.