49. Chapter 49
Chapter 49
‘No!’ Mum shouted. ‘Put it down! Don’t you dare bond with that thing!’
The jewel was so happy to see me that it crooned at me. It had been made sentient by my mother and so it loved me in the same way that she did. I was the harkan’s dearest daughter, and together we could destroy so many things. We could kill anything and anyone we wanted; we could coat the world in blood and rune anything. We could use the dead bodies we made to create so many potions. We could achieve greatness unlike anything anyone else had ever achieved. The few that survived would worship us – and then we could open the gateways to the other Realms and destroy those too. I had always wanted greatness.
‘Amber, darling, come back to me. Look at me!’
It took a real effort to wrench my eyes from the beautiful maroon depths of the harkan, and in my mind it hissed with displeasure as I took my eyes off it.
‘Listen to me, love,’ mum pleaded. ‘I need to die, Amber. I need to right this wrong! Lucille can’t preserve me much longer and I won’t go back to being what I was! I won’t go back to not knowing you and Oscar. I am done. This is my move and it’s my choice to play it.’
And this is mine, said Abigay in my mind . Don’t you dare let her die, Amber. Tell my bestie that I love her.
Seemingly of its own volition, the pendant around my neck rose and blazed with a white light that was so bright it was painful to behold.
The harkan sensed the threat and sent a cloud of black magic bubbling outwards, but the blinding white light from the pendant pierced the thick black ochre that clung to the jewel. Then the glowing pentagram dropped and touched the harkan itself.
The jewel screamed into the depths of my mind.
Across the room, my father screamed too. He dropped to his knees. ‘Lycia!’ he cried.
I felt a surge of satisfaction from Bastion and then he was on the move, coming closer to me. He’d killed my father’s familiar but he was in such pain. I struggled to compartmentalise his agony.
In my hands, the malevolent jewel pulsed once and struck my mother with a flash of red magic before crumbling to nothing. As it folded in on itself, a huge shockwave of power flew outwards and I doubled over as it hit me like a punch to the solar plexus.
When I regained my breath, I looked at Mum. She was slumped on the floor, laid low by the harkan’s final malevolent action, the pulse of red power that had struck her.
‘Mum!’ I screamed. I reached desperately for her neck and gasped with relief when I felt a thready pulse. But it wouldn’t last for long, not with blood still pouring from her stomach – and the Goddess alone only knew what the harkan had done to her with its last pulse of magic.
I couldn’t comprehend it. I hadn’t stabbed Mum, not like the seer had said or like the Goddess’s vision had shown me, but she was still dying and I had no healing potions left, thanks to my father’s vile actions.
The door flew open and Bastion ran in. He was in human form, he had no shirt on and his chest was covered in agonising burns. Benji chose the same moment to walk out of the wall clutching the pale truth seeker to his chest. I struggled to acknowledge any of them as I stared in horror at Mum’s chest that was barely rising and falling.
Bastion knelt next to me.
‘I didn’t stab her,’ I said inanely. ‘The seer said I would stab a blade into her heart and the vision showed that too, but I didn’t. She stabbed herself. I don’t understand. She’s dying , Bastion.’ A sob slipped out, then I was crying and I couldn’t stop. Tears ran down my face, for once allowed to fall freely.
‘Save her!’ Oscar yelled at me across the room. ‘You have to save her, Amber!’ His voice was desperate.
I looked over and saw that he had hogtied Shaun and was holding a blade at his throat. Shaun was immobile; all the fight had left him at the death of his second familiar.
Bastion pulled his phone out of his pocket. ‘Glimmer,’ he growled at me. He dialled Jinx’s number. ‘I need Glimmer,’ he said urgently when Jinx answered the phone. ‘Now! Send it to me!’
He didn’t wait for an answer, just held out his hands and waited. Like the harkan had been, Jinx’s blade was sentient; it could also transport itself through space by sheer willpower.
My brain started to fire. Glimmer? How would the dagger help our situation? Jinx’s magical blade took the magical essence of one being and gave it to another. It could turn a Common human into a werewolf or give a fire elemental the power of a water elemental; all it needed was the blood of the creature we wanted to create.
Glimmer landed in Bastion’s hands. He grinned triumphantly then grasped the magical blade by the hilt and used it to cut into his arm, gifting the blade his blood. His magic-rejuvenating-healing blood.
Griffin’s blood. My brain caught up with Bastion’s plan. Of course! I took the blade from Bastion and, with tears streaking down my face, I plunged the blade into my mother’s heart. Not to kill her – as the seer had thought – but to save her.
I pulled the magical dagger out and stared at her anxiously. ‘Wait,’ Bastion cautioned. ‘It takes a moment to work. Watch her wounds.’
I watched. When her skin started to knit together and heal rapidly, I knew that Glimmer had done its job. She had been turned into a griffin. But her pulse was still thready and weak. She needed more than the fast-healing of a shifter; she needed a miracle.
Luckily, I had one handy. I reached into my left pocket and pulled out a vial of final defence. I unstoppered the potion that would save a griffin even an inch from death and poured it down her throat. She swallowed.
Her wounds vanished in an instant. Her eyes snapped open. ‘Amber? What did you do?’
‘Thank God!’ Oscar whispered.
I burst into happy tears and flung myself into her arms. ‘Mum! You’re okay!’
‘The harkan?’ she asked urgently.
‘Destroyed,’ I managed, trying to get control of myself. I wiped my tears from my face.
‘How?’ she asked, sitting up.
I bit my lip and reached for my pendant. It warmed under my fingers. Abigay? I called.
She is gone, Edith whispered, her voice thick with sorrow. Her sacrifice will be remembered.
My hand fell from my pendant. ‘Abigay,’ I said softly. ‘She gave her soul to the harkan. She wanted to save you. She told me to tell you that she loved you.’
For the first time that I could recall, my mother cried.