Chapter 37 #2
The raw heat of my power surged through my hands as I thrust them forward, desperate to be precise.
Torgrin’s rope dissolved into ash, a dark plume curling away before his body fell to the floor.
My focus snapped to Merrick – my shadows slamming into his chest hard enough to wrench the blade from his grip.
He flew back from Cillian and hit the cell wall behind him, the knife clattering to the floor.
Torgrin got to his feet and made to move towards me.
‘No! Get Cillian out of here,’ I shouted.
He hesitated and looked at Merrick, who was also getting to his feet.
‘He’s mine,’ I reminded him. Torgrin had promised he would let me have my revenge on Merrick.
He clenched his fists, jaw tightening as he stepped closer, his eyes flicking to my trembling hands.
I could see the war inside him – every muscle tensed, ready to pull me back, to shield me from Merrick.
But then he exhaled sharply, and something in his gaze softened.
He didn’t speak, but a flicker of understanding passed between us.
He knew. This was something I had to do. For my mother.
My heart doubled in size when he moved towards Cillian.
Torgrin put his hand to Cillian’s throat, staunching the flow of blood.
‘Let’s get you out of here, Blacksmith.’ He supported Cillian with his free arm and drew him to his feet.
As they passed me, I brushed Cillian’s stooped shoulder with my shaking hand. My eyes locked with Torgrin’s.
‘I’ll be right back,’ he said before he left through the door.
I waved my hand, the shadows rising to close the cell door. I ignored the banging on the door and Torgrin’s swearing as my shadows kept it shut. He soon gave up, and I could hear him shuffling down the corridor with Cillian.
Merrick had recovered his knife and held it in his massive fist. With a scornful look, he shuffled his vast bulk from one foot to the other.
Good. I wanted to fight knife to knife. How perfect that my father’s knife would be the weapon to kill Merrick.
The reason I had not let the blood waters of the Red River take my life all those years ago was because I wanted to find and kill this monster.
I wouldn’t need my shadows. I had trained tirelessly for this.
As I stepped towards Merrick, I tightened my fingers around the familiar handle of my father’s knife.
The cell wall exploded, and a chunk of stone toppled onto me. My armour offered some protection from the blast, but the force of it slammed into the side of my head.
An eerie void engulfed me in an instant, leaving me devoid of any sensation.
I didn’t know how long I lost consciousness, but an intense surge of agony pierced through me, accompanied by a series of loud booms that jolted me back into my body.
My vision was blurred, my thoughts scattered.
The rubble covering me slid off as I came to a sitting position. Through the dust that filled the air, I could make out a black-robed body on the floor, only an arm’s length away from me.
I dragged myself towards Merrick, knife still clutched in my hand. It took me a few attempts to turn his heavy body over. His eyes opened slowly, and I was glad to see he was still alive. Death was still mine to give.
I didn’t see the rock in his hand until he smashed it into the side of my already injured head. How many blows to the head could I sustain? My vision blackened around the edges while my mouth filled with the coppery tang of blood.
Refusing to pass out again, I climbed up over him and brought my knife down into his swollen gut. He grunted in pain, his eyes going wide with the realisation that his death was near, and I was going to be the one to deliver it.
‘You were wrong, you know,’ I told him as I twisted the knife slowly, watching the blood ooze from his slack mouth and his face screw up in agony. He raised feeble hands and tried to shove me off, but I ignored him and leaned forward.
‘Ten years ago, you killed my mother. Ten years ago, you dreamed of the Cursed One. Did you ever think that what you did all those years ago pushed a girl onto the path to becoming the Cursed One? If you hadn’t taken her from me, I may not have become this.’
I opened the door a crack, letting the Darkness enjoy this moment too. Merrick’s eyes widened and he tried to speak, but more blood gurgled up from his open mouth, choking off his words. He was watching my grey eyes turn black.
‘I’m going to do everything you feared,’ I whispered to him. ‘It’s a shame you won’t be here to see it.’
I released the torrent of rage that had simmered within me for a decade.
The explosive release echoed through the air like a hurricane, and the air crackled with intensity as rocks and debris swirled around me.
A bitterness lingered on my tongue, a reminder of the years of resentment and frustration.
I held his victims’ faces in my mind. The face of my mother as his sword pierced her body.
The women he tortured and hanged. Queen Yaris and Princess Hera. Finn. Cillian.
I took the knife out of Merrick’s gut and drove it deep into one of his terrified eyes.
I stared into his remaining eye so I could watch the moment he understood that my soulless black eyes were going to be the last thing he would ever see.
I didn’t just see the moment he died; I felt it in my body.
The weight of accumulated anger lifted off my shoulders – a heavy burden finally relinquished.
My chin dropped to my chest as I breathed a small sob of relief. It was finished. I wiped my knife on his robes and stood. I never had to think of him again.
I stood and the room spun around me. I had trouble finding the door. Had it been one of our people or the Order who set off the explosion in the castle? I supposed it didn’t matter now. Focused on staying upright, I opened the cell door.
More stone and dust filled the narrow passage.
The glint of steel caught my attention. My sword was peeking out through the rubble.
I retrieved it and sheathed it on my hip.
I would need both hands to get over the rubble blocking my way.
Through the dust I could see someone lying at the other end near the exit.
Cillian. I scrambled over the rubble until I reached him.
I touched his dust-covered face, and gently brushed his hair aside. ‘Cillian?’ I whispered. Relief washed over me when he sighed my name.
Across the crumbling dungeon, Torgrin was attempting to open the door. There must have been fallen debris on the other side, preventing him from opening it any further.
‘Tor!’ I cried.
His dark head snapped around. ‘Caris,’ he said with a sigh of relief.
Another blast reverberated above us, and the stone ceiling split open with a chilling crack.
Terror filled me as I used the Darkness to stop the enormous slabs of falling stone in midair.
Stretching my arms above me, I focused my power through the palms of my hands as if I were going to catch the ceiling.
The roof had completely caved in above Cillian and me, and it was only my shadows keeping the stone from crushing us.
But like a dark, unforgiving nightmare, a long crack appeared above Torgrin.
‘No!’ I screamed in horror. Torgrin looked up just as the stone ceiling collapsed.
My trembling arms spread wider, halting the falling rock above Torgrin. I dropped to my knees as the effort became too much, and there was no more room to stand. An entire castle was falling down around us. My whole body shook with exertion. The shadows were becoming thinner.
Between my lips, I tasted the blood dripping down my face, from my nose and my eyes.
I cried out, trying with all my might to hold up the stone that was dropping closer, but the shadows grew wispy and weak.
My head was aching, and I was struggling to stay conscious as the rock-filled dungeon blurred before me.
Torgrin was now lying flat to avoid being crushed, and I was weakening by the second. I felt my eyes roll back as convulsions wracked my body. Torgrin was yelling at me, and I tried to decipher his words as my body continued to shut down.
‘Save him and yourself!’
He wanted me to sacrifice him. Does he know what he’s asking me to do? Cillian was still lying helpless and unconscious, unaware that our lives were in peril. I loved them both. I could never choose to let one of them die. It would tear my heart in two.
‘I can’t!’ I screamed at Torgrin.
‘Then we will all die!’
‘No!’ I moaned.
In desperation, I did something I thought I would never do. I had spent years keeping the door to my Darkness shut, only ever opening it a crack.
‘Help us!’ I screamed as I threw open the door that kept my Curse safely contained.
I inhaled desperately as Darkness spread through my failing body.
I never imagined it would feel like this.
It was like I was being put back together.
The Darkness was me. As I allowed the Darkness to put all my broken and jagged parts back together, the truth hit me.
Cillian and I would not make it out – but I could save Torgrin.
He was the only one close enough to the door, but I needed to give him more time.
I would have to move what shadows I had left to his side, but to do that, I would have to tear my heart in half.
I watched myself from the outside as if I were observing everything playing out in a nightmare. With a sob, I withdrew my weakening shadows above Cillian. His body disappeared under tonnes of falling rock.
‘No!’ Torgrin yelled.
I wept bloody tears for my sweet blacksmith with his kind, powerful hands and gentle kisses. What have I done?
Gone.
Gone forever.
I would never see or touch him again. And with that thought, I knew what it meant to want death. To want death to end my pain.
I turned my head to look at Torgrin one last time. The shadows grew stronger above us, holding the stone ceiling up.
‘I can’t open the door,’ he yelled, slamming himself against it.
The ceiling trembled and rocks fell, but the slabs above us remained in place as I focused on the blocked door with all the pain that was ripping through my ruined heart.
A powerful shockwave pushed and twisted the door, opening it enough for Torgrin to drag himself through.
I won’t have to watch him die again. He is safe now. My body, mind and heart are beyond repair, but I’m not afraid. I will be with my blacksmith.
I fell into nothingness.