Chapter 46 #2
But Skatia did not listen. With a wordless snarl, she launched herself at the false Mother, aiming to thrust her dagger into the smaller woman’s heart. But her blade passed straight through the apparition.
There was no resistance at all—no flesh, no bone. The Mother-shape merely vanished, merging back into the darkness.
And then Skatia disappeared as well, unraveling just as the true Mother had. Gone.
“No!” Talia scrambled forward on her hands and knees, lungs dragging in panicked, empty breaths. Smoke still clung to the spot where Skatia had been a moment before—a thin, curling ribbon drifting upward.
Desperately, she tried to catch it. But the smoke slipped through her grasp, insubstantial, fading with every pass of her hands, until there was nothing left at all.
Skatia was…was gone.
“Who are you?” That question sliced through her gasping breaths, cool and composed.
Talia froze and lifted her head.
Mariana now stood near the center of the circle, dark hair spilling over the shoulders of her crimson gown, hands curled protectively over her stomach. Golden eyes bright and steady, she stared up into the abyss. “Who are you?” their princess repeated.
The darkness coiled once more, twisting back into the shape of the man Talia had first seen—tall, beautiful, Arathian. But this time, when he took form, something about him had grown.
His presence loomed larger, filling more of the Underworld, as if there were simply more of him than there had been before. His shadow stretched in every direction. He smiled again, his lips peeling back from teeth too sharp to be human.
“I have been known by many names over the centuries,” he said, his voice deepening with every word spoken until it rattled straight into Talia’s bones. “Death. The Defiler. The Deceiver.”
His eyes began to glow. Red seeped into the gold until they burned like coals smoldering in his skull.
“My favorite name,” he continued, “is the current one you mortals have assigned me. One you have perhaps heard, Princess.”
His shape flickered.
Armor materialized over his skin, knitting itself out of shadow and bone—bones from humans, bones from animals—all locking together in a grotesque display until it covered him from head to toe.
“The Bonesinger,” he whispered. The word slithered through the dark like a curse. “The Kunishi have such a way with words, do they not?”
Silence fell.
No one moved. No one dared breathe.
His gaze swept slowly across the gathered Sisters. When it passed over Talia, she felt as if cold hooks were dragging across her skin, peeling her open to peer inside, to see if she was yet afraid.
“Let there be no mistake,” he continued, biting out each word. “I am your lord. Your master.” He spread his hands. Between his fingers, embers danced. “It was I who breathed the last dragonfire into your lungs! It was I who gave you this power!”
Louder now, he thundered, “It is I who will take it away should you cross me again!”
He swept his arm toward a cluster of witches Talia vaguely recognized as those stationed in Elmoria, the ones the Lady had first chastised. His burning eyes narrowed.
“You,” he hissed, leveling a finger at them. “You will bring me the Lightbearer’s head.”
Talia’s brow creased. Lightbearer?
Before anyone could speak, the Sisters stationed in Elmoria vanished. They didn’t unravel. They didn’t turn to smoke. They were simply no longer there. The space they had occupied folded inward, the darkness rushing to fill the gap.
Talia’s stomach twisted.
The Bonesinger’s attention shifted. His gaze found Mariana again. A slow smile coiled across his face, full of sharpened teeth and approval. “You,” he purred, gesturing lazily with one bone-clad hand. “You will continue to prepare Drakmor for my arrival.”
Mariana bowed her head. She winked out, gone like the others.
Talia swallowed a whimper.
Then his eyes found her. “You.” Her heart stopped.
The Bonesinger extended his hand, and this time the gesture encompassed her and the others from Mysai—Yara, Nadia, Shula. “You will find me what I need. Now!”
The last word cracked through her like a bolt of lightning. The Underworld shattered.
Talia’s body jerked. Her lungs convulsed, suddenly remembering how to breathe. She gasped, choking on smoke that wasn’t there, on the smell of ash and salt and blood.
She was on her back, lying in the street of Mysai.
Stone pressed against her shoulder blades. The sky stretched above her—a sheet of deepening blue, streaked with the last bruised colors of sunset. One by one, stars were kindling in the twilight, winking into being as if nothing at all had changed.
Except everything had.
Had it truly all been a lie? Was there truly no Lady Below at all? Only a…a man?
She tried to make sense of it all as she stared up at the four silhouettes looming over her: Malik, Hazim, Skatia’s Witchsworn. Their names escaped her. Her Sister went through them so quickly.
The men stood like statues, dull eyes fixed ahead, waiting to be commanded. Whatever had just happened in the Underworld had touched only the Sisters, not their Witchsworn.
Her heart seized. Skatia.
Talia rolled to her hands and knees. Her stomach churned, nausea sweeping through her. Bile burned the back of her throat. Nearby, a puddle of crimson silk shimmered in the dying light.
“Skatia!” she cried, scrambling across the stones.
Her Sister lay on her back, staring up at the sky with eyes that saw nothing.
Talia’s hands shook as she grabbed the other woman’s shoulders, hauling Skatia’s upper body into her lap.
“Skatia, wake up,” she whispered, giving her a gentle shake. “Do you hear me? Skatia, you will wake up. You will—” She choked on the words as her vision blurred. It was pointless. She knew that.
Skatia was already gone.
The Bonesinger had killed her. As easily as snuffing out a candle.
A sound tore from Talia’s throat—half sob, half scream. She bent over Skatia’s still form, clutching her tighter. Her former mistress. Her tormentor. Her…her almost friend.
“At least tell me what I am looking for!” she screamed into the twilight, her voice cracking. “Tell me and I will find it!”
For a heartbeat, there was only the echo of her own voice.
Then something moved in the back of her mind.
A scrape. A breath. A chuckle that was not so much a sound as a sensation—like claws dragging along the inside of her skull.
A heart, my tantruming child, the Bonesinger rasped.
Her vision darkened at the edges. Her thoughts plunged downward, deep beneath the earth. Then she saw it—the thing the Bonesinger was hunting—not with her eyes, but with something deeper.
A picture unfurled inside her, vivid and strange. Resting on a stone slab was a heart like none she had ever seen. It was dark purple, as if carved from pure amethyst, larger than any living heart had a right to be. Its surface looked like crystal, faceted and gleaming.
But unlike mere stone, this heart was alive.
Light pulsed inside it, throbbing weakly at its center, as if something trapped within still fought to beat. To live. She smelled the tang of dragonfire.
Old, stale, like smoke trapped too long in stone.
A dragon’s heart, the Bonesinger whispered, stopping her own in its tracks. The very last.