54. Onora
Chapter 54
Onora
D eath coiled around her senses the moment her foot stepped over the threshold. A bone-deep cold blanketed her body, piercing past sinew and lancing her bones. She stumbled forward, her breath hitting the air in heavy puffs. Power radiated from the center of the temple where the body of Evoleen lay, hands over her chest, slow puffs of breath showing on the air in front of her.
Laying in a circle around her were the drained, contorted bodies of the elves in robes, their faces staring at the ceiling in horror, skin stretched over bones. The witch in the hood and a few soldiers remained, but many others lay at Onora’s feet, spread throughout the temple. Pillars surrounded the atrium, providing dark, mostly covered, passageways.
She felt someone near her and looked up to see Kalen had followed her in, his hand steadying her elbow, protective and afraid.
She darted into one of the corridors, grabbing Kalen’s wrist and slinking against the cool stone pillar, listening hard, trying to steady her breath to something quieter. She peeked around the corner and saw the witch bend down to Evoleen, pulling back her hood. Onora swallowed the gasp of horror that rose in throat as she clamped a hand over her mouth.
The witch was Hevena, the woman she had killed in Evolis. The witch that was loyal to Evoleen who had been fighting Dryston. But she was different, too. As she moved her image shifted and shimmered, like some sort of masking spell, one moment beautiful and young, the next a crone, half her face rotting and full of maggots. One moment her hair was lush and beautiful, the next it flickered thin, graying and frayed.
She sniffed, her nostrils flaring, and her head jerked up, hands coiled out in front of her as she looked around, sniffing the air. And That’s when Onora saw it—her eyes, milky white, blind.
“I can smell your traitorous bodies,” Hevena croaked out, her voice ancient and worn. “We hoped to have you here for this, what luck you’ve brought yourself.”
Onora ducked back behind the pillar, heart racing. What did Hevena mean by that?
Her head darted to the doorway as steps clanged in the hollowness, echoing off the walls, and she could have cursed as her squad entered, following her and not knowing what awaited them. Evoleen sat up, blinking her eyes and flexing her fingers. She saw the intruders and pointed a long gnarled one at them.
“Bring them to me to feast on,” she said, voice gravelly.
The soldiers rushed forward, swords brandished, and the clank of metal on metal filled the air. Onora wanted to join her friends, but she needed to sneak around to find some vulnerability. So she did, Kalen silent as a shadow as he followed, seeming to know intuitively what she was trying to accomplish.
She reached inside of her, finding those shadow powers, twining with the power of darkness from the goddess and sending it out, twining, twisting, probing. The portal opening had increased her power, she could feel it humming inside of her, wanting out. She tried to hone her senses on it like she’d seen Dryston do, and she gathered bits of information from it. A vague feeling of how many alive and dead were in the room, but nothing concrete.
The fight continued, and she peered around another pillar to look out. Her squad was winning, but they did outnumber the two remaining soldiers who looked roughed-up from the portal opening. Jackson finally ran through the last one, and he fell in a heap on the floor.
Hevena cried out angrily, raising her age-worn hand and sending out a blast of energy toward them. Onora stepped out, driven by instinct and held up her hand, wrapping it in a circle, and wind whipped up like a tornado, swallowing the energy before it could reach them, dissipating it into nothing. Hevena cried out again and turned as Onora sent another blast. Onora waved her hand to the side and the energy moved, hitting another pillar.
“I defeated you like a gnat last time, Hevena,” she growled. “I’ll turn your withered bones to dust this time.”
“You fool! You could have unlimited power, you could rule the world—worlds! And you would fight and die to try and prevent the inevitable?” Hevena cried out.
Evoleen cackled, the sound like an ancient death knell, rippling through the room and slicing through Onora’s skull—terrible and beautiful.
“She is like Evonin,” Evoleen said. “Are you there, sister? Are you still poisoning your hosts’ feeble minds?”
Evoleen promises the world life and power, only to destroy it with a flick of her wrists. This is not the first one. this will not be the last if you let her.
Onora heaved a sigh, raising her hand, flicking it to the side. In a moment, Hevena’s neck snapped, and she fell to the ground in a heap. Evoleen narrowed her gaze on Onora before leaning over, grabbing Hevena by the neck, biting and sucking her dry.
Onora recoiled, her stomach roiling.
Jackson leapt forward, ready to kill Evoleen, but Onora threw her hand up, not sure how she did it or how she knew how, but a shield locked in place, preventing them from moving into the center.
“It’s too dangerous. You all need to leave. Now.”
“Not happening,” Kalen said, gripping his sword tighter.
“Go, Kalen. Find Dryston and tell him that I lo?—”
“Tell him yourself!” Kalen barked. “Like it or not, our magic is tied to each other. If we had the whole colony here, you’d be safer. My power amplifies yours, makes it stronger. Tell me to sit in the corner, but I’m here until the end, Onora. I’m not leaving.”
She swallowed, nodding. She could see there was no arguing with him.
Let me free. I’ll give it all back to you, but let me fight her.
Evonin hadn’t let her down yet, but she still feared her—feared her power. She’d been double-crossed enough that she was afraid Evonin had been compliant and helpful only to get her here. Now that she had Evoleen, would Evonin still help her?
Will you truly? You won’t betray me or my loved ones?
It felt as if something brushed up against her mind, and in a moment she saw it all, a history spanning ages and ages, going back to a cold darkness, two girls, twins, running on a ray of light against the blackness of the void, touching stars, curling up in fiery cores as if it were nothing. Of shared hopes and dreams as they grew in power and age and beauty—Gods they were beautiful, but not how Evoleen looked now. No, she was more an idea, a feeling, an image, not a corporeal body.
She fell for a mortal that Evonin warned her against, a mortal who made her give up her power, turned her into a beast that hungered for blood and destroyed so, so many. But a being full of power and charisma.
She killed mortal people, raising armies, taking over nations, ruling the world. So Evonin fell like a star from heaven, making a crater in the world, trying to save her sister. Then she fell in love with a demon. She found Evoleen in a city on a mountain, ruling them and creating witches, giving them power that no human had ever had before. She rivaled the strongest supernatural races of the world. She spoke of unending life, at the cost of the lives of others.
She tried to get Evonin to join her, saying they would rule together, taking as they pleased, and regaining their more powerful forms.
But Evoleen was too far gone, finding joy in creating horrifying beings as pets and warping people into creatures as depraved as her. So Evonin found Lemia and they sealed her away, both giving up their lives to do so, sealing off Evolis. Evonin’s essence and the history were given to a witch who fled, passing it down for generations, fearing the day Evoleen was unsealed from her grave.
Onora removed the blocks in her mind, the ones she’d always carefully placed to keep out Evonin, and let her in. The feeling was cool—like a dip in water on a scorching day, relief and shock in equal measure.
Evonin requested control softly, carefully. Each new bit she took over she sent as a request until Onora’s body was humming with power, cold darkness drifting around her like swirls of ink, shadows dancing with it like smoke, the room humming.
Evoleen snapped her head up, blood dripping from her face, color returning to her cheeks. She was even more beautiful and terrible than Onora had realized. A perfect face and a perfect form, her smile swore seduction and pleasure, her eyes drew her in like a siren’s song. But Evonin’s grief washed through her like a tidal wave, and she had to choke back tears.
The moments that passed next were like an entire lifetime captured in seconds. Evoleen rose and lunged at Onora, but she blocked, her instincts taking over as Evonin gathered power inside Onora.
Hold her off. I’m working on something to take her out.
So Onora did. She hacked at Evoleen, who slipped away from her slashes with a liquid grace, her cackling filling the air. Kalen shot shadows at her and she wrapped them up in her hand like a wet rag and threw it to the ground. He rushed forward, and Evoleen fixed her gaze on him as he slashed down, then to the side, nicking her. She hissed, thrusting with her hand, and an invisible force hit him, knocking him against the pillar, grunting.
Onora lunged again, hacking and slashing, unable to use her powers. The focus she needed to keep the barrier intact, even as her squad beat at it, begging to help, made it too hard. Evonin spooled up her remaining power, winding it tighter and tighter inside her. She felt odd, like her body was wrapped around and wrung out, but she pushed her discomfort aside and kept at it.
Evoleen was slowly gaining more power, more color returning with each movement, baring her blood-soaked teeth in a hiss as she lunged, knocking Onora to the ground. Her claws reached out to her face, and she turned, the slash making blood bubble out.
Evoleen’s pupils blackened, consuming her whole eye as she became more frenzied, trying to lick it. Onora pushed against her, barely holding her off. She hit her with a knee in the ribs, and a crack echoed with Evoleen’s cry as she threw her off. Kalen jumped up, slashing down on her back, blood soaking her gown.
Evoleen was undeterred, though, and she slashed up, making a gash across Kalen’s middle. Shock rippled across his face as he fell to his knees, then his back, and Onora cried out in horror.
Evonin, NOW!
Only a bit more. Keep going, Onora.
She jumped to her feet, a new fury invigorating her as she ran, letting the barrier drop so she could use her shadow powers again, and she sent out a set of shadows that Evoleen laughed at as she dodged and then blocked away, missing the ones coming from behind that grabbed her arm, snapping it back and in two.
Evoleen’s scream ripped into Onora like cuts across her skin, and she stumbled back from the force of it, fighting the fear that rose up in her, strangling her at the ancient horror in front of her.
Now.
Then she was floating—they all were. Darkness engulfed the room, and she felt like she was falling and flying and swimming all at once. Light rippled around them, arcing and spinning and twirling, some wrapping all around Kalen, and even more, brighter, burning to an intense blue and crackling around her. The light turned to a blazing fire that caught on her and lit her up like fire to a piece of paper. She shrieked, the sound swallowed up by the void of blackness around them as she was singed, her body withering and then turning to dust.
Eventually the world returned, and she was on her knees, bracing against the floor, breathing hard, completely drained. Evoleen was nowhere to be found, the other bodies naught but ashes.
Goodbye, moon child. Your mother would be proud, as am I.
Where are you going?
My consciousness is fading. I will pass on to the stars and become dust, but my power will live on in you and your descendants.
Thank you.
No, thank you, Onora.
The voice drifted like a dying echo down the hall and suddenly, the presence that had always been there was gone. She felt the loss of it like a family member and she grasped her chest, as if that could assuage the ache any.
She looked around. Kalen still lay on the cold ground. Her squad rushed up to her, but she crawled to him, checking his pulse. He was alive. Then she checked his wounds—healed. She sent up a prayer of thanks, realizing it was to Evonin and wondering if gods were ever reborn. If so, she hoped Evonin had a better existence the next time around.
She looked up to Jackson. “We need to find Dryston.”
Bodies of humans, orcs, demons, and elves littered the field outside the forest. Beasts like they’d seen in Evolis were also everywhere, some still with their maws clamped around their victims. They searched the bodies as they made their way to the city, looking for anyone they knew and coming up short.
She didn’t know if that was better or worse. What were the odds of anyone surviving this?
The destruction of Venatu was dizzying as they walked over the wreckage carefully, looking for survivors. They headed toward the guild, uncertain what had happened and where everyone was. Her heart ached with each step, with each new body she saw.
They came to the city center and there were tents set up, injured people being tended to, and Onora stopped, staring in wonder at what she saw. Humans, many of them Hunters, working with demons and seraphs, orcs and satyrs, elves and goblins. A demon passed a hot bowl of soup to a woman with the dusty blue cape of a Hunter and, while it was stilted—awkward even—it wasn’t hostile.
Sun was setting over the ocean and she spied a familiar figure on the dock, looking out, with two other familiar demons standing next to him. She broke into a run, heart beating wild and fierce with hope and joy. Her feet made a racket on the wood, and they turned, relief washing over Dryston’s face as he saw her. He ran to her, grabbing her into his arms, kissing her long and hard, his hands holding her tight against him. He pulled back and brushed a hair away from her face.
“Are you okay?” he breathed.
She nodded, tears forming in her eyes that she didn’t bother to try and stop as they rolled down her face. “Yes. Yes, I am.”