Chapter Thirty-three #2
He warned me, but I didn’t believe him. Couldn’t bring myself to.
She’s gone? Gone?
The word echoes. A death knell to the fragile hope I had clung to through every trial, every death, every moment of despair.
My throat burns. My sister. My bright, laughing Elara. Used as leverage in this monstrous game. All of this … for nothing. My vision narrows, focusing only on the smirking face of the woman who stole everything from me.
“You promised me,” I choke out. “You said you’d bring Elara back. Why show me her spirit, only to go back on your word moments later?”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Madame Vera shrugs. She turns and walks away from me. “It’s just not possible, dear. Are you ready to go, Taron?”
Not possible? “Of all your lies, that’s the most unconvincing one,” I say.
She pauses. Tilts an ear in my direction.
“You’re off to resurrect your ancestor, aren’t you? If you can bring him back, why not my sister?”
“Because, dear girl,” she says, turning slowly, smiling pityingly at me, “resurrection requires power. From both sides, the resurrector and the resurrected. My ancestor, Valerius, is a powerful Soulreaper. Your little sister, the poor thing – she’s weak.
Couldn’t lift a finger to defend herself when I took her soul. ”
It starts as an eruption of energy in my veins, then spreads to my fingertips. Pure, venomous rage. It bleeds from my pores, something thick and black and fiery. The energy coils around me, a dark ribbon encasing my body like armour.
There’s no way I’m going to let her walk away.
“We had a deal,” I whisper.
“You, on the other hand, are nothing like her,” Madame Vera tells me, head cocked to the side as she examines me from top to bottom. “You’re a talented elemental. Strong and determined. I knew you were perfect for this mission the day I laid eyes on you. A little thief with long fingers.”
“I’m not a thief,” I insist. “Not any more.”
“I’m afraid that’s not how it works, dear child.
” She chuckles, and the sound makes my skin crawl.
“Thieves weave their own threads of fortune, but the constellations always reveal the reckoning of justice. For even the stars hold thieves accountable in the grand cosmic design. I believe it was the great Astrovoyant, Elynda Galewright, who once said that. Wise words indeed.”
“What does it mean?” I ask. When Madame Vera only responds with more laughter, I look to Taron for an answer.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “I didn’t know.”
Didn’t know what? I feel like screaming. But it all becomes painfully clear when she waves at me, laughing gaily.
“Good luck,” she sings. “You’ll need it for where you’re headed. The palace dungeons are a dreadful place. Take it from someone with first-hand experience.”
“The dungeons? What do you mean?”
“I told you before, dear, I’m a ghost. Once Taron and I leave here, we’ll vanish. I’m sure the High Council will be disappointed that I once again managed to slip through their slimy fingers, but you should be a good consolation prize. At least they’ll have someone to condemn in the public eye.”
She’s leaving me behind to take the fall?
“I’ll be tried against my life,” I wheeze, then I turn to the Astrals. “Stop her. She’s made her wish. Surely, you’re no longer bound to the tournament?”
“We are bound until Aurora Isle returns to the ocean’s depths,” the Astral in blue says sombrely, her voice like running water. “We may only act if tournament laws are broken. Has she violated any rules? Interfered in any way?”
“Maeve and Wren,” I whisper. Then louder. “We’re not the real Maeve and Wren from Moondance Haven. Madame Vera had us steal their identities.”
The Astrals share a renewed look of shock. Still, they don’t move from their position under the tree.
Madame Vera scoffs, idly twisting the Necroseal around her pinkie.
“You poor, na?ve thing. You think I’d be that careless?
Rules are like fences. Walk beside them, run circles around them, and you’re fine.
Only when you cross them are they considered broken.
I never laid a finger on the real Maeve and Wren.
You and darling Taron did. You alone incapacitated them.
You stole their invitation, took forged sigils to carry out your lie.
You stepped into their names. I merely informed you of where their watercraft would be passing. Ergo, I never broke any rules.”
I turn to the monocled man, my eyes pleading for his assistance. It’s the Astral in green who finally speaks. “She is correct, I’m afraid. The deception was yours alone. The breach lies with you, not her.”
My blood ices over.
Taron was right. Madame Vera takes care of everything.
“This can’t be right,” I say. I realize I’m shaking. “Taron?”
He only stares at me, face hard as stone. Madame Vera clicks her fingers at him, and he doesn’t move. I want him to resist. To fight against her grasp, but then he turns.
His limbs jerk unnaturally as he sets after her, as if every step and gesture is a painful struggle against the invisible chains that bind him to her will.
“We’re not done here,” I snarl, and my voice sounds distant, deeper, not quite like my own. And then suddenly it’s all too much. The pain, the grief, the fear.
Every negative feeling from the last few days comes rushing over me like a cloak of raging, blackened fire.
I close my eyes and throw back my head, and the energy forming an armour around me crackles and swirls. It responds to my will, sparking and building. It ignites a familiar rage. Spawned from a dragon, burrowed in the depths of a monster.
I cling to it, and I call upon it, over and over again until I hear the sound of crumbling stone and a ear-splitting roar from behind me.
Forcing its way through the narrow passage of the temple’s entrance is the Nightshade.