Chapter 42 Consummatum Est
CONSUMMATUM EST
A perfect outcome is the only impossibility.
Caedisterra, God of Blood and Balance
The air is tense and icy while they stand haloed around the Doorway. Waiting for Triche. Waiting to kill. Waiting for death.
At least one of them won’t make it out, and it’s too late to change the plan. Cassius has already left. He and the High Sage are likely on the way back.
This is it.
Starlake towers behind them, and Claudia wishes they could run inside, lock the doors, draw the curtains, and pretend there’s no world outside those walls.
She wishes she could take it all back—all of it.
Her bargain with Sidarphion, her love with Cassius, her friendships with everyone around her.
For the first time, she confronts the idea that it may not have been worth it, that maybe this is a worse fate than the one she’d been dealt before she traded her soul.
The wet wind whistles and howls. Claudia’s fingers twitch around a needle in one hand, and pages of celestial spells in another.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Alistair, his hands trembling around vibrant potions and elixirs.
Angel stands at his side, his arm around him.
They look at each other for a long time, knowing this could be the last time.
Will it be one of them? Oh gods, will it be Alistair? Claudia can’t stomach the thought. Alistair turns his head and meets Claudia’s gaze. His eyes are glassy, his face hopeless and afraid.
“I love you, Claud,” he mouths.
“I love you, Alis,” she mouths back.
She looks down at the pillowy, lake-fed grass at her feet, for she can’t bear to look at him anymore. It hurts too much.
“Don’t you dare die on me again,” Marcherie whispers to Odette. Odette strokes Marcherie’s hand with her fingers.
“It won’t be me,” she says.
That comment echoes in Claudia’s ears. What makes Odette so sure? What does she know that they don’t? She’s about to ask, but the Doorway shimmers. Metallic resonance fills the air.
Cassius steps through first, his face pale as milk as he rushes to Claudia’s side.
High Sage Triche follows. The Doorway closes behind him. It takes him but a second to realize the position he’s in. Shock slaps across his face when he sees Claudia. His jaw hits the ground when he sees Odette.
He doesn’t look afraid, though.
Brows raised, mouth wide, he looks intrigued. Maybe even excited.
“Well, well,” he says with an incredulous laugh. “I must admit, I’m impressed.”
The six of them close in on him, fingers twitching with magic.
Claudia is supposed to deal the first strike. She should have already done it, but her arm locks up. Her teeth chatter.
She can’t. Not when their plan will get one of them killed.
“There’s a way out of this, Triche,” Claudia spits out. Odette glares at her when she deviates from the plan, but it’s all she can think of to give them all a chance to survive.
She’s going to offer him a deal.
A bargain.
Claudia sets her jaw. “You can walk away alive and unharmed if you let Sidarphion go free.”
Laughing, he looks at everyone in the group, ending on Cassius and Claudia. “You think you have the power to bargain with me? Students, let us be rational.”
“This is our offer. I’d suggest you take it, Gieffroy,” Cassius says.
Bewildered by the sound of his name, the High Sage says, “Cassius, my sweet boy. You don’t want to hurt me.”
“But I have to,” he says, soft but stern.
“Last chance, Triche,” Alistair says through his teeth. “Do you want to survive or not?”
“Do you want to survive, Mr. Salone?” he counters, glaring at the group. “Do any of you? To me, you all look to be begging for death.”
White power burns and builds in the High Sage’s hands.
“I’ll make a counteroffer for you all. I do not enjoy needless bloodshed, and I do not need all of you dead.
” His pointed finger swings between Odette and Claudia.
“Give me Claudia or Odette. Both fed their souls to the god. Either one will do.”
The six of them exchange glances. Some look shocked, horrified, disgusted, but Odette looks intrigued, as though she’s seriously considering it.
“Choose, and the rest of you will go free. Refuse, and all of you will die.”
No one speaks. No one moves. The clouds speed across the sky, marking their time running out.
Triche smirks. “What will it be?”
Cassius straightens his spine. “We will not—”
“Me.” Odette steps forward, untangling herself from Marcherie. Looking back, she says to the group, “You’ve all lost me once. You can do it again.”
“NO,” Marcherie shrieks, lunging forward and throwing her arms around her love. Her scream is followed by a chorus of protests from the rest of the group, but Odette silences them with a wave of her hand. She hugs her lover tightly, one last time. Marcherie sobs into Odette’s silky blond hair.
Odette whispers something to her before turning away, back to Triche. “Take me.”
A wicked smile spreads across the High Sage’s face. “Excellent.” He extends his hand, still glowing with power. “Come.”
Head hung, Odette slowly approaches him. As she steps away from walking through the Doorway, Odette’s hand hovers above Triche’s.
Her face is sad and solemn when she turns back to regard her friends with a final, parting glance.
Then, she smirks. Looking at Marcherie, she mouths, “Now.”
And Marcherie releases a piercing, deafening, bloodcurdling scream just like the one she used against Claudia as they fought over Odette’s grave.
This time, Alistair’s immunity potion protects her.
None of them are stunned, but Triche is.
Odette uses this small slice of time to deal the first strike.
Sculptor, Hydra: To Become the Beast. Magic envelops Odette in a cloud of opaque shadows, and when they dissipate, Odette takes the form of the snake from Claudia’s nightmares.
She looks even more terrifying in the light, her scales white and sharp as teeth.
Those violet eyes match the sky. She lunges for Triche and takes a bite from his chest, tearing open his robes and exposing his pale, scarred skin.
With another bite, she rips through his flesh, bringing him to his knees as pieces of his torn skin curl like paper in an open flame.
Triche looks at all of them with complete, utter rage.
He smiles.
The battle has begun.
As the echo of Marcherie’s siren song hangs in the air, Triche’s eyes are shaking, darting back and forth like a nervous animal.
Where Odette bit him, a black stripe of burned skin sizzles from his right shoulder to his left hip, and the edges of his robes glow with green embers.
Only a few feet away from where Odette and Triche stand, Claudia and Cassius gag at the scent of charred flesh curling in the air.
Claudia squeezes his hand once before pulling away and casting Telescopium, Vulpecula: To Induce Visions of Madness.
The paper upon which it was written shimmers until it turns to thick green smoke.
It darts across the sky toward Triche, then burrows into his nose, his ears, and his wide-open mouth.
Thin streams of blood drip from every point of entry, and Triche collapses farther onto the ground, wailing in agony. Odette’s form shifts back to human.
Claudia’s eyes cut to Odette across the clearing. She flashes their stellinguistic spell. “Now?”
Odette shakes her head. “Weaken him further.”
Claudia nods as Cassius screams her name.
She turns, but she’s too late to move as Triche leaps toward her with unexpected strength.
A spell on his lower abdomen, half covered by the shreds of his robes, glows as he seems to pull color directly from the sky, wielding the twilight like a whip.
This is the first time Claudia realizes that he doesn’t have to speak the spells that are carved into his body to use them—those spells are part of him, as much as a hand or a heart. They respond to his instinct.
Fuck. This means they won’t even know what he’s casting while he’s doing it. It’s going to be harder to combat and defend than they thought.
He brings the whip down on Claudia, cutting her face from cheek to chin.
The magic seeps into her blood and turns her entire body cold as ice, freezing her in place.
She can’t move or scream when he charges her.
Just before Triche’s whip lands another strike across her body, Cassius comes between them and says, “Optorqueo.”
To twist. To turn. To betray.
Triche, bewildered, stumbles back as Cassius’s command forces him to turn the whip on himself.
Cassius makes him mutilate himself for a whole minute, earning as much time as he can while Claudia grabs a healing potion from her pocket, uncorks it with her teeth, and drinks it down even though it tastes like poison and feels like glass sliding down her throat.
It works, though—the cut on her face stitches itself back together, and her body warms and untangles from the spell that held her in place.
Odette rushes forward, casting Cancer, Canis Major: For Ice and Teeth.
The spell erupts, its magic reaching for Triche, but it dissipates the moment it touches his skin.
The magic backfires, chilling Odette to the bone and shattering her needle into a thousand tiny shards. She shrieks, falling on her back.
Terror tears through Claudia’s body. It looks like she was right—Triche does have some celestial immunity, and they don’t know which constellations won’t work against him.
Claudia and Odette shoot each other knowing glances across the clearing. They know what this means—it’s possible that their stellinguistic spell won’t work.
It’s possible that one of them will be the one to die.
As dread builds, Alistair and Angel swallow bright blue potions that provide Herculean effects. They strike in perfect synchronicity.
Sometimes, simple brute force is more effective.
Triche is strong, but the six of them are stronger in their own way—for now, at least. They’ve taken their buffs, swallowed their potions, and used up spells, but it’s almost over.
Claudia stands back, going over their stellinguistic spell with careful eyes, praying to any and all listening gods that it will work.
“Malevimus, help me,” she murmurs.
Triche is weakening. They need to force him into the lake.
The six of them close in on Triche, forcing him to the very edge.
His legs are shaky. His body is covered in burns and blood.
Claudia gives Marcherie a subtle nod, and the singer dives into the water, ready to become a true siren.
Triche tries dealing out a few more blows before crumpling with exhaustion.
“Cassius,” he heaves. “Everything I’ve done has been for you and your family’s legacy. You will lose everything if you lose me.”
“You’re wrong. Claudia is everything, and you tried to take her from me.”
“You cannot want her more than you want revenge on Sidarphion. I do not accept that. I know you, boy. You’re driven by that undying need for justice. She”—he points at Claudia—“cannot give that to you. She cannot give you anything you need. You will never become a god.”
The stellinguistic spell trembles in Claudia’s hands. She and Cassius share a look, and he gives her a soft, reassuring smile.
Looking back at Triche, Cassius says, “Neither will you.”
At the center of the lake, Marcherie pokes her head out of the water.
Her siren eyes glow with magic. As she rises farther, her shoulders emerge from the lake.
She takes a deep breath and releases an alluring, haunting melody that could bring whole ships to the bottom of the sea, each sailor wearing a smile upon their death.
Even though they all took elixirs to make them immune from the call, Claudia’s knees still go weak.
She still feels a slight tug on her heart, pulling her toward the beautiful, enticing witch.
Triche is no match for Marcherie’s music. At the start of her song, his eyes become wide and wet like those who witness one of Dolericym’s recitals. Powerless to resist, he turns toward the lake and smiles like a madman when he takes his first step into the water.
“Come close to me, love. I am what you dream of.”
Triche trudges through the lake, the glittering surface rippling around him. The farther he walks, the higher the essence rises around him. When it reaches his chest, Claudia, fighting off the trance, clears her throat and reads the first line of their stellinguistic spell.
“Like Cassiopeia, your body will hang upside down.”
The lake bubbles and splashes around him.
“As punishment for your murder, rage, and pride.”
The waves look like hands reaching for him and pulling him down.
“Here, with this lake as our Eridanus, you will drown.”
He’s swimming now, in too deep to stay standing. Within reach of Marcherie, the siren sings, “Taste the magic of dreams. Sink, sink, sink, far beneath.”
Claudia takes a deep breath to say the final line of the spell.
Just before sinking below the lake’s surface, Triche surprises them all by releasing a louder, more guttural scream that takes physical form in the air. His voice becomes a set of teeth, and they sink deep into Marcherie’s throat, ripping out a chunk of sinewy, fibrous meat.
“NO,” Odette screams. She tries to dive into the water, but Cassius stops her. He knows Triche will kill her if she gets too close.
Marcherie, voiceless, clutches her throat as the blood spurts out.
Phantom hands reach out from Triche and pull the siren close to him.
He shoves Marcherie under the lake and holds her there, little bubbles of air rising above her.
He turns back, smiling as Marcherie’s blood stains the surface around them.
FUCK. Fuck. Claudia can’t finish the spell without trapping them both. There’s no time to reach them, no time to change the spell, no time to make a new plan. Claudia has to decide—is it worth attempting to save Marcherie? Or should they cut their losses now—kill Triche, grieve later?
They knew that one of them wasn’t going to make it out.
They all knew.
This was a fate they were prepared to accept. This is the way it has to be. Marcherie cannot be saved.
Eyes heavy with tears and apology, Claudia looks at Odette.
But Odette is looking at her the exact same way.
“I’m sorry,” Odette says. There’s no time for Claudia to question her before Odette drives a dagger straight through Cassius’s heart.
Blood blooms like a flower on his white shirt, around the hilt of the blade sticking out of his chest. He falls to his knees, eyes wide in disbelief as life spills out of him faster than he can scream.