Chapter 22
I sit on the edge of Nora’s worktable, a cup of steaming tea warming my hands and three thick blankets wrapped around me.
They help marginally, but there’s not much body heat left in me to trap.
Valen has left my side to sit in the far corner of the room.
His gaze is far and tea untouched. Lucas can’t take his eyes off me, his teeth clenched and shoulders tense.
I can’t bear to look at him, so I sip my tea instead.
Nora’s magic warms me from where her wand sweeps endlessly up and down. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “I don’t understand how you’re sitting here talking with me. Your…” The wand sparks when she waves it. “Soul is…”
My eyes slide closed. “Split.”
The air leaves the room. Nora’s wand trembles. “How?”
The weight on my shoulders is crushing. I sag, my spine rounding over my tea. Exhaustion hits me hard and the words can’t seem to make their way out.
Valen’s voice is a low command. “I believe it’s time you tell the truth about how you managed to successfully conduit three curses.”
My eyes slide open. I stare at the milky tan of my tea.
“Seven years ago, I was struggling with keeping my Dual Threads apart in my soul. It’s why most Duals of Creation and Entropy are culled.
The two threads war within the soul for dominance over it.
This build of chaotic magic causes the Dual to detonate in a catastrophic event.
For me, I was either going to erupt when my Creation Flame devoured my Entropy and take everyone with me in a ball of fire, or I was going to implode when my Entropy Flame sucked my Creation dry and turned me into ash and… also… everyone with me…
“In the months leading up to the naming ceremony, I was struggling so badly that I was on the verge of detonating nearly every other week. Vincentius would try to help me by channeling his Preservation magic into my soul to keep the threads apart, but doing that suppressed my magic. I couldn’t become stronger, I couldn’t learn new crafts, fuck, I could barely do the simplest of magics for weeks. It was hellish.
“Viola—” I hiccup, a sob threatening to break free “—she’d hoped that I would master both threads so they could live in harmony in a cycle.
But no matter how hard I tried, it never was a cycle; it was a battle to keep myself from killing everyone.
Viola said my only hope of surviving was to link my threads directly to the Tapestry as Heir and transcend the laws of magic.
Archweavers and Heirs have all four threads in their souls with no issue.
It was an easy solution that I was more than qualified for.
“Viola was my greatest champion. She spun so many plans, had all the Councilors wrapped around her finger. She was determined to save me. But it didn’t matter.
My father would rather I be forever suppressed under Vincentius’ power or die.
” A tear trickles down my cheek and I wipe it away quickly.
“His bastard, abomination of a child, wasn’t worthy of being linked to the Archweaver line. ”
The exhaustion is unbearable, the cold not helping.
I almost slide to the side, but manage to keep upright for the sake of the tea.
The cinnamon and ginger mixed with some other potions are keeping my stomach a warm ball within me.
I sip some more and try again. “When I cursed my brother, I had a soul debt to pay. The curse is parasitic to me. It will devour my magic and soul in order to power itself to take over Alasdair’s body, ultimately consuming him and hopping to the next Heir until the Order is unsustainable.
I created my grimoire as I performed the curse so I could anchor it within, like the priests would to keep their curses alive long after they were gone. ”
The musky scent of the archives fills my nose, the whispering magic in my ears.
The memory of hot pain and sobbing agony shivers my skin, but I push it away.
“I had such a genius plan on how to survive without needing the title or the Order, while also keeping the curse from devouring my soul. I would use the grimoire to slowly feed the curse the surplus of power from my threads, thus keeping each of them from ever overpowering the other. Only problem was that I overestimated my ability to control this feed. I’d weaken one thread too much or too little, or the curse would try to feed too greedily.
The resulting imbalances were incapacitating.
I needed a way to separate my threads like Vincentius would without affecting my ability to use magic.
That’s how I got the idea to use the corruption from the curse to my advantage. ”
Valen looks at me sharply, his eyes wide. “You did what?”
I grip my tea harder in hopes that it will keep my voice from shaking.
“Casting a curse on a weaver damages the caster’s soul.
That’s the root of corruption. I learned firsthand that it cracks the soul, but my grimoire acted as a buffer and lightened the full impact of corruption.
My crack was small, so I used my grimoire to hasten the corruption to deepen it until my soul broke in two. ”
Valen’s jaw goes slack, his pale skin deathly white.
I wet my lips, remembering how I ripped the cliff within my soul into existence.
“Cleaving myself apart was not as difficult as I feared. Horrifically painful, but manageable. Once I had my two halves of my soul, I bound my Creation Thread to one half and my Entropy to the other. It was a clever work-around to keep my Creation and Entropy Threads from devouring each other. They now had their own souls to reside in. I just had to keep carefully wielding the corruption to keep the two halves from attempting to rejoin. The soul likes to be whole, so, yeah, that was something new I learned.”
I can’t look at Valen. I talk faster, my hands aching from my grip on my cup.
“What I didn’t expect was the curse to become, well, clever?
It took advantage of my inexperience with my young grimoire and managed to corrupt my Entropy Thread.
It tried to use it to escape the grimoire, to devour my soul.
Thankfully, I have two souls now, so I don’t think it matters if it manages to take half.
Jinx is not convinced, but she’s overprotective—”
Valen’s voice rasps, “Astoria—”
I cut him off. “It works! For seven years, I lived and thrived here with my threads co-existing and my curse able to grow and consume without the soul price. It’s genius.”
“It’s madness.” He leans forward. “Where do I even begin? You ripped your soul apart? I have never, ever heard of anything like that. The long-term effects? The consequences when you perish? Astoria!”
“I’ll be dead then, so who cares—”
“And you’ve created a bloated, overfed dark magic living thing that is smart enough to try to work around the prison you made.” He rubs his forehead. “How much have you fed it?”
“I don’t know.” I pick my nail along the rim of my cup. “I never knew if it had grown enough to be noticed until today.”
His teacup clicks on the floor beside his scuffed shoes and he uses both hands to scrub his face. “Fucking madness. No wonder we’re in this mess.”
My heart pounds, a wave of sickness making my head spin. “It was that or die, Valen. I had few options when your father was too cowardly to keep his word!”
“You were starting to exhale smoke, Astoria. Of course, he was scared. We were all scared. He didn’t know if being Heir would even save you at that point.”
Lucas takes his hands out of the bowl and Nora snaps at him, “Don’t you dare! Cooked fingers go back in the potion. Now.”
The liquid splashes and his gaze darts between Valen and me.
“Let me get this straight. You have two Soul Threads and either are going to kill you? Unless you feed the curse? Which you do with your grimoire? What happens if you accidentally feed the curse too much? Or feed it not enough? Like if you’re drained of power after a big fight?
What would happen then? Can you regenerate your own magic fast enough?
Would the curse be able to crawl up your Entropy Thread after and eat you then? ”
My lips part, but there are too many questions, with no answers for me to give. I close my mouth with a quiver.
Valen sighs, his hands slipping down to cover his mouth.
He scans me. “I sensed the damage within your soul after the museum and thought it was curse corruption. I never thought it was something you inflicted upon yourself. Now the Creation is too diminished, and the Entropy is ravenous. That’s why you’re so cold to the touch.
The black flame is consuming you like it did your mother. ”
My lips tremble and I can’t answer for fear of his reaction. I fell into the black ocean of my soul. I embraced my Entropy magic and it was saturated with corruption. I don’t know what it means, but I do know the symptoms of the black flame from my maternal line’s diaries.
Lucas’ eyes are on me and I stare at my tea. His voice is hushed. “Is this why Jinx doesn’t transform anymore?”
My breath shudders, the tea sloshing in my cup. “She said it takes too much from me. She feared the imbalance. And then there’s my shop’s heart.”
Valen’s eyes flare. “Father said you use Entropy magic on it.”
I nod and gasp, my throat tightening. “It’s okay as long as I time it right. I’ll feed the pentagram six months from feeding the curse. But…” Dread fills me, chilling my bones. “Sometimes they overlap.”
“Why? Because the compulsion to feed it is too strong?”
I flinch at Valen’s snapped words. My lips thin. “I’m in control. I just did too much too fast this time.”
“Are you? What happened to make you off balance?”
Lucas is pale. “The Arachnomicon.”
My eyes brim with tears.
Lucas’ shoulders drop. “This is my fault.”
I gasp, “Lucas!”