Chapter 24 #2
A voice sounded through the darkness—Damen—as the earth above me shifted.
The classroom was gone, and the scent of glue and crayons was replaced by damp soil and blood.
Right now, in this place, I didn’t have to hear them.
The roots stretched and curled around me, threading through the soil, reaching upward—listening.
Through them, I could feel the vibrations, the movement, the shift in weight above.
“ What did you do ?”
“ She’s safe .” Miles didn’t cower at Damen’s accusation. Still, I could visualize him holding firm, with his arms crossed and features hard.
“ Are you fucking serious right now? ” Damen’s voice was thick with barely contained fury. “ Why did you bury her? ”
“ She’s out of harm’s way. ”
A pause. A sharp breath.
“That’s not an answer .” It sounded like Damen was forcing himself to be patient. “Where the fuck is she?”
Miles exhaled steadily. “ Where she needs to be. She’ll be back when she’s ready .”
“ Fuck off with that cryptic bullshit, ” Damen snapped. “ We don’t have time for this. ”
There was a ripple through the ground before, “Fuck, it’s back!”
What did he mean, ‘When I was ready?’
Was I ready?
I pressed my hand into the damp earth, expecting resistance, but it wasn’t there. Instead, the ground was yielding, waiting for me.
A warmth unfurled deep in my chest, and the pressure against my lungs eased. The soil shifted, moving with me, responding to something I hadn’t fully grasped yet.
It wasn’t Miles’ power pulling me free.
It was mine.
Light fractured the darkness, splitting through the soil, and the earth gave way to open air . One breath, I was buried; the next, I was back on the surface.
The battlefield slammed into me all at once.
The rush of motion and fighting as the Snallygaster moved toward Damen.
One moment, my hands were empty; the next, a solid weight slipped into my grip as if it had always belonged there.
I didn’t have time to question it.
The Snallygaster lunged. I swung .
The impact rang through my bones as the flat of my blade connected with the creature’s skull. The force sent it staggering back, wings flaring, its screech more startled than pained.
I stood frozen, breath caught in my throat, as the last few seconds replayed in my mind. Damen rushed to my side and grabbed my shoulders. My arms felt heavy, but outside of that was a buzzing numbness that threatened to pull me under.
“Damen?” I asked. What was he doing here? Hadn’t I been with Miles, watching safely from a distance as Titus unsuccessfully tried to subdue the Snallygaster?
“Bianca.” Julian’s voice cut through the haze. He ignored Damen’s glare as he pulled me carefully into his arms. His hands ran over my arms, checking for injuries. “You’re safe now,” he said. “You’re okay.”
I barely heard him.
Something across the battlefield had changed, and my attention wandered the scene until I spotted Titus.
He watched me with unreadable golden eyes and tucked his wings closer to his body. His tail, which had been sweeping the ground in agitation, curled inward before he exhaled in a deep enough sigh to stir the air.
Then, after a long pause, he turned back to the fight, his next movement sharper, more deliberate.
What was his problem?
“I…” I bit my lip, trying to focus, but it wasn’t easy with the ringing in my ears.
“You have a sword.” Damen crossed his arms, voice dry. “And you just bitch-slapped a dragon with it.”
The statement was so absurd it managed to pull me back to reality.
“What?” I frowned at him. “Why would you…”
I paused as my right hand tightened over a smooth, handle-like object. I didn’t have to look to know what it was—this feeling wasn’t entirely unfamiliar—but I did anyway.
The sounds of fighting faded as I stared at the object in my hand. The curved, crimson blade was eerily familiar yet hauntingly sad, and my attention wandered along the golden, floral engravings etched into the surface.
Tentatively, I touched it, and the metal seemed to hum under my fingertips.
Finally , something I could work with!
It was about time.
“That’s your sword,” Julian told me. “You named it Soulbringer .”
“Amongst other things,” Damen grumbled.
I rested my palm over the thickest part of the etchings. I didn’t remember, but the others were watching me, expecting a reaction, but I didn’t know what they wanted. It was mine, but it wasn’t. How could I even begin to explain?
“Okay.” Miles stumbled beside us. He was leaning heavily on the walking stick. All the fighting must have adjusted his wounded leg. “Enough time wasted; are you ready to get rid of it now?”
“If we knew how ,” Julian intoned, “it’d be dead already.”
“I’m talking to Bianca.” Miles frowned at me.
“What are you talking about?” Damen asked. “Bianca doesn’t know how to—”
Miles ignored him and covered my hands with his own. “It’s your magic,” he told me. “Somehow Kathleen could tap into it, but you created it. Only you can make it go away.”
I looked at him as nervousness settled past the numbness. “But—”
“You can do it,” he told me, and I could feel the truth in his words. He believed in me the same way I’d believed in him when I’d asked him to trap a ghost. “You’ve given me all sorts of gifts—let me give you one in return.”
“W-what?” I asked. My skin grew hot, and my pulse roared in my ears.
“ Spellslayer ,” Miles breathed between us, and a tingle moved through my fingers. As I watched, the engravings on the blade seemed to grow brighter and the handle even hotter.
And then it was over. Miles stepped back. In the meantime, Damen was frowning at the object in my hands.
“What did you do?” the onmyoji asked. “It’s already obnoxious enough as it is.”
I frowned at him. What did he have against my sword?
Titus’s white scales flashed as he slammed into the Snallygaster, his tail whipping through the air in a blur. The beast staggered under the impact but recovered too quickly, its jagged claws sinking into the ground as it twisted toward me again.
Even with Titus keeping it occupied, it kept turning toward me, like I was the only thing it saw.
Miles shifted beside me. “Don’t be nervous.”
I blinked, turning my head just enough to see him watching me.
“I’ll bind it so it can’t get away,” he told me. “Then you can go.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Go… where?”
“To stab it in the heart!” Miles explained, eyebrows raising like my question was ridiculous. “I’ll bind it, and you can disperse the energy.”
I barely had time to process his words before Julian was between us, jaw tight, as he pulled me to his side. “She can’t fight!”
A twinge of annoyance twisted at me, followed by doubt. He was right, though—I was in over my head.
“You’re her Supporter.” Miles glared at the necromancer. “How is she supposed to be confident if you can’t even believe in her?”
“I do believe in her!” Julian squeezed my hand, and his features darkened as his doubt grew. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I just don’t think she should—”
“Get a grip.” Miles narrowed his eyes. “You’re letting your personal issues interfere with how you treat her!”
“I’m not!” he stammered.
I looked between them and bit my lip. They seemed ready to fight, but for what reason? Could it be exhaustion?
Everyone—except Titus—seemed worse for wear.
Conversely, the dragon seemed to have gained a second wind, and his slowing movements quickened.
I wasn’t sure what his problem was, but since Miles had sucked me under the ground, he’d gotten into such an uproar that he wouldn’t even look in my direction.
He lashed out at the Snallygaster with a heavy paw, and ivory claws slashed across the beast’s chest. Green blood poured from the wound, and it stumbled slightly, but it had already begun healing by the time it regained balance.
“Ready?” Miles asked again, but I was on my way before he’d even finished speaking.
What did he say—to stab it in the heart?
My sword was as long as my arm but weighed less than a feather. Moving with it was effortless. I couldn’t be distracted, so I focused only on the creature that’d somehow come from my childhood drawing.
It was almost sad. It was rare that I put that much effort into a project, and I still could feel the anger I’d poured into it. That thing had been my masterpiece, and it was a shame to destroy it.
But it wasn’t meant to be in this world, and people had gotten hurt…
I had no choice but to let it go.
The monster seemed to recognize its fate and met my gaze with a wild, confused look. Just as I raised my blade, it froze, its limbs locking in place.
I paused and noticed Damen and Julian beside me before spotting a line drawn in the dirt encircling the battle. Miles stood just outside the barrier, his eyes shut and his lips moving in silent incantation.
As it was no longer a threat, Titus, who’d been on the Snallygaster’s back, jumped away from the monster and landed beside Miles. There was something heavy in the air as Miles’s chanting slowed, and as I watched, the Snallygaster lowered its head pathetically to the ground.
“Now,” Miles shouted.
The urgency in his voice barely registered. My fingers curled tighter around the hilt of my sword as I stared at the thing in front of me.
The Snallygaster’s form flickered, shifting from solid to something less real—almost ghostlike.
But it wasn’t a ghost. It was energy and magic clinging to this form. Refusing to let go. That was why it couldn’t be killed.
It wasn’t alive in the first place.
I didn’t know how it happened—or how Kathleen had come by it—but this thing existed because I’d created it.
“Why would you do that?” Damen’s voice cut through the haze. “Now she’ll think it’s a spirit and feel bad for it. What if she wants to keep it?”
“You mean like you did?” Julian shot back.
Their words drifted into the background as my pulse roared in my ears. The Snallygaster didn’t lunge, didn’t attack. It only watched me, hunched low, wings half-spread, as if waiting for me to decide the next move.
Miles knew. That was why he’d given me this gift.
Spellslayer.