40. Cress
When Geo carried Carly away and she screamed, so did the torchbearers. It was the scene of a horror movie with the gore washing into the lake as the water flowed over our feet. With the retreat of the mer with who they thought was Willow, the dry stretch to the ocean gate closed and splashed eddies of pinkish foam over the battlefield.
When the echoes of screaming faded, the torchbearers dropped weapons and spells, eyes glazing over to blank, zombie-like stares. Phaeron placed his sword aside and grabbed the soul of the nearest one, untying it from Myuna’s control. “Do you see what to do?” He asked in Soiluirian.
Braza answered with affirmative from my lips.
“Madigan!” Phaeron shouted. The woman’s red-clad head turned his way. “Carly’s lost control!”
“Arms down,” she shouted. Her fighters echoed the order and took the cue to stop fighting, watching with unease as the torchbearers that were still alive went limp, and some collapsed bonelessly with their purpose gone.
I let Braza take control for now and she turned on her soul sight. While I was disoriented by the sudden double-images overlaid behind everyone, their souls appearing like auras except larger and with more vivid and varied colors, she knew exactly what she was looking at and what to do. While she worked, my suppressed thoughts came back up from where I’d buried them during the battle.
That’d been my sister saying those awful things. I couldn’t get her hate-filled stare out of my head, aimed directly at me. Even though I knew, logically, that she was as much a victim as the torchbearers we’d had to kill, it hurt. She’d suffered and become this shade of herself…a servant brainwashed to believe Myuna’s side was just.
“If we can remove the seed of corruption planted in her soul, she will return to the girl you know,” Braza said privately.
“That’s a big ‘if.’” Though Lucas had been able to save the less afflicted souls, who knew if he was powerful enough to erase the full and malicious intent behind Carly’s deep corruption.
Phaeron had been able to confirm that Lucas had rescued those people from unnatural status, returning their souls to the state they’d been in before encountering a dread goddess. There were no others with magic twisted into a new form, like Lucas, but also none so deeply changed as Carly. “If she remains unnatural, then what?” I asked.
Braza sighed deeply. “Another big ‘if.’ She may have to be contained in a library, depending on if she develops a hunger for souls. Otherwise, she would be monitored for the rest of her life and fed bits of powercore energy to stave off any possible cravings. In the best possible scenario, Lucas removes Myrna’s influence completely and Carly becomes fully human again.”
After the pain of having her soul warped by Myuna…well, I hoped my sister would be okay as her normal self. “Now that I have power, here you are begging me to let it go,” she had said. But I didn’t know if that was her deepest wish, twisted by corruption, or a true reflection of how she felt within.
“While there is no harm in speculation, we have one last fight ahead of us,” Braza said, cutting into my thoughts. Our allies helped move the unconscious torchbearers we’d saved first, dragging them away from the lake. Then came the dead, pulled out of the water before they could sink into the waves.
Though many of us had been hardened against such a sight after the awful fights that’d occurred with countless unnatural creatures over these long months, fighters and medical personnel alike wept over several of the fallen. The air had changed. We were all that was left in the whole of this pocket dimension, other than Myuna. And I was afraid more would be sacrificed to see this through to the end.
I looked around for my men, coven mates, and friends. Phaeron was a few feet away, wringing water out of his hair. For a few moments, I saw him with Braza’s soul sight and paused. Son of night became a lot more literal all of a sudden.
Phaeron’s soul was a rich, velvety black, with a flicker of white that arched toward the top. The patch of Endaeron looked like a crescent moon at the right angle and I expected the piece of my soul we’d swapped with his mating bite would look the same way. Yet instead, I saw my light coming through in pinpricks, like his soul had been carved from a starry night.
I blinked and the sight was gone. He’d noticed my stare and tilted his head. “What has you so spellbound, my heart?” he asked.
“I’ve never seen your soul before now.” I searched for a way to describe it other than pretty, considering how he could wax poetic about my own. “It’s like a peaceful night. One I could get lost in.”
There was a flicker of interest in his expression, before he pressed his lips together tightly. “Tell me more soon,” he said, edging closer and showing me the rune-etched edge of his dragon scale. Braza shivered within me in recognition of the holding place for the other half of her soul. It felt a lot like anticipation and hope for her fresh start.
He slipped it back out of view as Auric approached us, growling. “The more time we spend dawdling, the more prepared Myuna will be for us,” he snapped in Soiluirian.
“I told you, I don’t want to go until Geo is with us,” Phaeron said.
“This is not what we agreed to. You told me we were killing the ascendant, not trying to save her.”
I glanced away from them, pretending not to understand. I looked around again for all of my friends. They’d come together, everyone alive if a little scuffed. Ben had his back turned to Bianca, who was applying a healing rune for him on a gash over his shoulder blade.
Phaeron spoke to Auric much more patiently than I would have. “Plans change. We did not expect to save any lives today, yet we have. Peace, old friend. Myuna will be rotting again on the planet she destroyed before you know it.”
“She deserves to die a true death. Her soul ripped to shreds, unable to enter any semblance of the next life,” Auric said in a tone of pure acid. “I wish I were strong enough to do it.”
“You will still be responsible for ending her reign of terror here before it begins. We could not send her through the Void without you.”
“That still does not bring back Geryn. Fuckin’ hell, even if Myuna dies today, that does not give Geryn or any of the other lost souls a single ounce of rest,” Auric muttered.
Phaeron rested an arm on his shoulder and I felt his sympathy and understanding. They remained that way for a few minutes, until Madigan and her men checked in with us about the plan. “Geo should be back any minute now. Once he is, we will empower Cress and be ready to go,” he said.
Madigan nodded to me and nerves fluttered in my belly. They intensified with every beat of my heart as it sank in: this was truly it. Either my circle held off Myuna long enough for Auric to send her through the Void, or we all died. Not just my life and those of my men were at stake, but also the lives of almost everyone I cared about.
“It’ll just be like what we practiced,” I murmured to myself.
My friends came over to cluster around me. Ben seemed to pick up on my headspace immediately, wrapping his arms around me for a quick hug. “Just think, in a few years we’re going to be talking about that one time we fought a goddess,” he said.
“And won!” Roe exclaimed, staggering me with a slap on the back.
I looked around at them all, still amazed that everyone had stayed to fight, other than Ambrose, who’d engaged in a different kind of battle halfway across the world in King Laiken’s undersea court. Willow had shed the heavy armor disguise and stood in the lake up to her knees. Water wove around her delicate trident, forming spheres that rotated around her body like moons to a planet.
I felt such an overwhelming surge of gratitude seeing even my most gentle friend ready to face a dread goddess. “You all are the best,” I said, swiping under my eye. “We’re going to do this…we’re going to get through this together.”
Ben reached out and squeezed my hand, static brushing our anam cara marks. “Together,” he agreed. I managed a tense smile for him.
When Geo landed a few minutes later, he found me between Ben and Phaeron, his discarded shield gleaming at our feet. I met his quicksilver gaze with hope and he shifted into human form to cup my cheek in a warm hand.
“How is she?” I whispered.
He pressed a kiss into my hair. “She is with Lucas now. Though Myuna blustered, she didn’t do anything to harm her,” he said.
I flung my arms around him, sighing with relief. “Thank you.”
He hugged me back, squeezing gently. I looked up to see a meaningful glance pass from him to Phaeron. “What did Lucas say?” the dimensional asked.
“That Myuna’s corruption is very distinct inside her soul. He promised to do this best to remove it,” Geo answered.
“Once she is gone, his task may be easier,” Phaeron mused.
An impatient noise nearby had Geo stiffening, turning to glare at Auric’s darkening face. I put a hand on his arm. “It’s all right. We should get moving,” I said to my men, who nodded.
After days of practice, we had found a pattern of sharing our magic and abilities that worked best. First, Ben and I shared our witcheries, with him taking my celestial side and me taking his blood runes. I cut myself on my sword and lifted my sleeve to paint the runes for strength, agility, and speed on my skin, before putting a tiny healing rune over the cut to close it fast.
Next was Phaeron, whose knowledge of swordplay mixed with Braza’s shadows and magic to lend me the skills of a shadowborn.
And finally was Geo, who changed back into gargoyle form and gave me as much of his endurance and stoicism as possible. He bent and offered me his crystal shield.
“We’re ready,” I told Auric in a two-toned voice.
He grumbled in his native tongue as word traveled through the group of fighters. We gathered in a tight semi-circle at his direction and the weight of many expectant gazes seared into my back. I can’t mess this up. I won’t.
When he raised his arms, shimmering magic in shades of sapphire and gray spread from his feet, flowing around us. It moved like mist, getting under the layers of my clothes to chill my skin. I clutched Phaeron’s hand as the Void closed in around us. He’d done this before, walked the endless nothing for what could’ve been an eternity, and come out on the other side okay.
It was over in the time it took to blink twice. We went from a bloodied beachside to the remains of the audience chamber where Myuna sat upon the dais, towering over us in her glowing white splendor. When we’d first came here before the Crown Coven, I’d thought it was beautiful, with the artful display of the seven affinities of witch magic. It’d been built to impress all seeking an audience with the highest coven in North America.
The battle and resulting occupation by a ravenous goddess had wrecked it. Auric had dropped us in the middle of the long path that led to the dais. Instead of a placid pool with splashing sculptures to our left, there was a crater littered with shattered cement debris. Dried blood stains turned much of the sides brown.
To our right, the carefully cultivated soil with its verdant display of flowers and herbs was turned over, finger-shaped furrows marking where huge hands had combed all living matter free of its home. The domed roof overhead had long lost all of its glass, with the metal frames hanging and looking like they could fall at any moment.
Myuna wasn’t the only one here. A dozen figures stood below the dais, their heads jolting up as she noticed our sudden appearance. Her shocked gaze moved unerringly to Phaeron and me standing hand in hand and she opened her mouth to scream. Though Braza quickly plugged my ears with shadows, everyone else covered their ears to block out some of the unholy sound.
“You stand before Myuna the White, the reaper of worlds!” she shrieked. Her voice shook me to my core, resonant with power, madness, and countless souls crying out through her cavernous open mouth. “Throw down your weapons and prostrate yourself for my mercy, or face the end!”
Despite Geo’s steadiness grounding me, I still felt my heart thumping hard against my ribcage as I stepped forward, raising Flame until its tip pointed at her heart. “Myuna!” I shouted. After the deafening force of her, my voice felt like it was emerging through water. “I, Cressida Rollins Darkmore, challenge you to a duel!”
The mist of the Void seeped under my feet, spreading in freezing eddies toward the dais. My arm trembled as Myuna observed me with a sneer. I only had to keep her occupied for a few minutes, long enough for Auric to do what he needed to. Strains of laughter danced in and out of my ears.
Braza flared her power, wrapping me in shadows of black and purple when Myuna eased off the dais, standing to her full height. “It is you. No matter how much I tried to twist fate, this moment has arrived all the same.” She reached toward the sky, harnessing a beam of light and holding it, shimmering and pulsing, in her hand. “It seems I must destroy you myself to be free of this wretched prophecy. I will fight you, she who would mate the son of night. And to keep all of these friends of yours busy, they will fight my followers.”
Each of the men and women behind her had flares of cold white light in their eyes. Most dashed past Myuna at a full run, weapons lifting. One, a near-naked man, rippled with a shifter’s transformation and expanded rapidly with a roar. Crimson scales coated his elongated neck and ridges grew over his back. He spread leathery wings and blasted a superheated wave of flame directly at me.
Myuna smirked, firelight flickering over her milky eyes. “Oops,” she said. I felt her attempt at being playful in the headache that rushed through me when I became shadows and reemerged a few yards to the side.
We hadn’t come here to fight fair, so I wouldn’t expect Myuna to either. It was in her very best interests that I get “accidentally” turned to ash. I raised the crystal shield, shouting, “Let’s see if you have better aim than him!”
For a moment, her gaze was unfocused. Sounds of battle raged around us and I waited tensely for what she’d do next. Just keep her attention. Don’t let her any closer to souls she could consume.
“I got it!” I heard Roe announce. She ran as fast as she could in her orange crystal armor, intercepting the dragon shifter’s head. As he inhaled to breathe another gout of fire, she nailed his jaw in an uppercut and Myuna stirred, baring her teeth like the dragon did.
She took a step toward me and I retreated, facing her back to the rest of the group. I would soon be pinned between the dais and the far wall, but my breath was beginning to mist with each exhale. The Void was so close, I could practically taste the madness and its taunting words, hanging just out of the range of hearing.
Myuna flipped the ray of light around her arm, its point now forming a spear that jabbed at my face. Braza’s power blew away from my body when I leaned to the side, feeling the sear of intense light so close to my skin. When I whipped a set of sharp shadow tendrils toward the goddess’s exposed arm, they dissipated into nothing moments from contact. Braza cursed in my head. “Her power is a counter to mine. Try using Flame.”
I flowed into the first form of a fighting style that’d barely seen the light of Earth. When Myuna jabbed for my heart, I deflected her light and shoved with my shield, following through with Flame to cut a jagged line into her forearm.
To my horror, her skin gaped open in bloodless, hanging chunks, as if she were made of paper mache. I caught a glimpse of her hollow black insides before the rip closed on its own, the skin flowing back together in moments. There was no sign I’d hurt her at all, not even a grunt of pain.
“Do you see now what it is to face a goddess?” Though she’d pitched her voice to whisper, it still boomed over me. She grabbed her spear in both hands and drove it downward toward my skull. With the sear of light so intense, I barely gathered enough shadows to move sideways and reappear a few feet from the impact of her impossible weapon.
She checked the momentum and swung to the side, hitting me against the shoulder. My robe took some of the blow, but I felt the white-hot agony as my skin burnt and crisped underneath it. My hold on my men’s powers wavered when I needed them most.
“Keep moving,” Braza urged. There was no way to easily paint a healing rune on myself, given the location of the wound.
I took to the shadows before Myuna could try to skewer me again, regrouping up on the dais. God, it stank up here, like fear, piss, and rot all smeared in a ghastly mix. “We just need to disarm her. That spear is too intense,” I said, hoping she’d get angry when she saw me standing so close to her throne. Her legs had left indents in the tile and metal from sitting there for so long.
In one way, I was in luck. Myuna threw her weapon at me and it disappeared in a burst of sunlight when I ducked aside. I groaned in a mix of agony and dismay when she held her arm toward the sky and a new shaft of light began to form in her palm.
That was it. “Phaeron!” I screamed, unknowing of how he was doing in the fight below. He read my intentions and responded immediately, creating a thick cloud of black shadow to blot out the encroaching sun.
The only light in the chamber now was from Myuna herself, her sickly white radiance doubling in intensity when the sunlight faded from her hand. She clenched her fist with a furious bellow. “If you insist on interfering, then I will have every head in this room in addition to hers,” she announced.
Her body warped, arms stretching out of their sockets first. She became longer, thinner, a towering eldritch horror with sharp talons of light erupting from her fingertips. Black slits opened in her torso, over her arms and legs, and even her forehead and cheeks. Mouths. Countless sucking mouths.
“Oh god, oh shit,” I said under my breath. I lunged forward and dove into the shadows, emerging inches from her grasping hand as it tried to close around the nearest ally—a doctor helping a badly burned guardian witch. They stood back at what they’d thought was a safe distance, before she proved that whatever she was made of, it was stretchy enough for her to reach anywhere in this chamber.
Her hand bounced off my shield, which rang with a discordant note. I looked down in dismay as it vibrated intensely enough to spread a web of cracks through the inside of it. If I was lucky, it could take one more blow before it shattered into crystal confetti.
I felt a shiver wrack my figure. It was so cold all of a sudden, turning my sweat to ice against my skin. Only the burn on my shoulder remained a throbbing, angry patch. Myuna crushed it when her massive fingers curled around my body, her arm whipping back into its socket with a recoil that shook my brain around my skull.
Myuna loomed over me, black mouth gaped in a smirk. Her booming voice shook me further as I gasped for air in her crushing grip. “You see now that you cannot win.” Black spots crowded the edges of my vision when first Geo’s magic slipped from my grasp, then Phaeron’s and Ben’s.
The shield slipped from my grasp, shattering with the delicate tinkling of small pieces of glass. Flame fell next, but I didn’t hear it clatter. I did notice the nothingness of the Void enveloping us both in its freezing embrace before she seemed to.
“No prophecy can spell the ending of a goddess such as I.” Without the acoustics of an audience chamber, her many voices rang hollow. “How foolish I was…to believe…”
My vision was fading. I gaped for air and painful prickles coursed over my skin head to toe as I just couldn’t find any to fill my lungs. Myuna squeezed me instinctively now as she turned her gaze to the Void.
“This cannot be!” she thundered.
In one last act of defiance, Braza spoke to her, mind-to-mind. “The prophecy never said you would be killed. Only defeated. Soon you will know only the rot of Soiluire and I hope you choke on it.”
Her pale irises focused on me, the prize she crushed in one hand. “You insolent—no. I shall know the taste of you first.”
Myuna lifted me and I fell face-first into her mouth’s pit.