17
Caged between Raelion’s jaws was Evernight’s Dream Temple. A great fire was burning within it, sending smoke drifting between his teeth. And there in the middle, perched above his serpent tongue, was Mithras.
Mithras’s eyes were ruby jewels, smoking with the same fire that burned within Raelion’s.
“Like calls to like. The darkness recognizes it is home,” Raelion rumbled, and it was no longer just Raelion speaking—it was Mithras, too. Combined, they were identical to the voice inside my head. “Together, we will remake the world.”
Seven huge chains sprang from Raelion’s body, tipped with long, brutal spears. Each quickly found its home in a Weaver’s chest, piercing through their sternums and wrapping around their wings.
“No!” I screamed.
The sound was torn out of me, raw and high and useless.
The Weavers fought to escape, thrashing violently, but the chains could not be shaken.
Raelion’s arms—too numerous to count—ripped free from the earth where they were hidden, grasping dreamers as they, too, tried to fight.
To flee. To do anything at all. I tried to harness the shadows, willing them to rise and overtake Raelion, but they wouldn’t move.
Something inside me was screaming—or perhaps I was screaming. Not words, just pure, wild panic.
No. No.
Something was dying deep within me, something soft and sacred. I couldn’t catch my breath. My stomach turned to ice, then fire, then something worse—something that wept and thrashed. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. It was like staring into the face of death, except this was more than death.
This was desecration.
“We will claim all the world has to offer; the pleasures of the flesh and the pleasures of the incorporeal,” Raelion snarled, his voice all-consuming.
“With your power, we will be unstoppable.” He snaked a claw around my chest, pinning me in place as he’d done with the other Weavers.
I tried to meet his eyes, but there were hundreds of them, all gleaming wickedly through whorls of shadow, glass, and bone.
When I flinched, Raelion’s mouth lifted into a smile.
I could almost see Mithras inside his maw again, but not quite.
“I no longer wish to wear your skin, Shadow Weaver, so do not squirm. As the one who can magnify my power, I need you alive.”
“Then take me,” I begged, sobbing through clenched teeth. I felt as if I were falling inside my own body. As if I were fracturing. “Take me and let the others go.”
My legionnaires were scrambling to escape, but he had gathered most of them now, netting them with my own shadows. He was working through me, bending my will to his own. The shadows trembled, resisting valiantly, but he was able to gather enough to serve his needs.
Raelion’s mouth lifted again, the curve of it all wrong. “Oh, but I already have you.”
Cries of pain filled the air, agonized, panicked, begging. They scraped against my ears like shards of metal, making me feel lightheaded. Blood. There was so much blood. Shadow-tinged blood. Fire-tinged blood. Blood of every Weaver. Of every dreamer.
We’d lost. We’d lost.
I could feel Raelion’s twisted magic running through me, using my power as he deemed fit.
When he was just in my head, it had been difficult to shut him out; he’d coaxed the darkest desires from the depths of my soul, encouraging me to live out the most depraved parts of myself.
To be strong, brave, and utterly, entirely cruel.
But now that he was in front of me, curling a massive claw around my waist as if he owned me, it was impossible to deny Raelion’s influence.
The other Weavers were still desperately fighting against their chains.
Fenrir had become an inferno, erupting thick, vicious flames down the chains.
For a moment, the metal glowed red-hot, smoking as the flames cut deeper.
But in an instant, they were back to normal, completely untouched.
They could not be broken. And then there was Nephthys, her beautiful face contorted in anguish.
She sent a blast of ice my way, and for a moment, I thought she’d aimed it at Raelion’s claw.
I tensed, hoping she’d strike true, but a blink later and it was very clear that she wasn’t aiming at Raelion at all.
No, she was aiming her ice-coated blades at me.
A dozen thin, deadly spikes careened toward my exposed face and armored chest.
My breath caught as I realized what was happening.
She’s trying to kill me.
I mentally reached for my shadows, commanding them to protect me, but my tether on them had already snapped.
Raelion was in complete control now, and I was at his mercy.
I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing for the worst; but then Raelion simply covered me with another claw, blocking me from the impact.
The twelve icy spikes shattered as soon as they touched him, completely harmless.
Raelion truly had become more god than demon.
He was Citadel Evernight, he was the land that stretched beneath the Nocturne, and he was the shadows that were both poisoned and purified.
And now he’d captured the Weavers and the only legionnaires who stood a chance at defeating him.
My legionnaires.
The dreamers who trusted me to keep them safe.
The dreamers who had died to be where they were in this moment.
Ceveon and Sorren were struggling mightily against Raelion’s claws and the tempest of shadow he kept slamming down upon their backs.
They were like rag dolls in a tornado, wings ripping apart, skin breaking, and clothes tearing.
Some dreamers were trying to flee; some were trying to fight.
Others still were trying to reach me. I screamed at them to run. Fly. Save themselves.
Do anything but save me.
“Traitor!” Nephthys screeched. She thrashed against her chains, her great sapphire wings beating furiously behind her, but it was useless. “Look at how he protects her!”
“He’s protecting me because he wants my power!” I shouted back, tears streaming cold lines down my face. “I would never betray you!”
Raelion laughed; it was a deep, rumbling sound that rattled my bones and made me want to scream.
It was over.
The thought dropped like a stone, dull and final, and everything inside me cracked around it.
I had failed. Eden, Elliot. Mother, Father.
The Weavers. The dreamers. Erebus. Every name was a blade, sinking in slow and deep.
I had carried them with me like torches in the dark, standing at the edge of the abyss and believing I could defeat it.
But now the abyss was laughing. Now it wore fire in its eyes and chains in its hands.
My breath came in shallow gasps, ragged and useless.
If only I’d been stronger, more adept at resisting Raelion’s call.
If only I’d waited. For Maker’s sake, if only I’d listened to Mithras.
I let out a quiet sob. Like the sound a soul makes when it starts to go quiet inside. When it realizes no one is coming.
“This isn’t the end, Weavers!” Lelantos shouted, his voice like thunder. “Fight!”
But in a blink, the Weavers’ power shattered.
Fenrir’s inferno turned to a pathetic hiss of smoke, just as Nephthys’s torrent of ice melted to a slow, steady drizzle.
Ceres’s rocks crumbled; Lelantos’s great winds immediately died.
Even the triumvirate of time Weavers, though ancient and powerful, were reduced to nothing.
Time couldn’t be manipulated, nor could it be weaponized.
The chains were draining them of their magic and channeling it elsewhere.
Somnus cursed the demons, Fenrir cursed the Maker, and Xander cursed our vain efforts. Ceres cried, Nephthys raged, and Lelantos howled. Theia was silent, hands clasped as if in prayer.
Raelion opened his jaws, teeth as sharp as blades and grin as deadly as lightning. At once, the Dream Realm quieted. Mithras walked to the edge of Raelion’s mouth, ruby eyes bright and smoking. When he smiled, it was eerily similar to Raelion’s. And when he spoke, they were one and the same.
“We are the future, the makers of a world that deserves to be remade in our image,” Mithras and Raelion said at once.
Raelion’s voice rumbled under Mithras’s; the effect was terribly disconcerting.
The Weavers collectively shuddered; horror, revulsion, and shock splayed across their faces.
Something in the combined weight of their words rendered the Weavers unable to speak.
“The forgotten who have toiled in the dark for too long. The monsters left to rot in the incorporeal.”
The claw around my waist tightened, and Raelion lifted me so that I was level with Mithras.
“We will rise. We will conquer. Nevermore will the Maker be your god. Nevermore will we permit your souls pleasure and life.” Mithras’s red eyes flickered. For a brief, unbelievable moment, I almost thought he was crying. But that couldn’t be right.
“And—”
“Never will you touch her again,” roared a furious voice.
Erebus, great wings outstretched, slammed his shadow blade through Raelion’s claw, severing it with a hard, vicious sweep.
The next few moments were a blur. Erebus held me tightly with his left arm as his right furiously bade every shadow and every dreamer still conscious to fight.
Raelion’s hold on the shadows slipped, and they immediately went after his numerous arms, splitting them down to bloody stumps that were half demon, half citadel.
Raelion thundered, slamming his jaws open and shut.
With a great shake of Raelion’s head, Mithras was sent tumbling to the ground.
He landed hard on a rocky patch of earth, scrambling to stand even as another claw fell and nearly crushed him.
His eyes were red, smoking—and then they weren’t.
Raelion’s chains rattled; their hold on the Weavers was weakening. One final push and the chains would finally break, freeing the Weavers. Even our legionnaires were beginning to escape back to our castle, led by Sorren and Ceveon at Erebus’s command.
But then Mithras started to laugh.
He doubled over in great racking fits, laughing so hard that his entire body shook. Tears streamed down his face, dripping atop the rocks at his feet in bright, sunlit flecks.
“Come closer, Shadow Weavers,” Mithras howled, spreading wide his arms as he continued to laugh, gold tears streaming down his face. Agony and mirth, mingling in a twisted dance. “Come and take your revenge!”
Erebus snarled in disgust, diving toward Mithras in a cloud of rage. A warning bell was clanging deep within my soul; we should be focusing on freeing the Weavers, not blindly attacking Mithras in a fit of vengeance.
“The Weavers—we need to get to the Weavers—”
But before we could reach the shore, Mithras drew his sword, an enormous gilded blade, and engulfed us in a beam of light.
A light so bright that it burned us a path back into consciousness.