Chapter 13
“Azrael!”
My voice carried over the din of mangled limbs thrashing behind me in the voluminous quagmire of disgusting ichor.
Bastien was holding his own—a feat that just a few months ago I would have thought impossible— and I had only a moment to witness what was transpiring across the chamber before the Umbral’s horde of twisted nightmares would overtake us.
Muttering an incantation under my breath, I pinched the wound on my forehead closed, if only to stymie the stream of blood that threatened to blind me. My magic was nearly expended with no end in sight to this madness.
I had brought us to our deaths, here in the heart of the Cradle.
How fitting that the holiest of places would become our tomb.
It was enough to bring laughter bubbling up inside of me.
I would die in the very place that I loved so dearly, along with nearly everyone left on this wretched plane whom I harbored affection for.
“Look out!” Bastien yelled, and I felt the air move strands of my crimson hair as I sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the tendril of darkness that had sought to skewer the back of my head.
I spun on my heels, unleashing another blast of cerulean lightning into the teeming mass.
The offending limb shriveled to ash, dusting the ground with a stygian streak.
From a distance, I could hear Sancha speaking, but her voice was so soft.
So weak. It nearly fractured my soul to hear it in such diminished spirit.
I turned once again, risking another attack, and froze as the light of the Source began to dim, eclipsed by the spreading darkness that leaked from Sancha’s body, infiltrating the crystalline structure.
“No,” I admonished, hands tightening to fists at my side.
My worst fears had been spot on. The Umbral had been after the Source this entire time, and Sancha was its key to summoning it.
What would happen if the Umbral were allowed to snuff out the light of the Source?
Would magic as we know it cease to exist?
Would the sun itself be the next target of this ravenous evil?
It had already devoured the stars. Would it consume until there was nothing left?
Azrael caught my attention next, his body rigid and his features contorted in pain. Was the Umbral trying to take him once more? Bastien and I stood even less of a chance against someone like him. We’d be crushed.
As if on cue, Bastien’s back pressed into mine, bracing as he lashed out with another attack that met with squelching result.
“I can’t keep this up, Cirian,” he gasped, grunting with the force of another strike. “We have to move.”
“We can’t leave them,” I said, hooking an arm through his and spinning him around so that I faced the undulating dark.
Magic coursed through my veins as I spoke the words that gave it life, lightning crackling into existence above my palm before streaking at the shades.
The mass let out a chorus of hisses, shrinking back from us for a brief moment before the onslaught could begin anew.
“What’s happening to him?” Bastien asked over my shoulder.
“Haven’t the foggiest,” I replied, pressing my back against his till he started to move. We needed to put as much distance between us and this abomination as possible, even if that meant walking directly towards our end.
“He’s… glowing,” Bastien breathed. “Did that happen before? When you pulled the Umbral from me?”
“Can’t say it did,” I said, stomping out a wriggling tendril of darkness that crawled forward from the piles of slickened ash. “The tether didn’t work, so this would be the perfect time for that beautiful brain of yours to come to our rescue.”
“I’m out of my depth,” Bastien admitted, a measured amount of defeat saturating his words. “We’re witnesses to things never seen.”
“The first and last, if we’re not careful,” I corrected him, eyeing the slowly advancing gelatinous mass. “We need to make a break for Azrael on my count. Agreed?”
Bastien grunted in response, and it was enough to assume his acquiescence.
“Now!”
I spun once more, the two of us taking off towards the altar and the others.
My eyes locked on Sancha just as she spoke once more to Azrael, wishing that I were close enough to hear her.
My heart sank as her grip failed on the glowing tether, her body slumping over.
The light had faded entirely from the Source’s altar, the swimming darkness spreading to occupy the entirety of the sacred stone.
“No!” I shouted, my legs pumping faster still, till they ached with exertion.
I had to reach her. I could still fix this. Still keep the ones I loved from…
Azrael turned to me then, the blinding light from the Source brimming under his tanned skin till it poured from his eyes and his mouth. I saw it spread, running down the tether that wrapped around his arms, and straight towards—
Warmth hit me like a wave, stopping me in my tracks. It was at once familiar and alien, comforting and unsettling, electric and stagnant. It was all-consuming, yet whispered to me like the gentlest of voices.
I had felt this presence before. Had grown to crave it, those days between communing. The Source was here once more.
And I was intended as its vessel.
The realization dawned alongside the vastness of the power that filled the cavity of my chest. This had been Sancha’s plan all along.
She’d allowed the Umbral to bring her here, to channel the Source itself to this place, but not to gift it over to the darkness.
She wanted to give it a new place to dwell—a vessel of flesh and blood.
As the searing light suffused my every fiber, my mind was drawn back to the days of my childhood, when I first visited the Cradle.
My mother and I had been summoned from El Shaddith by the cardinal herself.
She and Mother spent long hours of hushed conversations in Sancha’s office, and I was far too young to comprehend anything they discussed.
Sancha spoke of prophecies and purpose, of the one who was to allow the Source to walk the Expanse once again.
Years later, when I was old enough to understand such things, she told me the secrets that she and my mother kept from me.
I was not just her Acolyte in training, but something more.
One who would not merely speak with the Source, but welcome it to be bound in flesh should the need arise.
After nearly thirty years, I had all but forgotten the promises made. And yet, here it was, racing down the tether at me as Sancha lay lifeless on the ground, blood spilled on the altar of her own beliefs.
I wasn’t ready. I would never be ready. To accept the Source was to accept the power of a god. No one should be trusted with such power. Especially not someone as ill-qualified as me. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be—
“Calm your mind.”
The voice echoed through my mind as the world surrounding me crawled to a stop. For a moment, I thought myself dead as I watched my body standing on the ground below, but then a familiar figure drifted into my sight, and I knew that this was nothing more than an unplanned trip into the Ether.
“You should have told me this was your plan,” I said to the shimmering image of Sancha as she approached.
“We both know you’d have never agreed to it,” she replied, a small smile creeping across her full lips. Here in the Ether, her frame wasn’t battered. She appeared almost normal, as if this were nothing more than one of our trivial conversations that would often draw into the evenings.
But we both knew that wasn’t the case. This was a farewell, and I could see it written all over her beautiful face.
“I’m glad that the Source has blessed me with this final gift,” she continued, gesturing down at my body below. “I have been looking forward to this since the day we first met. To be able to witness you transcend is the greatest honor of my lifetime.”
Of course, this is what she looked forward to. It was selfish of me to believe she wanted otherwise for me. I was her acolyte, after all. She was my teacher. Nothing further. Yet, as I looked upon her, my heart ached as if she were so much more.
Something deep within me fractured, spilling forth words I had held at bay for decades prior.
“I can’t do this, Sancha. Please. I can’t… I can’t lose another mother.”
Sancha paused, her stony demeanor cracking for a fleeting moment as she stared at me.
The woman who commanded the greatest respect, who could silence a room with a mere glance, who managed to best an entity as powerful as the Umbral at nearly every turn—merely smiled at me.
Drifting closer, she reached out both arms, and for a moment, my mind went blank.
What was she doing?
She embraced me, her body lacking the warmth I expected, but I could feel her arms wrap around me, pulling me close.
It was the first time she’d ever embraced me in all the years I had been her acolyte.
I was stunned into motionless silence, the tears that had threatened to fall streaming down my cheeks, only to lift off into the Ether as shining spheres of twinkling light.
“No matter what happens, Cirian. No matter what the Umbral obliterates, it can never take away how proud I am of you.”
The tears came heavier then, and I clung to her, as if I could keep her from what was coming next with the strength of my embrace.
“This cannot be goodbye.”
“Things are what they are. You know this to be true. The Church will be in your hands now. Even more so when they realize what I’ve done. They will not understand it at first, but I know that you will show them the way.”
“Please, Sancha. I can’t do this without you. I’m not ready.”