Chapter 22 Svenn
The cracks in the floor spread like spiderwebs. I have seen Rhianelle angry before. I have watched her call upon her dark patrons and the gods she carries in her blood.
But this is different.
This is wrath.
“Shade!” Her voice breaks on his name, raw with anguish. The sound of it cuts deeper than any blade Ruth could wield against me. She loves him. The Grimsbane assassin with his sharp tongue.
Eirik Bloodhound wrenches his sword free from Shade’s chest, and the assassin crumples. Blood spreads across the stone beneath him, far too much of it. Rainer is there in an instant, catching him, his face twisted with something I’ve never seen before.
Fear.
But I can’t focus on them. Ruth will regenerate soon. The wounds Bas and I inflicted are already closing, and it will not be long before he rises again.
Lilith laughs, the sound high, cruel, and delighted.
“Did you see that?” she asks. “Did you see your precious little friend fall? This is what happens when you defy me, little queen. Everyone you love will—”
Her words die on her tongue.
Rhianelle is walking toward her. There is something in my wife’s eyes that makes even Lilith take a step back.
“You think you frighten me?” Lilith tries again, but her voice wavers. “I possess a powerful vessel now. Morgaine’s magic, her strength, all of it belongs to me. You are only an elf. A broken little girl—”
Rhianelle is unbothered by Lilith’s words.
“You’re nothing,” Lilith spits, but I can hear it now. The fear creeping into her voice. “You’re—”
The ground splits open. The stone floor of the throne room tears itself apart, and something begins to rise from the depths.
Two enormous gates emerge from the chasm, dragging chains and fragments of blackened stone behind them. They are carved from bone and despair, covered in ancient symbols that writhe across their surface.
The gates of Hel.
Mal rises before them. One of the Unyieldings. One of the forgotten gods.
He is tall and his face is half-hidden beneath a hood woven from shadow. Bone gleams where flesh should be, and hollow eyes burn with pale blue fire.
I have seen him before, standing in the snow when Rhianelle freed me from Lilith’s curse. But seeing him now in the full glory of his power, with nothing restrained, is different.
Behind him, the gates yawn open.
I have witnessed kingdoms fall. I have survived wars, plagues, and horrors that would shatter mortal minds. Nothing compares to what waits beyond those gates.
The screaming pours out first. Millions of voices, every damned and lost soul crying out at once. Shadowed hands reach through the opening, clawing at the edge of the Hollow as though desperate for anything still living.
This should be impossible. Rhianelle must already be exhausted from opening the paths to Astefar and calling its creatures into our world. Now she is summoning the Un as well. She is stretching her power too far.
Rhianelle stands at the center of it all, silver hair lifting in the wind pouring from the Hollow.
“Little queen,” Mal’s voice echoes, ancient and amused.
“I have a gift for you,” Rhianelle says to the guardian of the Hollow.
Mal’s hollow eyes settle on Lilith, and his smile widens. “Oh, how delightful.”
Lilith goes white. The color drains from her stolen face so completely she looks like a corpse. I see pure, undiluted terror in her eyes.
“No,” she whispers. “No, you can’t—”
Lilith tries to run.
It’s pathetic to watch. This creature who’s tormented us for millennia, scrambling backward like a frightened child. She makes it three steps before a small figure materializes in front of her.
Blight.
The child-god with silver hair and lilac eyes, the one who looks like Rhianelle did as a little girl. Blight tilts her head, and her smile is all innocence and cruelty.
“Going somewhere?” Blight asks sweetly.
Lilith veers away, her movements frantic now. She runs blindly across the broken throne room, only to collide with the old witch from Astefar.
Lilith stares at the Un and laughs. The sound is high and incredulous.
“This?” She turns to Rhianelle. “You summoned a grandmother? You called upon the gods of Astefar and they sent you an old crone?”
She gestures at Elli with open contempt.
“A bent old woman who can barely stand on her own? I expected something fearsome, little queen. Something worthy of the power you claim to hold.”
She hurls a bolt of shadow at Elli’s chest.
It dissolves on contact. The darkness simply ceases to exist, as though it has aged a thousand years between Lilith’s hand and Elli’s skin.
Lilith’s smile falters.
She attacks again, harder. A wall of black fire races across the floor. Elli does not move. The flames reach her bare feet, flicker, and die. Ash drifts where fire once burned.
The enchantress lunges for Elli with shadow-clawed hands.
Her attack never lands. The moment Lilith’s fingers come within an inch of Elli’s skin, they begin to wither.
The darkness peels from them like dead bark from a rotting tree.
Lilith snatches her hand back with a hiss.
Her fingers tremble, the skin loose and spotted before it slowly tightens back to normal.
She stares at her hand. Then at Elli. “What are you?”
The old woman smiles.
Every child raised in the old world knows her name.
An old story whispered beside mortal hearths.
My mother used to tell it. How Thor challenged Elli to an arm wrestle, laughing because she was old and frail.
He stopped laughing when she forced his fist to the table.
I was seven when I asked my mother why the god of thunder lost.
She said strength has an end, but time does not.
Thor, mighty enough to shake the heavens, learned his lesson. I have a feeling Lilith is about to learn it too.
Elli simply looks at Lilith with those ancient, knowing eyes and reaches out one gnarled finger. She touches Morgaine’s face. Time accelerates and the enchantress begins to age. Smooth skin wrinkles, darkens. Hair turns gray, then white. Decades pass in heartbeats.
Lilith screams as Elli’s touch continues its work, aging the mistress’s body toward dust and death.
“No!” she shrieks. “Not this! Anything but this!”
Lilith has always been obsessed with youth, beauty, and perfection. She rips herself free in a rush of black smoke and shadow, abandoning Morgaine’s body to save herself.
Morgaine collapses the instant Lilith tears free. The Fae King abandons his fight with Rainer and scrambles toward Morgaine as her knees give way. He catches her before she strikes the floor and pulls her against his chest.
Morgaine stares at her aged hands.
“I am old,” she whispers, shame and horror breaking her voice. “Eirik, do not look at me.”
“You are beautiful,” he tells her, cradling her face between his hands. “You will always be beautiful.”
Morgaine makes a sound that is almost a sob. Her trembling hands come up and grip his wrists, holding on.
Around us, the battles continue, but everyone feels the shift in power. Wolf and Garrett have Cedwyn pinned between them, the last Aeonian thrashing against their hold. Rainer kneels over Shade, desperately trying to keep the assassin alive.
Beside me, Bas remains standing. Blood runs from his nose and ears. Breaking Lilith’s control is destroying him from within, but he refuses to yield.
“Arescaine, finish this,” he says quietly, his voice strained. “Finish him.”
Movement jerks against my grasp. Ruth’s chest rises with a sudden breath, and his eyes fly open. He is a Strigon like us. Death cannot hold him.
He snarls and struggles, strength returning to his limbs as quickly as his wounds close.
I look at Bas, then at the open gates behind Mal. An idea passes between us without words.
Bas seizes Ruth’s other arm. Together, we drag my brother toward the gates, toward the Hollow.
Ruth’s legs scramble for purchase. He understands a second too late where we’re taking him. My brother twists and fights.
“Lilith!” Ruth screams as I drive him back, back toward the gates. “Lilith, help me!”
“Please!” Ruth calls again, fear finally breaking through his voice. “Help me, Lilith! I did everything for you! Everything!”
Lilith does not even look at him. She is too busy fleeing from Blight and Elli, searching desperately for some path of escape.
Betrayal twists Ruth’s face as he finally understands that he was always disposable. He was always just a tool.
“You abandoned me,” Ruth whispers, and for just a second, I see my brother. Not the monster or the sadist. I see him as the boy he used to be, before Lilith corrupted him.
“You said I was special. You said—”
“She lied,” Bas says quietly. “She always lies, Ruth. That’s what she does.”
Ruth spits blood and looks up at Bas with a smile. “At least she never bored me the way Gwyn did. Tell me, do you still think about her? I do. I think about the sound she made when—”
Bas roars.
The sound carries thousands of years of rage and pain. He tears Ruth from my grasp and hurls him toward the gates.
Ruth strikes the edge of the Hollow. His fingers catch the lip of the gate, clawing desperately for purchase. Below him, I can see the dwellers of Hel, the damned. They reach upward with pale, skeletal hands, hungry for fresh suffering.
“Arescaine!” Ruth’s eyes find mine, and they’re desperate now. Pleading. “Brother, please! Don’t let them take me! We’re blood!”
“We were,” I say quietly. “A very long time ago. Before you sacrificed me for her.”
I don’t push him. The hands from below do it for me, dragging him down, down into the screaming dark.
His last words are a curse, but I don’t listen.
I am already turning, searching for Rhianelle.
Lilith’s wraith streaks across the throne room toward her. Shadow claws lengthen from her hands, reaching for Rhianelle’s throat.
Shit.
I will not reach her in time.
A sword flashes between them.
Landon stands in front of Rhianelle, placing his body between her and Lilith’s claws. He can barely remain upright, but his sword remains steady.