Chapter 22 Svenn #2
Lilith’s shadow form gathers itself into something almost human. “You think you can stop me?” she hisses. “You are half-dead, maimed, broken—”
“I’m not broken,” Landon says simply, and he smiles. “The hand my king took? That wasn’t my sword hand.”
He attacks.
Even wounded and bleeding heavily, he matches Lilith blow for blow. Every slash of his sword cuts through her shadow form, making her scream and recoil. She tries to slip past him to escape, but he’s always there blocking and driving her back.
Back toward the gates.
“No!” Lilith shrieks. “You can’t! I’m eternal!”
“You belong with the Fallen,” Landon grunts. With one final strike, he sends her stumbling backward, right to the edge of the Hollow.
Right where Ruth fell.
The hands reach up again, eager, and they find her. They grab her and start pulling her down. Lilith screams in pure, primal terror.
“Help me!” she begs. “Someone help me!”
Her eyes scan the room desperately. They land on the Fae King.
“Eirik!” she shrieks, her shadow form writhing as the hands of the damned drag her deeper into the Hollow. “Eirik, please! I gave you power. I gave you everything!”
But the Fae King does not even look at her. He remains on his knees beside Morgaine, pressing his face into her white hair and murmuring words of comfort while the enchantress weeps in his arms.
Lilith’s face contorts with rage and terror. “Fine! You were always weak anyway!”
Her gaze swings wildly, landing on the Un.
“Elli! Mal!” Lilith begs. “Please! Don’t let them take me! Not to the Hollow! Not to—”
Elli’s expression remains unchanged while Mal watches impassively.
“Blight!” Lilith is sobbing now, her shadow form flickering with desperation. “Sweet child! You understand mischief! Chaos! We’re alike, you and I! We both enjoy the game! Don’t let it end like this!”
Blight giggles like Lilith just told the funniest joke.
The hands pull harder and Lilith sinks deeper.
“Sebastian! Bas, you loved me once.” She’s screaming now, her voice ragged. “I know you did! You were devoted! For what we had, help me!”
Beside me, Bas stands perfectly still. He wipes the blood from beneath his nose with the back of his hand, then lowers it without a word. His face is expressionless, carved from stone.
I feel something twist in my chest. Pride and relief. Bas is finally free.
Lilith sees that she’s lost him. Her eyes find me.
“Arescaine!” My name is a sob, a scream, a plea. “We were family once! Remember? The six of us? We stood together! We ruled together! I made you strong! I gave you power! Don’t you remember?”
“I remember,” I say, and my voice comes out cold. “I remember you corrupting us, using us like puppets. You turned Ruth into a monster and drove Vlad insane.”
I meet her eyes. “I remember my thousands of years in a labyrinth because of you.”
“I can make you human again!” she tries desperately. “I can break the curse! Isn’t that what you always wanted?”
She begins chanting desperately. The words spill from her in a frantic rush, ancient syllables scraping against the air. Pale light gathers between her lips.
I did want to be human once. There was a time when I would have done anything to regain my mortality. That was before Rhianelle. Before I had someone who made eternity worth enduring.
Lilith’s eyes widen as the hands drag her lower. “Please, Arescaine. Please, you bastard!”
I don’t move. I only watch as the hands pull her deeper.
Finally, desperately, she looks at Rhianelle.
“Please,” she whispers, and for the first time, she sounds small. “Please, have mercy. I know I hurt you, I know I—but please. Please don’t let them take me. Please.”
And my kind and merciful wife walks toward the gate.
My heart stops.
Rhianelle picks up a sword sheath from the ground. She approaches the edge and reaches out.
Gods, no.
I know Rhianelle has a soft heart. Is she going to offer the sheath to Lilith to pull herself up with?
No, she can’t.
Lilith is a fucking trickster. She will drag Rhianelle in and pull her down out of pure spite.
I move toward her, ready to pull her back and stop her from making a mistake that will cost her everything.
But I’m too slow. Rhianelle reaches the edge of the gate, the sheath extended—
Cedwyn comes out of nowhere and dives into the gate. He’s bloodied, beaten from his fight with Wolf and Garrett. But he’s grinning. The ancient bastard who’s been nothing but trouble grabs on to Lilith.
His arms lock around her shadow form before she can escape.
Rhianelle lunges toward the edge. “Stop! Let go before they take you too, Cedwyn!”
Cedwyn doesn’t answer her. He’s busy. Lilith is clawing at his hands, his arms, trying to peel his fingers off one by one. He holds on.
“You little shit!” she shrieks. “Let me go!”
Lilith twists violently in his grasp, her darkness lashing against him, but Cedwyn only holds tighter.
A flash of silver appears within her shadowed hand. The witch has a dagger. When she realizes Cedwyn will not release her, she stops fighting him long enough to hurl it at Rhianelle’s throat.
I step in front of it.
The blade punches into my chest and buries itself to the hilt.
Lilith laughs hysterically. The sound is desperate and broken, stripped of everything except spite.
“I have you now,” she gasps.
Lilith thrashes against Cedwyn as the hands drag them both deeper, staring at the dagger in my chest as though she has won. She has forgotten that I am Strigon. A blade cannot kill me.
“Arescaine—” Rhianelle’s voice comes from behind me, frightened.
“I’m fine,” I say.
Her eyes remain fixed on the dagger for one terrified heartbeat before Cedwyn’s struggle draws her attention back to the gate. She thrusts the sheath toward him. “Grab on to this. Hurry.”
Cedwyn makes no move to take it. He only looks at what she’s offering.
“Why aren’t you taking it?” Rhianelle demands.
“I’m saving you from yourself,” he answers pleasantly. “You are far too soft. Were you truly going to rescue this creature after everything she has done?”
“I wasn’t trying to rescue her earlier.” Rhianelle shakes her head. “I was going to whack her with it.”
Cedwyn looks at her for a beat, then a laugh startles out of him. “I will never understand you.”
Weariness settles over Cedwyn’s face. “Keep the sheath, little queen. I have lived too long and fed on too many souls. I am tired.”
“Cedwyn—”
He tightens his hold on Lilith. “If I’m going to the Hollow anyway, I might as well take you with me.”
He winks at Rhianelle one last time before the hands of the damned reach up, eager and hungry. They pull them under.
Lilith’s last scream cuts off abruptly.
Silence falls.
For a moment, no one moves. No one breathes.
Then I hear it. Shade’s voice, rough with pain and anger.
“Stop it. Rainer, stop—”
I turn to see Rainer kneeling beside the assassin, his hands glowing with that familiar golden light of Anastarros’s blessings. But Shade is trying to push him away, his face twisted with fury and something almost like fear.
“You’re wasting your blessing,” Shade hisses, blood on his lips. “The Nevrin poison—it’ll reactivate when you do this. You’ll die—”
“I don’t care,” Rainer says, his voice unwavering.
“The Fae King.” Shade catches Rainer’s wrist with blood-slick fingers. “That’s what you wanted. Your revenge. He’s right there. You can finally—”
Rainer doesn’t even glance toward King Eirik. He doesn’t spare a single look for the fae who destroyed his home, slaughtered his family, took everything from him. The king who’s been his obsession, his purpose, his reason for living for centuries.
Rainer only presses more blessings into the injury. “You have to live.”
Shade’s expression cracks. For a moment, I see beyond the Grimsbane mask and the assassin’s guarded composure. I see someone who’s never been chosen or put first.
The light from Rainer’s hands intensifies, washing over Shade’s wound. The assassin gasps and arches, then slowly relaxes as the healing takes hold.
My eyes find the Fae King, the only enemy left.
Eirik is still cradling Morgaine in his arms. She’s so frail now, her body aged by Elli’s curse. He is pressing kisses to her withered hands to comfort her.
Morgaine stares down at herself and begins to cry. “Look at me,” she whispers. “I am old. You cannot possibly still want me like this.”
Eirik takes her face gently between his hands. “I want you. I will always want you.”
The old enchantress begins to sob.
“Don’t worry, my love,” he whispers. “I’ll find a way to fix this. A healer, a mage, anyone who—”
“Oh, how touching.”
Blight’s voice cuts through the moment like a dagger. She sniffles dramatically, pressing a hand to her chest.
Eirik’s head snaps up, his eyes widening with alarm.
“If your love is really true,” Blight continues, her smile turning sharp. “If it’s really eternal, then it can survive anything. Right?”
Suspicion narrows Eirik’s eyes. He pulls Morgaine closer, as though he already senses trouble from the little Un’s question.
Blight raises both hands. Two portals tear open in the air.
They are voids that lead to different realms and different worlds.
“One for you,” Blight says cheerfully, pointing at the first portal. “One for her. Let’s test that love, shall we?”
“No!” Eirik clutches Morgaine tighter, his whole body trembling. “You can’t! I won’t let you!”
The pull from the portals strikes them from opposite directions. Eirik wraps both arms around Morgaine, but the force tears her from his grasp. He is dragged toward one opening while she is pulled toward the other.
“No!” Eirik’s scream shakes the throne room. “No! I won’t let go!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Blight says.
Their fingers begin to slip apart. Horror crosses Eirik’s face as he realizes he cannot hold on to Morgaine.
“I’ll find you!” Eirik screams at his lover as he is dragged toward his portal. “Do you hear me? I’ll search every realm, every dimension, every lifetime. I’ll walk through fire and darkness to reach you, Morgaine!”
Morgaine reaches toward him, her aged hand trembling in empty air. A single sob escapes her throat.