Chapter 3 #2
My powers are not my own; he’s cut off part of it. And he’s done it with his insidious blood magic.
The Siphon who once ruled still has his vicious fangs deep into this kingdom.
It’s not going to be enough.
The moment I think it, the heat from the bracelet surges from my wrist, through my fingers…
And into the sword itself.
Streaks of red race down the Dire Blade.
With a high, ringing note, the blade shatters into a thousand glittering silver pieces.
No.
I look at the fragments in shock.
That sword… that ancient, incredible thing that helped link the humans and the direwolves, that allowed for control…
It’s just gone.
“Move, Meryn,” Anassa urges, and as if time has slowed, images around me come together and coalesce.
Daemos warriors are closing in.
Shards of the Dire Blade are all around me, dull and useless in the dirt.
Asteio rears up to slash razor-sharp claws across the face of a Bonded warrior approaching on foot. His face is a bloody pulp as he falls backward.
My fingers are still wrapped tightly around the Dire Blade’s hilt, but the weapon is unusable, ending now in a ragged stump of iron just inches from the cross guard.
A painful roar rips from my throat. This is all his fault.
I jump onto Anassa’s back, mind clearing as I sheathe the hilt that remains. The memory of the rush of power the crown gave me is sharp.
If we’re going to have a chance of winning this, I need that crown.
“Let’s go,” I say to Anassa, and she doesn’t need to ask—she just races toward Stark and Cratos and that Kryptos bitch.
The Daemos Alpha and his wolf are across the arena, standing at the center of a circle of wolves. Holding them all off alone.
His movements are so fast they’re hard to follow. He parries and thrusts, somehow making five Bonded attackers and their wolves fight for their lives.
Their fight blocks the Kryptos woman from getting to the exit. I spy her shimmering form as she continues to blend into the shadows, holding tight to her prize: my crown. The symbol of my rightful authority.
Anger churns inside me, and I once again reach for the shadow magic that ran so effortlessly through my veins earlier. But the magic is slippery and elusive, evading my grasp.
I give a yell of frustration. We’re almost to Stark when Anassa suddenly pulls out of her run, stopping short.
“What—” I start, and then I see Jonah and a band of his followers cutting off my path.
“Goddess damn you, Jonah,” I mutter, and draw two of my throwing knives, taking careful aim.
The one meant for Jonah’s throat hits a wall of his Daemos magic. The dagger tumbles uselessly to the ground as Anassa and I dig in against the magic’s brutal push.
I try to deflect it, to push the power aside, and nothing happens.
I click my tongue in irritation. What is happening here? Stark tried to use his Daemos powers against Killian the other night, and Killian was able to deflect them; he said it was because the Daemos powers were rent from my own.
So how is Jonah able to attack me with them? And why is his power so strong? Is it because I’m not wearing my crown and my own magic feels… diminished?
My anger builds, and still, I get nothing from the shadows. They would be pretty useful right about now.
I toss my second dagger, and it hits home, burying itself with a sickening squelch in the rib cage of the woman to Jonah’s left. She falls from her wolf and is trampled by the rider behind her, her screams sharp and agonized.
Brutal pride surges into me from Anassa, but I ignore it—this is all such a waste.
Jonah slows, glancing back at his fallen comrade, and then advances toward me again, eyes flashing.
“I can’t wait to finally break your scrawny neck,” he spits.
I laugh, drawing another dagger. “Come and try it.” I ignore the way my muscles shake; exhaustion is setting in. Jonah is flanked by three more Bonded, and they fan out, closing in on my position.
“We need to finish this,” I think to Anassa grimly, and she howls in answer.
“Hold fast, Meryn,” comes Izabel’s voice with a note of desperation. I get a mental flash of her position—still fighting off another group. Even if I’m lucky, it will still be several minutes until she can back me up.
The man to Jonah’s right rushes in, his wolf snapping at Anassa’s flank as he slashes out with his sword. I just barely block him, Anassa’s sure-footed spin breaking us away and saving my tired arms from giving out.
Then she lunges to the side, and I lean in close to keep my seat. The rush of an arrow passes directly behind me, so close its shaft brushes against my hair.
Anassa cuts left and circles, giving me a second to recover before we reengage. I dig deep, trying again to summon my new shadow magic, but this time nothing comes, not even a trickle.
A massive clap! pulls all our attention toward Stark’s fight.
Except… he’s not there. Or I can’t see him. A thrum of panic rushes through me.
A cloud of dust explodes outward from where he last stood. Grit shatters across the arena, showering down on us, making my eyes water.
Ears ringing, I squint to try to see through the cloud. Please be there, please, please…
Then it clears, and I gasp. Stark has somehow used his Daemos power to destroy the entire archway of the door, bringing it down on top of his remaining opponents. They’re barely visible under the rubble.
I knew he was powerful, but this… ?
Fighting all across the arena has momentarily paused, everyone gawking at the sight.
Stark’s light brown skin is pale from the strain of wielding so much power, and yet he’s already moving again, chasing down the Kryptos woman. She is fully visible now, losing control over her magic in her terror.
It takes only two breaths, and then he’s cut her down, her broken body hitting the ground with a wet thud. Stark hurtles off Cratos after her and grabs the wolf crown still in her grip.
“Meryn!” he calls, and I raise my dagger so he can find me. “Catch!”
He sends the crown spinning into the air, the opal at its center glinting toward me as it arcs my way.
Anassa and I leap, her haunches stretching and stretching. For a moment, a disorienting sense of déjà vu passes through me, taking me back to the Voice Trial and our first leap of faith together.
How far we’ve come.
I reach out my free hand and pluck the crown from the air, settling it onto my head without thinking.
Magic courses through me in a flash, bringing darkness with it. My vision flickers.
The world loses all its color, bloodstains turned black.
And all around me, shadows wake.
The arena dims as if a storm were passing overhead. Every shadow in the vast space starts to stretch and distort, reaching for me. They move toward me in strange ways, crawling inside me, wrapping themselves up and around my arms like vines.
“Be careful,” Anassa urges. “This power—you don’t know how to control it. You don’t know where it starts. Or where it ends.”
The depth of my darkness is limitless. I can sense that.
Or it could be, if I had the courage to embrace it. But right now…
Right now, I know exactly where it ends. There’s a precise spot where my magic is choked out and throttled by Killian’s influence. Still, what I have access to is more than I ever could have imagined.
Holding a shadow-covered hand out, I stare briefly at it in fascination. There’s a pulse in my chest, like the magic is urging me to utilize it, to grasp it and free it.
“Watch out!” someone shrieks. I glance back up just in time to see three of Jonah’s comrades charging directly for me.
“Use your power, Meryn!” Stark bellows.
Anger roils through me, and for the first time since my crown was taken, the shadows respond.
I throw my hands up instinctively, protectively.
Stop, I think.
Stop, I command.
Force explodes from my palms—a huge, moving wave of shadow.
The wave crests over the two riders in front of me and then swerves out in big looping arcs, reaching more of Jonah’s allies all around the arena.
It reminds me of the Daemos blasts at first, air made solid, but on a larger scale and darkly visible.
I relish it, the darkness inside me now rising violently to the surface.
Stop them, I command the shadows again. They move at my instruction but of their own volition—of me but somehow outside of me, too.
The shadows wrap themselves around the wolves and their riders. Their bodies start to contort and lift into the air.
Screams echo around the arena, and I snap out of my satisfied stupor.
No. This isn’t me. I need to stop this—
There’s a suffocating pressure in my chest as the shadows pull tighter and tighter around them all. Around their necks. The shadows slither into their open mouths, stifling screams for mercy.
Stop, stop, STOP!
Then a loud echoing snap.
The riders and their wolves drop dead onto the arena floor. Not just the three charging for me, but a lot of their allies, too.
A dozen, at least. Dead.
The shadows retreat, and the reality of it washes over me, turning my stomach. I’m going to be sick.
My hands start shaking against Anassa’s fur at the horror—the horror of what I’ve done.
The arena stills. All combat ceases as everyone stares in shock at the mangled remains of the wolves and their riders. I watch the corpses as if waiting for them to get up again. Their twisted limbs make them look small and vulnerable in the vastness of the arena’s floor.
Darkness still slithers around my arms, cool against my skin, a visceral reminder of what I’m capable of.
I killed all these Bonded. With a flick of my wrist.
They may not have been ready to accept me as their queen, but they were my own people.
“See what she is!” Jonah’s voice violates the silence.
I flinch. Of everyone I killed, why did he have to survive? Anassa rumbles beneath me.
He hurls a finger toward me, his breaths ragged. “This is what Killian warned us about—an uncontrollable evil who will destroy us all!”
Jonah whips his wolf around, heading for an arena exit. His remaining followers flee with him.
A few people on my side start to pursue, but the thought of more violence makes me woozy. Over the bonds, I direct an order to let them go.
This is not how I wanted to persuade people to join my side, to put their faith in me as their leader.
Not through violence and fear.
The shadows start to recede, slinking back to where they belong. Cold shock is taking over my body, cooling the fury that drew them out.
Through our bond, Anassa projects soothing energy. A soft humming settles over my frayed nerves slowly, smoothly. Everyone is watching me; I can’t let them see me crumble.
Stark and Cratos step up next to me. Cratos nudges Anassa briefly with his nose before standing tall and menacing.
“Phylax, help move the wolves’ bodies,” Stark orders. My eyes linger on the corpses of the people I’ve killed.
I recognize the young woman closest to me. She usually wore her strawberry-blond hair in a spiraling braid.
“Meryn,” Anassa urges. “Follow Stark’s lead. They wait for your command.”
“Right.” I swallow hard.
“I swear that Jonah and his followers will answer for their treason,” I say, my voice containing a strength I do not feel.
A man lies close to her with shockingly blue eyes that now stare forward unseeing.
“What else?” My mind is blank.
“They were about to receive their first orders as Bonded,” Anassa prompts me.
I cough, mouth dry as chalk. “In the meantime, we still have our duty to the rest of the country. You will receive your orders regarding deployment to the front lines tomorrow, after… after I have consulted with military leadership.”
I watch numbly as the Bonded bow, then I turn on Anassa’s back to leave the arena. They listened to me, sure, and they bowed, but their fear emanates over the pack bonds.
A fear of me.
Of the devastating power that jumped from my veins.
Anassa and I slip out of the arena, so many eyes on me. I keep my head high, but the moment I know people can’t see me, my vision goes blurry. I let the tears come. I’m not even sure where she’s taking us, and I don’t care—I just need to be away.
Away from all those people whom I’ve let down and terrified.
Away from the ones whose lives I took.
“You should not be alone,” Anassa warns me. “Not when there are people who want your crown, and certainly not in your current condition.”
I startle when I realize she’s led me to Stark’s office. Slipping off her back, I let myself in. This is as good enough a place to fall apart as any.
Only once we’re inside, the door shut behind us, do I let myself fully break apart.
I collapse to my knees roughly, my palms smacking against the cold floor. The crown slips from my head and clatters against the stone. The full weight of what just happened, what I did, crashes over me.
I killed a dozen people without even touching them. With a strange power I don’t understand.
Am I becoming the very thing Killian accused me of being? Dangerous, unstable, and not to be trusted?
I can’t stop crying. It goes on and on. And the longer it lasts, the worse it gets.
Every ragged, painful inhale I manage to suck in leaves my lungs in sobs that sound like screams. I’m dimly aware that I’m losing more air than I’m taking in. I’ll suffocate from this.
Anassa tries to help. Her insistent care nudges at the edge of my mind. She’s trying to soothe me again. When her nose presses closer, I’m briefly tempted to cling to her and let her quiet humming lull me.
But then the horror strikes me all over again. I’m filthy for even wanting comfort. I don’t deserve it.
Saela’s transformation. Killian’s betrayal. The lives I just took. All these things are my failures. It’s pain I could have prevented if I was only better.
The spiral sucks me under and into the dark, and I push Anassa away. Hard.
She growls, her concern escalating. I try to ignore it. I don’t want it.
The spiraling builds in me, and my fist strikes out, knuckles cracking against the stone floor. Physical pain immediately overtakes my senses, blotting out the panic.
Relieving me.
I punch again, deliberately, harder this time. My skin splits.
Again, and I leave a bloody smear on the floor.
The pain clears pathways in my brain, freeing me from the thoughts pushing in from the outside. It grounds me, bringing me back to myself, my body, this moment—and into a sort of sharpness.
It feels awful, but less awful than the agonized twisting of my own mind.
I strike the ground again and again and again until all that’s left is me and the pain.
It consumes me so entirely that I don’t even hear the door when it slams open.