Chapter 59 #2
He’s looking at me knowingly. When he sees my attention has returned, he begins to laugh.
The sound makes my blood run cold, a chill that reaches down to my bones.
“Talking to your pet Alpha?” he croons, then laughs harder. “Don’t worry; we’ll keep him alive. Tormun has plans for him.”
I growl, gathering my rage to me like a blanket, readying my shadow powers for a strike.
“The game is up,” Anassa says to me, her muscles coiled for action.
“I think you’re right,” I reply. My own muscles tighten as I pull more and more power in.
“You think Alistair and I couldn’t see through your little Kryptos tricks, Meryn? Please.” His eyes get a manic glint. “As soon as I saw my father’s little whore skulking around my camp, I knew you’d come here to betray me.”
He cocks his head. “I’m disappointed you saw it fit to feed me lie after lie. But don’t worry, kitten. I know just what to do with a smart mouth like yours,” he says, his voice laced with a perverted affection.
My stomach roils. Foul fucking asshole.
“Now hand over those Tears before I tell my people to execute that pathetic excuse for a Sovereign Alpha.”
My fury pools in my body, deep and potent like a lake of black flame. I’m ready to burn this fucker to the ground.
“Don’t you dare touch him, you piece of shit!”
The words are barely out of my mouth when my power rears up like a massive stallion, coiling and then crashing down on Killian’s head.
His shadows have also returned to his hands, though, and he easily swats my blow away, creating a shield for himself with my stolen power.
Shadows collide and rebound, shooting outward until the wall we’ve formed around us disperses. Killian’s people yell and run as the shadows flatten tents and knock over structures.
Enraged, I draw more and more power. I tighten my fist over the Astreonan crown, and the two crowns, both such powerful amplifiers, double and rebound the magic.
I’ve never used my shadebending with both crowns at my disposal. I’m drunk on the power, its heady rush filling me so completely my vision goes black.
With a savage thrust of my hand, I throw the power toward Killian like a deadly thunderbolt.
But he stretches out his arms, welcoming the shadow spear like a lover. The massive black spear pulls itself apart as it reaches him, flowing around his arms, down his torso. The excess power pours into the ground at his feet.
“Shit. No matter how much I pull, it’s just making his own power greater.” Anassa’s ears are back, her paws firmly planted. She holds me steady while the wild ropes of shadow buffet us both, the clashing magic creating a strange wind.
“So do something different!” she orders, and I do.
The Tears for creation and destruction. They frighten me, their power so large and unknowable. But if ever there was a time to use them both, it’s now.
Killian is tossing daggers of shadow at us, and Anassa deftly avoids two of them before I manage to get a Phylax shield across us. The shield affords me a precious minute to figure out my next move.
I thrust my free hand into my pack and grasp the two final Tears tightly. The sharp points of each dig into my palm, and I let the pain ground me.
Creation first? The gemstone heats in my hand as I imagine what might work, trying to funnel the power toward Killian.
Those shimmering-white threads of magic erupt from me again, reaching where Killian stands and burrowing down into the ground like flowing roots.
Around him, a massive thornbush shoots up. It reaches toward the sky and multiplies until it eclipses Killian and he’s completely trapped inside it.
He laughs, the sound wild. It sets my teeth on edge.
In a whirl of darkness, he vanishes from inside the thorns and reappears outside of them.
“That power will be an interesting addition to my collection.” He smiles wide, fangs extending. They glimmer in the strange light, daylight slashed into ribbons by the shadow power that still swirls around us.
“Destruction, then!” Anassa shouts in my mind. My magic rises to answer her.
With a wordless yell, I unleash the full force at my enemy, and the yawning emptiness the Tear creates seems to explode into being. A hellish black abyss opens beneath Killian and he’s sucked down into it, disappearing from view.
I use the small pause in fighting to check in on Stark, and flashes of his vision come through as I slam my consciousness toward his:
The Phylax wall is in tatters. Stark and Cratos fight with blade and magic both.
Slashes of shadebending power cut through two Phylax wolves as Cratos rips a rider to shreds.
Stark parries attacks from three other riders, spinning to sink a dagger deep in the guts of one before bearing down with his sword on another. There’s no sign of Noemi, though.
“MERYN!”
Anassa calls me back to myself, and dread courses through me.
From the widening black gash in the ground, Killian is rising slowly. A cloud of shadow power buoys him aloft, and in his hands are two swords of shadow, shadebending made physical.
I need to buy myself time to figure out what can possibly reach him.
I open my mouth, not even sure what I’m going to say until the words come out.
“What does Alistair think of your relying on my Sturmfrost magic, Killian? How you hit back with magic you stole from me instead of using power of your own?”
His face twists with rage, and for a moment, I think I’ve miscalculated as the shadow holding him in the air rushes forward, pulling Killian toward me at frightening speed.
“You know—” he cries, but then his face twists and strains, and he falls to his knees on the dark platform beneath him.
Magic swirls around crazily as I watch him fight that battle in his head, holding back the ancient Siphon inside him. His fists clench as he struggles for control.
I grip the creation and destruction Tears tight, ready to lash out again while he’s distracted, but a familiar voice stops me short.
“Meryn, help!”
Anassa and I swing around toward the direction of the sound, and Noemi and Ephyse are there, the dusty wreckage of a tent around them. Ephyse is on the ground, leg twisted at a strange angle, and Noemi is bent over him, groaning.
In a heartbeat, I’m off Anassa and racing over.
“What happened? What can I do?”
I flash back on Venna’s wolf, Skaia, in the woods, and desperation spikes inside me.
Not again.
“Anassa, can you help them?”
Anassa lopes around to Ephyse’s other side, looking for the wound, and I put a hand to Noemi’s shoulder. “Noemi, stay with me,” I plead.
She turns her tearstained face toward me, and something strange flashes in her eyes. “Meryn,” she says, and her voice comes out strangled.
She reaches up toward me, and I lean closer.
I don’t realize what’s happened at first, just that my magic is dampened, less.
I look down at Noemi, and she’s holding something in her hands, something shining with a familiar glow.
Golden chains, two of them. Each with an opal gem pendant.
The Tear necklaces.
“Noemi, what—” I start in confusion.
And then my world goes fuzzy.
Distantly, I feel Anassa collapse, the dizziness hitting her, too.
I try to draw a deep breath, but my body and my mind seem oddly disconnected.
I think I black out for a moment.
Opening my eyes, the world swirls around me before coming into focus.
I gaze around blankly. Where am I?
Tents—I’m in a camp of some sort. Noemi is with me, and Killian.
Killian, my betrothed.
I look at him blearily as he walks toward me.
“Good job, Noemi,” he says to the girl next to me, leaning down to pat her head like she’s a favorite dog. She looks at him in fear and then slowly raises her arm toward him, lifting the two necklaces she holds.
Her fingers are white, clenched tight around their chains. Killian strokes her hand and looks into her eyes. Slowly, slowly, she opens her fist so that Killian can take the two glowing jewels from her.
“Killian. Where are we? What’s happening?” My voice sounds strange to me.
“My beloved. You’re okay now. I’m here.” Killian turns to me and smiles gently. “Just hand me that crown you’re holding, will you?”
Crown? I look down, and there’s a strange crown in my grip. The Astreonan crown, I remember suddenly. But why does Killian want it?
“Meryn, don’t!”
Anassa’s voice rings in my head, and I spin around to my direwolf, confused. “Anassa?”
She’s prone on the ground, her eyes closed tight, ears back. She shakes her head, once, twice, as if trying to dislodge an attacker.
“Fight this, Meryn! You can fight this!” Her mental voice is twisted, agonized.
From behind me, Killian steps toward my wolf. He lifts his arm. His fingers are wrapped around the hilt of a sword made of glistening shadow that pulses when I look at it.
“Your wolf has been compromised, Meryn.” He gives me a look of pure sorrow and then, without warning, plunges the blade into Anassa’s side.
Pain.
It explodes in me, like a starburst of radiating fire.
My wolf howls in distress, and I fall across her side, pressing my hand to the blood that escapes her body.
My heart is bursting.
“Killian, what are you doing?” My voice is full of agony, the same agony that burns through my direwolf’s body. Why is he harming Anassa? What does he mean, she’s been compromised?
“Give me the Tears, Meryn,” he commands me. His eyes are so blue. He stretches out his free hand. “Give me the Tears, and I can fix her.”
Life drains from me as Anassa’s blood gushes relentlessly to the ground.
She can’t die. I don’t know what’s happening, but I know that. She can’t die.
“Okay,” I nod, lightheaded. “Here you go. Help her.”
I pass him the two gems clenched tightly in my hand. My palm is speckled in blood from where their points dug into me.
“Good girl,” he says approvingly. “Now the crowns.”
My body is heavy, numb. Why is he doing this? What is happening here? I feel the moment that Anassa passes out from blood loss. It’s like a punch to the gut. I don’t understand.
Why won’t Killian stop this?
But something in me compels me to reach my hand out to Killian, hand him the sunburst crown of Astreona.
Killian reverently places the sunburst crown on his own head, and I watch in confusion as his face—ripples. Like something inside him is fighting to the surface.
I cast about in my mind. Something feels wrong. Something is wrong, I know it.
But what?
And there in my mind, beyond the dizzy blankness that envelops me, I sense something.
It’s darkness, shadow. But also light and warmth.
There’s someone else there. A bridge from me to another. That person is just beyond my reach, but I can sense they are calling to me.
Killian’s talking to me again. “Meryn, now your crown. There’s a good girl. Just hand me the crown, and we’ll get Anassa fixed up.”
Unable to resist, I reach up toward my head, pulling down the crown and offering it to him.
My consciousness is fixed on that spot of warm darkness at the back of my head. There’s a person on the other side. I don’t know who. If I move closer to that bridge, that link…
The blankness presses in tight on me, holding me back.
No.
I don’t know what’s going on, but I know I need that connection. That person. I push with everything I have, fighting toward that connection.
Something snaps.
And just for a split second, his mind rushes into mine.
Stark’s mind.
As Killian takes the final Tear from me, everything clears, just for a moment. Stark. The Tears. Killian and Alistair. I remember it all.
Stark’s voice is velvet and violence, a caress that sets me on fire. “You are the power of shadow and life combined. Your strength can scorch the earth. Do not forget yourself. You are Meryn fucking Sturmfrost, and you will not let a weak man win.”
Everything inside me comes together. The hurt, the rage, the pain. The fear, the suffering.
My pleasure and love with Stark, and the warped, vile coercion of Killian’s “love.”
My friends, my pack, my kingdom.
My wolf, her lifeblood slipping out of her even now.
My whole life, condensed down to a shining point, its power as deep and as potent as a thousand Goddess Tears.
It pulls together, binding tight, so tight. And then I unleash it.
With one smooth stroke, I unsheathe the long dagger at my hip. Then I slice the blade right through Killian’s wrist, sending the hand wearing the Goddess Tear ring skittering off to the side.
He shouts in pain, staring down at his mutilated arm in disbelief.
As the magic of the Tear fades, the cobwebs clear from my mind.
Noemi gasps at my side as her brain clears as well. Her eyes instantly harden, and she pulls her own dagger.
“Get him,” I tell her, my voice laced with violence.
She doesn’t need to be told twice. “This is for what Cyril and Alistair did to me.” She drives her dagger straight into his crotch. Killian collapses to the ground, his bloodcurdling screams echoing in the shocked, silent camp.
Noemi moves away, and I step toward him. “Tell Alistair that Lucien sends his regards,” I tell him cooly.
Killian opens his eyes, his face pulled into a pleading mask. “Kitten,” he gasps. “You and I both know that you’re not capable of killing me. You never were.”
“I am really fucking sick of you telling me who I am, Killian,” I choke out. “But I know just what to do with that smart mouth of yours.”
And with one smooth stroke, I shove my long dagger directly into his mouth, watching his eyes widen, and he gags on the cold metal and the river of blood that follows.
Then I yank the dagger back. All the fury and outrage of my entire life is contained in the sweep of my arm as I slice the weapon through Killian’s neck.
Beheading him.