Chapter 31
PAPA
Seryn
Jace spun, flinging out his hand. Ember and runes flared along his arm like molten script; the light slashed across the nearest reaper’s throat, lopping its head off. Its skull cracked to the ground as more creatures poured from the portal, skeletal forms spilling through the veil.
“Huh. So that’s how you kill ’em,” Breena chuffed.
Gavrel brandished his sword, but then doubled over in the next moment—the ebony curse creeping over his other arm.
“Get back, Gav,” I cried. “It’s getting worse!”
He shook his head, tried to stand his ground, then staggered backward.
Weapons and auras flared, bursts of multicolored energy tearing through the air as skulls slammed onto the earth. A few demon warriors slipped through the threshold, their black, beady eyes squinting in the neon bright of the Reverie Weald.
I threw my dagger dead center into a charging, horned beast. It collapsed at Mr. Burlam’s boots, and he harrumphed.
“Get Derya and Iben inside! Defend the palace! Gather more forces!” I shouted toward Marah and Endurst, who snapped into action, rushing toward the palace.
A disembodied voice cut through the mist, cold and amused. “How vulgar not to invite me to your Kollao, brother.”
My breath hitched.
Phobetor.
Horror flickered over everyone’s faces, even the Grim Twins. If the Ancient of Nightmares crossed into Surrelia, the treaty would be broken. And the Fates would likely summon the Primevals.
“Phobi has finally lost his last fecking thread of sanity,” Breena snarled, raising an embered shield against an oncoming reaper.
Morpheus shoved my mother behind him as Jace decapitated two more reapers, who fell in front of them.
“Stop him!” I yelled, sprinting toward the portal. Gavrel’s shout followed me, and everything in me wanted to heed his voice.
But I couldn’t allow Phobetor to enter this realm.
My iridescence burned around me, and I dodged another monster.
My parents leaped over piles of bones and bloody remains. Caelora’s lavender fire clung to the demon at my side. Its screech tore through my ears.
Shadows whirled in the center of the portal. The firefly-like orbs were being swallowed into the darkness. My uncle’s silhouette sharpened.
Everything sped up: My name shouted in a chorus of voices. Phobetor’s chiseled angles came into focus. Gavrel stumbled toward me, sword arm slackening.
I flung my hands out, branch-like patterns blazing up my arms, and plunged into the maelstrom. Gavrel collided with me, solid and warm, before the mist took us both.
“Not without me,” he grunted, locking his hold around my waist as we plummeted, weightless, spinning through a dizzying tunnel of light and shadow.
Before I could catch my breath, our knees cracked against the stone. Forms crashed around us; everyone had followed.
Bloody fucking void!
I jolted to my feet. When my sight adjusted, I recognized the molten metal sloshing beside us, veins of light pulling into the pool from thousands of amber globes.
The Epiales Tombs.
Therrok grumbled as his wings snapped out, and he hauled Thesa and Mama up. Weapons and ember flew as reapers and demons closed in.
Morpheus charged at his brother. Phobetor grinned. With a snap of his fingers, the nightmare prisons burst to life—thousands of captives writhing inside amber glass spheres and mist, their screams silent.
Morpheus hurled a stream of twinkling gold. Phobetor dodged and threw shadows back.
On the far side of the embered basin, Melina was imprisoned, terror twisting her features. Hordes of reapers indulged themselves, fed on the fear radiating from her cell and all the others.
“Morpheus!” Mama called out, bending a demon’s aura against it like a weapon. “Free them!”
Morpheus’ gilded stars struck Phobetor, stunning him for a heartbeat.
I lunged forward, my gift latching onto him.
My father stepped closer to the enchanted pool, hands directing its energy, blending it with his.
Dreams and starlight melded with the stolen nightmares, the veins of light quivering with his ministrations.
Phobetor’s enraged bellow bounced off the banestone, more furious at his brother than with me. He pulled, clawing at my ember’s hold, veins standing proud along his neck.
Morpheus arched, light exploding from the pool. From him. Surging through the room in a roaring wave. It knocked everyone off their feet as the light blinked out from all the globes.
My back slammed into the stone, knocking the air from my lungs. Within my next breath, the sound of splintering glass shrieked through the place, the orbs glowing white as cracks spider-webbed over their surfaces.
Gavrel threw himself over me just as they shattered and shards showered us. Bodies hit stone all around, and I winced. When I peeked from beneath my khorda’s arm, Jace, Mama, the Flints, and Morpheus were doing everything they could to catch or slow the falling captives.
Breena, Caelora, and Kaden fought off those demons and reapers bold enough to attack once more.
Gavrel clutched his chest with a groan, face pinching. I screamed his name as he pitched forward. I caught his head before it cracked against the ground. My parents ran to us, hearing my cry.
Phobetor swept his hands outward and shadows surged, sealing me, Gavrel, and my parents inside a dome of churning black.
Reapers scratched at the surface. Thesa slammed it with her polearm, but it bounced off uselessly. Caelora’s liquid fire coated three demons, igniting their pallid bones in violet hues before they crumbled into nothing.
Therrok swooped over the dome, the obsidian ring on his finger glinting as he summoned another inter-realm passage from the pool.
Kaden and Breena threw themselves at the barrier, fists and weapons hammering. Jace called the others, hoisting an unconscious Melina over his shoulder.
With a final flick of Phobetor’s wrists, shadows thickened around the dome, swallowing the last glimpse of my friends.
“Interesting how my poison spreads faster the closer I am, isn’t it?
” Phobetor crooned, eyeing Gavrel as he lay in my arms. He had my mother pinned, shadows binding her arms and muffling her voice.
The sight of his boot digging into her side had me grinding my teeth.
“Looks like your time is up, niece. Who will you choose? Your mortal, or your father?”
“Seryn,” Morpheus barked. I looked at him, agony pouring from my eyes. Morpheus’ golden aura swelled, and he thrust out his hand. “Take it.”
“I can’t. We’ve only just found one another,” I sobbed.
My heart slammed into my throat. Shame and regret rushed through my senses. Everything I’d lost, every mistake I’d made, had led me here. Could I destroy him to save the man I loved?
“You can, and you will.” My father … my fucking father’s voice was unyielding.
“Papa,” I whimpered. His eyes softened. Mama choked back a sob.
I cradled Gavrel’s head and recalled Morpheus’ words.
Choose because your heart refuses not to.
Tears slipped free as I let my iridescence rise. Let it thread itself through my fingers and latch onto him.
The rune burned against my neck, my ember pulsating through me as I drank my father’s power in. He paled, and his eyes rolled back into his head.
Pure glee flashed over Phobetor’s features, his lips wet from his tongue, fists clutching greedily at the lapels of his robes.
The dark universe formed within my orb, its utter blackness sprinkled with starlight. Raw, vibrant energy vibrated through my every sinew, eyes, and limbs, glowing with celestial light.
More, my gift demanded. More!
I kept taking what my father offered. Long after he crumpled in a heap. Well after Mama’s cries faded from my attention.
My body levitated with the force of my newfound power.
Prickling, like that of a hundred needles, stung along my nape. Like threads ripping from my flesh. The runebound bargain, I thought with both relief and despair. It was satisfied. Because I’d drained my father—until he was an empty husk, as my uncle had put it.
With a strangled whimper, I forced my ember to unlatch from Morpheus as the small universe gyrated in my palms.
“Release her,” I ordered, voice low and not entirely my own. My rune burned before the glowing image of a snake coiled around a crescent moon slid off my skin and hovered above me. Geometric lines shifting, the snake slithered away from the moon before dissolving into shadow.
Phobetor’s darkness peeled away from Mama, and she crawled over to my father, cupping his face.
Power surged through me, raw and dizzying.
Gavrel coughed, the ebony in his veins receding.
I raised the orb, ready to destroy the Ancient of Nightmares, but froze as the banestone pendant seared my sternum.
With a sharp gasp, I clutched it. The amulet’s black hue bled into amber.
Instantly, the pressure crushing my skull eased as my father’s stolen ember surged into the stone and purged Melina’s, its smoke spilling at my feet.
Unbidden tears blurred my vision. My power could enhance another’s ember, but it couldn’t restore what was lost.
The amulet could.
Strong arms wrapped around my middle. “Breathe, Asteria,” Gavrel ordered, his voice rough and grounding.
Confusion raced over Phobetor’s face, then realization. His aura burst outward, shadows whipping around him as his arms flung wide.
Gavrel’s tattoo ignited, rune flaring in perfect harmony with my power. His energy bled into me, steady and fierce, as I thrust ember at my uncle. The blast slammed into his chest and knocked him into his own collapsing dome.
The last of Morpheus’ ember sealed within the amulet as the veil fizzled out. A sea of broken glass and scattered bodies was all that remained.
Phobetor stirred. Our eyes met, ice colliding with a black void. I curled my fingers around the amulet, feeling the pulse inside. My ember—I … We—reached for the coiling energy within the banestone teardrop. Connected. Communed. Drew it out.
A sweet pressure released within my chest, and I knew. Felt it in my very marrow that I controlled the stolen power.
I turned the flow toward my father.
But Phobetor roared, his shadows slashing through the link. The surge scorched through my veins, blistering my palms. I faltered, Morpheus’ dream ember seeping wild and molten between my fingers.
I stopped trying to catch it. There wasn’t time.
“Sweet dreams, uncle,” I taunted, tearing the chain from my neck and slamming the amulet to the ground. It cracked beneath my heel, and light erupted.
Morpheus’ power spewed from the banestone and crashed into my father’s chest. His back arched, gasp scraping through the air. Ire-coated fear flashed over my uncle’s features, and he scrambled away on all fours.
Mama cried out.
Phobetor lobbed a shadowy dart toward me. My knees buckled, vision blurring.
Gavrel swung us around, and the shadow sliced into him. He’d taken the strike meant for me. I think I called his name—just his name—because it was the only thing I wanted on my lips before death took me.
The thread binding our ribs stretched painfully thin. So taut, I wasn’t sure if it had snapped. We tumbled together, limbs tangled, breath shallow.
Another molten whirlwind.
Boots thundered.
Flame-like shadows collided with nightmarish billows.
Shouting. Cursing.
Bodies slamming.
Mama’s hands brushed my cheek.
“Find me … in dreams.” Her voice sounded far away, every other word slipping into the unknown.
Tears fell onto my skin.
Then.
Darkness.