Chapter 45
A DARK SUPERNOVA
Seryn
Phobetor whipped his arms out, and the world split apart. Shadows peeled off him in thick ribbons, ripping through the air and knocking us all back. My teeth cracked together as I braced myself, my halo igniting.
A second dark wave undulated, skittering like a mass of spiders over the planks. It slid between them and cascaded off the edges.
The muck gurgled, groans breaking free with each burst bubble. Swollen shapes twisted beneath the surface.
“What the void is that?” a young Draumr cried out. I glanced at the small group of them and Akridais, who lingered near the bridge. Likely deciding whether they could safely make it across if they chose to flee.
Breena’s shield flared just in time to repel the first wave of darkness before it slammed into us. “He’s raising the fecking bog bodies!”
And she was right. All around us, the water broke open, clammy hands clawing up from the depths. The dead. Old and new. The ones Melina’s recent attack had sacrificed to fuel her madness.
“Back!” I shouted, but it was too late.
The first corpse lurched over the ledge, cracking joints, limbs reaching, bloated skin slick and pallid, eyes glassy, filled with celestial darkness.
Letti screamed as it reached for her and grabbed the hem of her dress, dragging her toward the edge.
“Letti!” Her name tore from me as I lunged, but a clammy hand snagged my ankle, yanking me back.
“Get away from her!” Gideon’s shout tore through the chaos. He barreled past Xeni as her sword flashed, slicing clean through another monster’s neck.
He slashed downward with the borrowed sword, severing the corpse’s arm, then shoved my sister behind him.
“Stay close!” Yaya barked. Her arrow flew, piercing through a bulging eyeball. The creature tipped back with a moan.
Rhaegar planted himself at her flank, his battle-axe whirling in wide, brutal arcs. “Try to touch her, I bleeding dare you,” he grunted and cleaved the next monster that lunged in half. “Two for one. Anyone keeping count?”
“Three, you cur!” Breena bragged, her focus unbroken as she poured scarlet heat from her palms in wavering sheets while yanking her dagger out of a monster.
Caelora rolled her eyes, pushing her liquid fire over two more decaying bodies. When lavender coated the reanimated, they froze mid-step, their grotesque movements hesitating before they burst into flames.
Phobetor squinted toward the Akridais. “Ah, how fortunate. Melina did something right. Nyxvein in the ink.”
He crooked his pointer finger, and their neon-yellow tattoos flared, black seeping over their eyes. They turned as one, hurling oiled power at me.
“Move!” Gavrel’s arm shot around my waist, yanking me aside as boards cracked beneath us.
The attack flew toward my sister, and she screamed. Before I could think, my thumb brushed over my tourmaline ring. In a crack of bright light, I condensed and reappeared next to Letti just as Gideon pushed her away, taking the full brunt of the Akridai’s attack.
I grabbed her before she could fall.
His gasp took my breath away. Blood poured from his mouth. And he looked at me, eyes wide with disbelief and a strange, fragile relief. “Take care of her, Elder,” he rasped.
Letti sobbed as he staggered into the dark water.
My heart solidified into stone, and I spun toward the Ancient of Nightmares, fingers curling into claws.
Phobetor’s smile split wider. “You think your embers and blades will save you, little dreamers?” His eyes filled with ebony. “We gave you these gifts. Gave you life. And we can unmake you just the same.” His shadows pulsed, and we all stumbled, auras jerking around us.
The air thinned like the membrane between the Somnis and Midst Fall had been torn. I sensed it deep in my marrow. Phobetor’s nightmares bled into the waking.
A scorching pain ripped through my mind, vision going dark. Reality splintered into dozens of twisted versions of itself. Each horror-fueled nightmare slammed into the other, filling my awareness until I crashed to my knees, fingernails digging into my scalp.
I was helpless against each wave of images; wanted to curl in a ball and fade into the muck.
Rhaegar and Breena were buried under an endless tide of corpses.
Gavrel lay with his eyes vacant. Mama and Letti skinned alive.
Black char poured from Marek and Yaya’s mouths.
On and on, I tumbled through each vision, tasting iron on my tongue. Drowning.
“Cousin, fight! They aren’t real!” Marek’s demand broke through.
I blinked, half in and half out of reality. The world was a smear of this realm and the Void. He’d torn a rift, and the nightmarescape was trickling in. He was turning our realm inside out, making it in his image.
Phobetor raised his hands, and the sky itself warped, his form fracturing into overlapping shadows. “You call yourself an Elder, niece?” His voice was discordant. “Let me show you the truth of power.”
Before I could answer, the platform completely cracked in half.
In a blur, Marek was already moving.
He landed in a crouch, pitch-black flames blazing around him. His tattoo gleamed with dark iridescence, making it look like the branded raven flew over his shoulder blades.
Marek’s ember thrashed against Phobetor’s. His sapphire eyes burned with fury. “All you wield are lies,” he growled. His voice wasn’t fully his—it was deeper, older, laced with something primal. “And they won’t save you.”
The inferno around my cousin condensed, then erupted outward.
It struck the Ancient’s shifting outline in its center, sending my uncle staggering backward with a bellow.
His body solidified once more, shadows fluttering like misty gnats around him.
A ring of whitish gray showed around Phobetor’s dark irises, and his lips pulled over his teeth in a snarl.
I jerked, released from the trance he’d had me and the others in.
“Now!” Jace shouted from across the chaos, slashing runes through the air. Symbols flared around the perimeter of the broken decagon. He slammed his palm against the planks, and they knitted together. Light climbed up the Ancient’s legs.
Phobetor’s snarl rattled the trees. “You dare to bind me with my own sigils, boy?”
“Poetic, isn’t it?” the Magister shot back, blood slicking his temple. “You always said imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.”
The air vibrated with so much energy that Hallowed End whirred.
Kaden raised his hands; a wave of his verdant healing ember cascaded outward, sweeping through our ranks, sealing shallow wounds and keeping us upright. The doombarks leaned in, branches spreading wide, like fingers ready to catch something.
“Ser, your move!” he hollered.
I shook my head, gathering my senses. My fingers weaved, gathering my ember between them. The orb quivered between my palms, straining for release. “Let’s see how the Fates like this,” I whispered and hurled it.
The comet struck the Ancient in the chest. He reeled, form flickering and blackness spraying from the wound. But instead of dissipating, his shadows coiled tighter around him, plugging the injury.
He grinned, liquid night dripping over his teeth. “Ah, niece … you underestimate me.”
I planted my heels, stiffening my spine. The platform trembled. But not with Phobetor’s energy.
Mine.
My ember was more powerful now. I was connected to Somnis. To Kosmos itself. I was the prism, splintering color and light, drawing it to me.
From the wild kaleidoscope twisting around me, glittering gold emerged, dancing within.
The Akridais and bog bodies slumped, released from the Ancient’s hold.
On a roar, my power blasted forward. It coiled around him, lifting him off his feet.
With deliberate steps, I shifted toward the platform’s center, bypassing the fissures and hopping over the crack that ran through it.
The Ancient of Nightmares would not win this battle.
Or ever again.
Balance be damned.
For I was of the stars and the Night. Of hope and the light of Day. Nyxvein ran through me as well as resplendent, celestial ember.
Nightshade and Dream.
A dark supernova who refused …
That’s it.
I simply refused.
Phobetor would not take what wasn’t his. He wouldn’t continue to reap sorrow, rot, and terror upon this realm or any other.
Fates be damned.
My uncle’s grin drooped, worry lining his brow.
The air crackled like splintered glass under strain. Marek and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder, his dark flames lashing at the air on my right. “Finish him. Now.”
Gavrel stood close, his right arm wrapped around me, holding me steady.
“Together,” he murmured in my ear, voice low but steady. “You and me.” His rune blazed, shining white against my stomach. So pure against my soiled dress. My aura caressed it lovingly.
My ember clung to Phobetor’s, drinking it in and seeping into the wound I’d inflicted on him.
Another sparkling orb gyrated between my palms, my new gilded star-like ember folding into the center. The boughs along my arms were now filled with liquid gold.
“Marek, the pods,” I gritted out.
Phobetor’s form convulsed, his shadows shredding as I consumed his power. He struggled against his rune bindings, the light fraying in sections.
“Now,” I ordered, balancing my creation in one palm, the other resting on Marek’s shoulder. I pushed the filtered energy into my cousin, and an obsidian blaze whipped around him, the air shrieking.
His muscles tensed, his tattoo gleaming and black seeping over the many scars that riddled his torso. The veins in his neck bulged, his teeth grinding as a roar reverberated from him.
His arms and quarterstaff thrust out, flaming umbras exploding outward.
Every single conservatory lining the city blazed open with amber light, the Nyxvein roots pouring from the pods. Coming straight for Marek and me.
My orb twisted in on itself, the starry black hole taking shape. Marek slumped at my side, falling to his knees, his breath heaving in ragged huffs.
There were so many Nyxvein tentacles coming from the circumference of the city that their liquid inkiness blotted the moonlight out, creating a writhing, ebony dome. They fused into one twisting spiral.
Before it could smash into us, I thrust my mini universe into it. It reared back, the mist shaking, stunned. Phobetor roared again, and the Nyxvein twirled, focusing on the Ancient.
With a final twisted sneer, Phobetor’s fingers lashed out, and a barb of shadow shot toward us.
I pushed away from Marek, knocking him to the side as Gavrel and I tumbled in the other direction.
The Nyxvein hissed and then attacked the Ancient, sinking into his flesh and nose, eyes, ears, and mouth. Anywhere it could find. His garbled screams spilled as it ripped his body apart, stole bits of his unraveling essence, and dragged them back to their respective pods like pieces of treasure.
The aether didn’t even have the chance to claim his soul for itself.
One by one, the pods sealed. Sickly shades of burnished crimson, like dried blood, bloomed beneath the amber glass before it turned obsidian once more.
Jace’s embered runes evaporated.
I sagged forward, Gavrel’s arm slipping from me. The scent of scorched flesh and smoke hung thick in the air.
“He’s gone,” Marek rasped, gripping his weapon.
I wanted to believe him. Believe what my eyes had seen. Phobetor was dead, no doubt. And I hoped that whatever the pods stole from him stayed buried.
My ember sank into my flesh, but the gold branch tattoos didn’t vanish; in fact, they swept over my biceps, connecting over my shoulder blades and clavicle.
I lifted my chin, acknowledging the Elysium Tree’s gift as its song hummed through me. As Somnis fully accepted me, and Kosmos bonded with me.
My Ascension was complete.
It should have ended there.
All at once, the moonlight shifted. A pulse of something wrong flitted through Hallowed End.
I flinched as gasps rent the air. I braced for an attack that never came.
A dull thud sounded behind me.
“Gavrel?” I cried.
He was propped on one knee, eyes wide and unseeing. Shadow coiled from the rune over his heart, his tunic torn open, showcasing his flesh. The star-shaped scar at its center corroded with spreading darkness.
Phobetor’s final attack hadn’t missed its mark after all.
“No—” My voice tore free as I lunged toward him. Kaden caught his brother before his head hit the planks.
Every color drained from the world until all that remained was darkness.
The others shouted, distant, warped by the roar in my ears.
“Stay with me,” I pleaded, cupping his face between my hands. “Gavrel, look at me!”
His lips moved—my name, I think—but no sound reached me.
My ember zoomed over my flesh, answering the scream I didn’t have enough breath for.