Chapter Twenty-Three #4
The woman was still laughing when shining steel flashed, so swift and graceful even she seemed surprised when her head separated from her body.
Both parts hit the floor, revealing Aleksi with a sword dripping blood.
A half dozen paces behind him, the burly swordsman lay sprawled in a rough circle of weapons that had clearly not been enough to save him from the Lover’s skill.
Too late. The final burst of power had shattered the precarious balance, and the castle started to collapse. Chunks of stone broke free.
At least the humans were outside. They’d saved the people—and the world dipped suddenly, as if it wasn’t the first time Einar had stood on this ground and thought those words.
As death hurtled toward them, Naia shouted in an ancient language long dead, liquid and lyrical and shuddering through Einar, because in that moment, that cry sounded more real than the language he’d grown up speaking. “No!”
Power tore out from her in a wave so intense, Einar staggered under it.
Light suffused the darkness, a light that shone from her like a beacon as she held back Gwynira’s entire palace with the force of her will alone.
It was as if a giant dome covered them—all of them.
Einar and Aleksi. Arktikos and Inga. Isa and Gwynira.
Even the servants hovering just beyond the shattered wall, stubbornly refusing to leave.
Huge chunks of stone tumbled off it, bouncing down toward the rocky cliffs and the empty shores below—and more than stone.
Massive wooden timbers, huge dining room tables.
Beds and cabinets. Metal bathtubs and glittering mirrors.
Generation after generation of trinkets and tokens and art and all the things that rendered a palace graceful and well-appointed tumbled off that invisible barrier, shunted harmlessly away from those they might harm.
At the heart of the chaos, the goddess glowed like a radiant sun, like the moons .
. . like midnight itself. Einar could only stare at her, at the way her skin seemed lit from within by both light and shadows in a way he had never seen before.
The only thing that came close was Sachielle or Zanya, but they were so distinct—the bright light of Creation and the midnight whispers of Destruction.
The goddess was neither. And both.
She was the heart of this island, its strong protector, mother of creation and life itself—but when you tread upon the place she called hers, you should never forget that every step you take is by her mercy.
Awe gave way to dizziness, a deep feeling of dread climbing up through Einar that was foreign and still deeply familiar. It crashed in on him from all directions, driving his heart into his throat.
Then he caught movement at the edge of his vision, and dread crystalized into rage.
Only one person wasn’t frozen in awe in the face of Naia’s power.
Sorin’s eyes glittered with hunger—and Einar knew it was not hunger for her, but for her power.
He wanted it for his own, whether subverted, enslaved—or stolen.
Sorin strolled through the debris and destruction, inexorable as a cresting wave, danger bearing down on Naia’s unprotected back—
Einar flung himself between them, ready to shelter her with his body.
And the panic inside him exploded.
Time stopped. Eternity opened up before him, and he tumbled in, spiraling down into the depths as images flashed before him.
Naia—but not Naia—sun shining on her red hair as she smiled at him . . .
Flower petals dancing on a breeze to twirl teasingly around him . . .
Teal glass sparkling in the sun as he cast handfuls of it at her feet . . .
Dancing under stars so bright they turned into ribbons of light as they spun and spun and spun . . .
Clouds gathering on the distant horizon.
The ground shaking.
A wave of water rushing toward them, tall enough to swallow the world.
No. No.
Naia—but not Naia—raising her arms to the sky as she summoned her own wall from the sea, holding back destruction, holding it back, holding it back . . .
A glow so intense he couldn’t look at her anymore. The bright light sparking tears in his eyes. She was an inferno of power, her strength endless, unflagging . . .
But not. No one can last forever. Stop. Please stop. You can’t die. You can’t leave me!
He screamed, a sound so raw it shattered the frozen moment. It was the sound of thunder, the sound of rage and grief, a sound so primal it shook the crumbling walls of the palace.
A prickle of warning on his spine was enough. He spun at the last moment and threw up a hand, catching the head of a huge war hammer with his palm. The Void-steel burned his fingers, and he knew with terrifying certainty that if this weapon had cracked his skull, it would have killed him.
Hatred burned in his heart, but he didn’t know who he was, or where he was. Just that he hated the man holding this deadly hammer with a destructive force that felt inevitable. This man, who had tried to take her away from him again—
Jagged memories tried to fight their way in, overlapping at odd angles—screaming his grief to the sky, the rain pelting his skin in drops so vicious they stung—
No, that was not a memory. That was happening. The palace was split open above them, and the sudden rain pummeled down on the chaos of their battle. Thunder cracked so loudly that someone screamed, and the wind whipped around them as Einar remembered who he was. Where he was.
Who he faced.
Sorin smiled, utterly unbothered by the rain slicking his golden-brown hair to his head.
“So, you’re the little lost prince Klement told me about.
I admit, from his description I expected someone .
. . human.” His gaze raked over Einar’s demigod form with derision.
“Why am I plagued so endlessly by brutish monsters who are all muscle and no brain?”
Given their history, Einar suspected he was being compared to the Dragon. Only Sorin would think that linking a man to Ash was an insult.
“Ah, well,” Sorin continued, clearly disappointed the jab hadn’t drawn blood. His next was more cleverly targeted. “I suppose you wish to avenge your family, or something trite like that?”
Einar’s vision hazed. “Do not speak of them.”
“Honestly, I couldn’t.” Sorin lifted one shoulder in a dismissive little shrug. “I didn’t even know who they were before Klement told me your story. They were meaningless to me. Fleeting roadblocks along the path to progress.”
Thunder cracked above their heads. It echoed inside Einar, a warning rage in the face of Sorin’s chilling obliviousness.
How many boys like him had this man left in his wake?
Lives shattered, families killed, worlds upended, cultures destroyed?
How many had he crushed beneath his boots without even noticing, without caring?
Einar’s entire life had been shaped by an obsession with revenge—and its target barely knew he existed.
Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating Sorin’s little smile. He was pleased to have finally struck a blow.
Let the former emperor enjoy his petty victory. The storm was in Einar’s blood now.
The fine hair on Sorin’s arms began to stand on end.
His brow furrowed, that smile disappearing as he spared the deadly storm a wary glance.
When his gaze swung back to Einar, the dismissiveness was gone—as if, for the first time, he was considering Einar as a potential adversary instead of a delightful diversion or, at worst, a tedious inconvenience.
Einar leaned closer, not releasing his grip on the Void hammer even as the metal seared his fingers. “You shouldn’t have tried to hurt her,” he rumbled, as the storm inside him built and built and built . . .
Sorin’s eyes widened, his fingers flexing on the hammer’s handle—but it was too late. Lightning forked down from the sky to crash into the hammer they both held, the light of it blinding.
Someone screamed in pain—but not Einar. The lightning could not hurt him. It was a sweet fire in his blood, a joyous caress from a friend he had not seen in too many centuries. He welcomed it, embraced it, reveled in it as Sorin screamed and screamed—
The Void-steel beneath Einar’s fingers shattered, flinging him backward.
Little shards sliced at his face and his arms, deadly stinging projectiles that broke even his tougher demigod skin.
He barely noticed the pain with the lightning still in his blood, demanding that he surge to his feet, that he finish the enemy.
Naia was there before he could, her fingers trembling as she cupped his face. Her luminous eyes held frantic worry and something else—a question he was not ready to answer. Surely she understood what it meant that the lightning answered his call—but she must be wondering if he knew.
He knew too much. More than he’d ever wanted to.
Her lips parted, but before she could ask the question, horror spread across her features. She spun, and Einar lurched upright in time to see Sorin staggering to his feet.
Burns crawled up his arms and covered his face, but that wasn’t what had Einar staring in equal horror.
A dark halo spread out around Sorin in a blaze of unfathomable power—like Zanya, and yet not.
When Zanya embraced the power of the Endless Void, she sparkled like a midnight rainbow, seductive and deadly.
She was destruction in its purest form, the vengeance that cleared a path for new creation to thrive.
The power that flowed from Sorin felt like inky, smothering death.
It hungered, spiraling out in shadows that reminded Einar of those corrupting vines, and curling around Sorin as he flung his head back in ecstatic joy.
“Oh, I was wrong,” he whispered, the soft words falling like boulders into the horrified silence.
“I didn’t realize destruction would feel so good. ”
Princess Sachielle had torn away Sorin’s connection to the Dream, rendering him mortal.
But in their world, where belief shaped power, desperate need and strong conviction could turn a man into a god.
It had happened to Einar himself, when his hatred for Sorin had coalesced into the dream of being a protector for his people.
The Everlasting Dream had granted that wish, and he had become the Kraken.
The Dream would never answer Sorin’s call again. But in his need to destroy those who had brought him low, he must have found an echo in the vast power of destruction that made up the Endless Void. He had manifested again, this time as a creature of pure annihilation.
Zanya would be furious.
But Zanya was not here. Isa was the only other person in the room with a connection to the Void, and she moved without hesitation. Her knife flashed through the air, steel singing of the Dream and the Void in equal measure. But two paces from Sorin’s chest, shadows slapped it from the air.
Sorin smiled, and those shadows began to writhe toward them.
Overhead, thunder roared—and Einar felt it this time.
The storm wasn’t simply in his blood. He was the storm.
Thunder crackled with his rage, and lightning pulsed like his heartbeat.
For the first time in thousands of years, he called upon it consciously, calling for it to end this threat once and for all.
Lightning forked down from the sky, arcing toward Sorin. Shadows whipped around in a fury, wrapping him in darkness that battled the sudden brightness. Everyone else in the room threw up their arms, shielding their faces from the blinding light.
Not Einar. Lightning could not hurt the storm god. So he was the only one who saw the shadows envelop Sorin and carry him away in the moment before lightning crashed into the shattered marble floor.
No one moved. For long, fraught moments, the only sound was the grinding of distant stones and the rain, drops of water bouncing off the rubble and splashing softly into pools of blood.
A low groan broke the silence. Across the room, Arktikos sat up.
His armor fell in tatters around him, revealing the smooth unblemished skin of his abdomen and the strong, whole expanse of his chest. He lifted a hand as if to shove his hair back from his face, only to pause and stare at the blood slicking his fingers.
Confused, his gaze took in what was left of the room, and the stunned people scattered across it. “What did I miss?”
It was one impossibility too many. Einar watched in numb shock as Inga staggered to her feet, face even paler than usual and every expanse of visible skin so bruised and bloody it looked as if the palace had fallen on her.
She frowned, as if vaguely perplexed, and tried to take a step.
Her eyes lost focus, and Arktikos lunged to catch her before she crashed to the floor.
The rain softened. A wind rose, sweeping the clouds away to reveal both moons. They shone down on the broken palace, on the faces of stunned servants, on a stricken Aleksi and a silent, ashen-faced Naia.
Einar—the storm god?—answered Arktikos with a laugh rusty with the sharp edges of a thousand newly awoken memories. “Everything.”