Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Adelasia
The Well of Eternity looks the same as the last time I saw it, only infinitely more…familiar. Dangerous. I wonder, if it wasn’t plagued by Eternity’s rot, if this place could be beautiful, even after all the misery it’s caused.
I stand between Rowan and Kaius, flanking me like twin shadows, ready to strike down any and all who attempt to harm me. Their presence always steadies me, but right now, it feels like we’re all barely hanging on. Scared.
The Priestesses were waiting for us the moment we stepped through the trees as if they could smell us. Cloaked in grey and black, they stand as still as the ornate statue of their dark goddess, looming behind them.
Though I can’t see their faces, I can feel them–some sort of ancient pull that ties me to their evil. Amatisi is ready for violence. Yekaterina, ready for revenge. I can almost feel her salivating, ready to pluck out my eye and replace the one I stole from her the last time I was here.
“I don’t want to fight,” I say, knowing they can hear me from across the lake. “I just want to return…this.” I hold out my arms to show them.
“Stolen! Stolen! Thief!” they chant.
“I did not ask to be made this way.”
Amatisi chuckles, stepping forward. “And you come here, wishing to be unmade? Why would we do such a thing? Do you think we truly sought peace with you?”
Then, Amatisi reveals the silver dagger I know so intimately in my gut. The ruby pommel stone glimmers in her hand. Her long fingers wrap around the hilt, and then…
Then she turns, slamming the blade into Yekaterina’s stomach. Kaius, Rowan and I gasp, confused. As her sister falls to the ground, Amatisi turns back to us.
“Eternity has chosen you, Adelasia. Your punishment for stealing what was not yours to take. You shall be Her vessel. Her new Matriarch. Blessed by Her dark powers.”
Her words pull a scoff from me. “I do not serve Eternity.”
“Not yet,” she hisses, making a fist in the air. When she does, Rowan is yanked from my side and pulled to the island with the Priestesses. Amatisi rubs a hand across his chest as Rowan is bound and gagged by shadows.
“Let him go!” I shout, stepping into the water, but Kaius pulls me back just as tentacles reach for my legs to pull me under. I turn to him. “Kaius, we have to help him!”
I turn back to Rowan as the Priestesses rub their filthy hands all over him like he belongs to them, like he wants this. “Join us,” she hisses, her whisper floating over the water directly to me. “Or he suffers,” she adds, before ripping one of his wings clean from his body.
I feel his pain in my own back, Kaius too, bound in love and pain through our mating bond. Kaius and I hit the muddy ground, groaning.
“Stop!” I say, lifting my head, just as they take his other wing. He’s dripping blood, looking pale and confused and horrified as they continue touching his body. His incubus powers render him unable to fight them, and I begin to sob, stepping back into the water. I can’t let them hurt him.
The air cracks as I sink into the water. I panic as I swim, worried at any moment that something will drag me under, but all I think of is Rowan, Rowan, Rowan. I have to help Rowan. Nothing else matters.
Somewhere behind me, I hear Kaius follow me into the Well, just as he catches up to me, we’re both dragged under by a force we can’t see.
I remember this, the last time I was here, being dragged under this water knowing there’s no escape. I look to Kaius, fighting the invisible force to try and reach me, but it’s no use.
With nothing left to do, no way to save us, I do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t:
I surrender to that darkness inside me, letting it consume me whole in the ways it’s been screaming for all this time. It breaks me open like lightning through the sky. It slithers through my veins like serpents. It makes me sharp like glass.
A voice I faintly recognize as mine tears from my throat, whispering, “Enough.”
Everything freezes. The earth. The wind. The water. Even time, perhaps.
From the Well, something emerges. Something ancient and terrifying as the darkest night.
A figure cloaked in robes spun from the stars themselves. With a face shimmering like diamonds and eyes like the most alluring void. Magic coils around it like chains of shadow and light.
And then I realize…that figure–it’s me. An avatar of the dark goddess in my soul awaiting my command.
She pulls Kaius from the Well, safely depositing him next to Rowan, whose evil bonds break with a flick of her wrist. Then, she confronts the Priestesses themselves.
“Kneel,” she says. Amatisi hisses back. With a flick of her wrist, she turns the Priestess to ash. She does not ask twice. The remaining Priestesses fall to their knees in silence.
“Insolent fools!” she growls in dissatisfaction. “How long I’ve waited to return here to punish you for your failures! You shall be punished. You. Shall. Perish!”
The Priestesses stay kneeling, their heads touching the ground in shame. Then, she turns to Kaius and Rowan.
“No!” I command. She harshly faces me, or whatever entity of me she takes orders from in this moment.
She smiles. “A soul is indebted to me.”
Then, she raises her hand in their direction, and I can’t let this happen.
So I don’t.
Something inside me cracks. A scream without sound. A surge without shape. Desperation to save the two men I love.
Light spills from my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my fingertips and toes. The last thing I remember is the world going white with fear.
Then—
Nothing.