Chapter 21 #3
“Excellent timing.” Malakai doesn’t even glance down. Ponytail Girl hasn’t moved. Her mouth is still open mid-sentence.
“Initiate Sparrow.” Malakai gestures to her. “Continue.”
She blinks. “The Voidspawn poured through and slaughtered entire villages. Drained every soul until—”
“Why did the Veil between our world and the Void rip open in the first place?” Malakai interrupts. “What caused it?”
The prisoner, a normal human, sobs, muffled, choking sounds against the gag.
“I...” Initiate Sparrow falters.
“Anyone?” Malakai casts his gaze around the room again.
A boy near the front raises his hand. “Humanity grew too much. Our provinces exploded in population once village mages mastered the healing magicks and could cure almost any illness. Therefore, our souls grew by the hundreds each year, the essence of our lives, thoughts, love, spirits, strengthening and thriving. Our essence grew so strong that … something heard us.”
“Heard us. Smelled us. However, these abominations sensed our existence. They were able to create tears, huge at first, to invade our realm and feast.” Malakai crouches beside the prisoner, one hand resting almost gently on the man’s shoulder.
The man flinches. “Hundreds of thousands of souls crying their existence into the space between realms. We might as well have been ringing a dinner bell. The Voidspawn came through the tears like maggots to a corpse. They butchered entire cities in hours. Drained every soul until nothing remained but empty casings of flesh.” He pauses.
“I was seven when they hit my village. I watched my mother’s face cave in as one fed on her.
Watched her eyes go dark while her mouth still moved, trying to scream. ”
Several students shift in their seats. Even Davrin has gone quiet.
“The monarchy was useless. Queen Mariette prayed to Lux and Nox from this very castle while her subjects died by the thousands.” His lip curls. “The gods didn’t answer. They never do.”
Malakai turns to look out the window, slow blinking until he gives a deep swallow, then returns his attention to the class, at last noticing all the hands sticking up. “Initiate Sparrow?”
The girl stands at attention again, her chair scraping back. “But the First Soulren found a way to fight back.”
Malakai nods. “Four mages. Healers. Scholars who understood a soul’s natural flow and how it animated plants, sustained animals, and connected all living things. They’d spent decades studying it. Mapping it. Learning to sense its currents.”
The prisoner has stopped sobbing. He’s just staring at nothing now, chest heaving.
I lean forward despite myself.
“So the mages went to King Thalamew. Explained what they needed.” Malakai spins on his heel to face the class. “Souls. Human souls, specifically. Concentrated, powerful, and willingly given to fuel a dark ritual that might seal the rifts.”
“The queen agreed to provide prisoners condemned to death,” Sparrow supplies. “The elderly who volunteered. The sick who had nothing left to lose.” He looks down at the man kneeling at his feet. “The records claim two thousand gave themselves willingly over three days.”
Malakai smirks. “But the truth is murkier.” He gestures to Sparrow. “Come demonstrate what those mages discovered, Initiate Sparrow.”
Sparrow descends the steps with the confidence of someone who’s done this countless times. Several students watch her with undisguised envy.
She stands in front of the prisoner as he tries to scramble away. One of the adepts kicks him in the ribs. He curls inward with a muffled grunt.
“The mages built an altar in what is now our Grand Hall,” Malakai continues as Sparrow positions herself. “Right where Queen Mariette’s statue lies toppled. They brought the first ‘volunteer’ forward. Queen Mariette herself.” His eyes flick to Sparrow. “Proceed.”
The man thrashes as Sparrow places a hand on his forehead and closes her eyes.
“They opened her throat, but such theatrics are no longer needed.” Malakai’s voice is steady. “Blood isn’t actually required for our magick. So as she died, drowning in her own blood, the mages reached for what lay beneath the flesh. The luminous core that gave her life. Her soul.”
The air around Sparrow begins to shimmer like heat rising from stone.
The prisoner goes rigid. His spine snaps straight. A sound escapes him, thin and high.
I resist the overwhelming urge to scrunch my eyes shut and recall Edon’s death and how he made the same sound.
“It didn’t come easily,” Malakai says, and I’m unable to block him out. “Back then, souls clung to flesh with desperate strength. The mages had to rip it free.”
Blue light seeps from the man’s nose. It drifts upward in lazy spirals before curving sharply toward Sparrow. More light from his eyes, his ears, the corners of his mouth. His skin takes on a gray cast and starts drying out.
“Good,” Malakai says. “Note how she pulls gently. Our modern methods include clean extraction. It minimizes the vessel’s suffering. Usually, this results in a quicker death, though it’s not necessary to consume the entire soul. Just enough to keep our economy and defenses going.”
My stomach heaves.
The prisoner’s struggles weaken. His eyes roll back, showing only the whites. The sparkling blue essence streams faster now, pouring into Sparrow’s mouth.
“But one soul barely seals a hand-span of rift, even if it’s royal,” Malakai explains. “So they brought another noble. And another. Two thousand souls over three days.”
The last wisps of blue light trail from the prisoner’s gaping mouth. Sparrow catches them, swallowing that captured soul like it’s her dessert.
The prisoner collapses. His chest still rises and falls in shallow gasps, but his face is dry and cracked. Skeletal and empty before he bursts into ash.
Sparrow shudders. When her eyes open, they’re bright. Hungry. Her breathing comes fast and shallow.
Half the class leans forward. Davrin’s fingers drum against his desk. Even students who’d looked sympathetic earlier watch with barely concealed want.
I’m going to vomit.
“That euphoria,” Malakai says, “is what the First Soulren discovered. What saved us and made them strong enough to battle the Voidspawn. What nearly healed the Veil tears and saved our realm.” He nods to the adepts, who produce cleaning supplies and start sweeping the dark smears of ash.
Sparrow climbs back to her seat. Her hands won’t stop flexing, opening and closing, like she’s trying to hold on to the sensation.
“The mages sealed the largest of the rifts. Pushed some of the Voidspawn back. Humanity was at last looking like it would be saved.” Malakai resumes his pacing. “During the final battle, one of them made a discovery that changed everything.”
The door opens again. Another prisoner stumbles through, a girl, maybe sixteen. Her face is blotchy from crying. When she sees the ash stain, she starts to hyperventilate.
“Oh gods,” I whisper, gripping the sides of my desk.
“You need a stronger stomach than this, Skid Mark,” Davrin murmurs.
I don’t bother to acknowledge him.
“A Voidspawn pinned a healer named Sareth. In desperation, she called upon her magick and consumed the Voidspawn’s life force.
A version of a soul, if you want to call it that.
She said later it was like swallowing the sun.
Every human soul she’d taken was a candle by comparison.
” He stops in front of a tapestry depicting the final battle.
“She killed seventeen Voidspawn in the next hour. The others saw her power and understood.”
“They needed Voidspawn essence, not just human,” a girl by the window says. Not a question.
“They performed new rituals,” Malakai agrees.
“Ones designed specifically to help them consume Void souls. It worked. By the end, the mages weren’t human anymore.
The power warped them. Jaws unhinged to accommodate the essence.
Spines bent backward. Black veins spread across their skin like lightning scars.
They became unstoppable. Sealed every major rift.
Slaughtered Voidspawn by the hundreds.” His expression grows more serious, if that’s even possible.
“But it also poisoned them. Within one year, six of the eight were dead. The corruption ate through them. Skin rotted off their bones. Organs turned to black sludge. Their souls mutated.”
My ember reminds me, Want. Hungry. Need.
“The two who survived, Sareth and Kaleb, knew they were dying, too. They had perhaps a few weeks left.” He turns from the tapestry. “So they performed one final ritual. Their masterwork.”
The young girl is dragged to the front. She’s sobbing too hard to stand. They force her to her knees.
“They wove their magick into the realm itself as their final sacrifice. Bound their gift to the fabric of Vehloria so future generations could inherit it. Now, when a child is conceived, sometimes that gift latches onto their developing soul.” His eyes find mine through the sea of rapt faces.
“The child is born Soulren. Born with the ability to sense and manipulate souls. Born hungry. On rare occasions, it finds an old soul, a novice of advanced age, and lies dormant, waiting for a catalyst to ignite the magick within.”
He motions to me.
“Initiate Holbrook. Your turn.”