Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
From the left tunnel erupts a creature that defies description, a writhing mass of decaying gray limbs ending in points that scrape across the floor, like an overgrown, mutant spider.
Its legs undulate, shifting between solid and vapor, but its head remains terrifyingly constant: elongated with too many depthless black eyes and a mouth that splits open to reveal rows of teeth dripping with viscous black liquid.
Where it touches the ground, rot forms and immediately blackens the clay ground.
“Voidspawn!” someone shouts behind me.
Davrin’s confident posture falters for a second before he adjusts his grip on his scythe, planting his feet wider.
“Void widow,” Rook supplies beside me. “They’re not supposed to be able to breach the academy’s wards.”
“Hold your position!” Falcen barks at Davrin, but makes no move to intervene.
The creature senses our movements, its head swiveling until it locks onto Davrin. A sound emanates from its throat, a clicking, growling, sonorous noise that makes me shudder.
Davrin takes a step back, his scythe wavering in his grip. “What the fuck is this thing?”
The Void widow lunges with shocking speed, its limbs propelling it across the arena floor. Davrin barely manages to dodge, rolling to the side as one of the creature’s appendages slams into the ground where he stood, leaving a smoking crater of decay.
“Fight back!” someone else shouts from the crowd.
Davrin scrambles to his feet, his gold-brown skin having lost all its luster.
He swings his soul-scythe in a wide arc, the curved blade slicing through one of the widow’s limbs. Instead of blood, thick black ichor sprays across the arena floor, sizzling where it lands. The severed limb dissolves into mist, but the creature doesn’t even flinch. If anything, it seems angrier.
“Its limbs regenerate,” Rook whispers beside me. “You have to hit the core.”
The widow howls again, this time directing its multiple eyes toward Davrin with such focused malice that I can almost feel its hatred from where I stand. It rears up, revealing more limbs than I initially thought possible, each one ending in a razor-sharp point.
“Oh, sweet Lux above,” an initiate nearby prays before swaying on their feet.
“Look out!” Rook shouts at Davrin, her hands clenched at her sides with her own summoned weapons, a pair of short, curved daggers that shine with cobalt magick.
It’s then I notice that all other initiates have their weapons in their hands, various forms of blades, bows, and staves, all glowing with that same clean Soulren magick. All except me.
The widow rears for Davrin again, this time catching him across the shoulder. Davrin screams, a sound so human and filled with pain that it stabs me in the chest. He stumbles backward, his free hand clutching at the wound where black venom is already spreading beneath his skin.
“The core!” Rook yells. “Hit the center mass!”
Davrin grits his teeth and charges forward, desperation lending him speed. His scythe arcs through the air, its edge catching the torchlight as it slices toward the widow’s spherical body.
Everything stills.
The widow goes stiff, its many limbs freezing in place. Then it emits a sound like steam escaping a kettle, high-pitched and painful, before collapsing in on itself. Its form dissolves into black mist that dissipates across the arena floor.
Davrin stands panting, his weapon still extended, black ichor dripping from its edge. His shoulder is a mess of poison and blood, the infection spreading visibly down his arm.
“How did you know how to defeat it?” I ask Rook in a soft voice.
“My mother was a Resonant,” she says before she returns her attention to the center of the arena.
“Adequate,” Falcen says dryly. “But if this were a real encounter, you’d be dead within the quarter hour from that wound. Report to the infirmary.”
Davrin’s face is colorless, his lips trembling as he stares at the spreading blackness on his arm. Two Hollows appear from a side entrance, moving with eerie synchronicity to flank him. They guide him toward an exit, his legs barely supporting his weight.
“That concludes our demonstration,” Falcen announces to the stunned group. “Now the real training begins.”
A collective shudder passes through the gathered students. I feel my own blood run cold as I realize what’s about to happen.
“You’re going to make us all fight those things?” someone asks, voice tremulous.
Falcen’s eyes glint with something like satisfaction.
“One-on-one combat against a Void creature is the truest test of your abilities. Your soul-weapons are manifestations of your inner selves. What they reveal about you in a controlled setting is only a taste of what you must endure when sent to defend against Veil tears.”
His gaze finds mine across the arena, memories in its depths of when we were propelled into a Void rift without my soul-weapon … unless you include what lives inside me and fed off Falcen in order to get us out of there.
I know what he’s communicating with that stare: If you can handle that, you can handle this.
“Initiate Holbrook,” he calls, and my heart plummets when my suspicions are confirmed. “You’re next.”
The arena falls silent as my name reverberates through the space. Every initiate’s eyes turn to me. I feel their stares like physical weights as I step forward, my boots scraping against the packed clay floor and carefully avoiding the destruction from the widow.
“Summon your weapon,” Falcen orders, his voice betraying nothing of our earlier confrontation.
I extend my wounded hand, palm up, and close my eyes. The ember stirs behind my ribs, a lazy stretching sensation like an untamed feline waking from a nap.
Help me contain it, I plead silently. Don’t let them see that you exist.
For once, she doesn’t mock me. Instead, I feel her warmth flow down my arm, into my fingertips.
The familiar burning sensation spreads across my palm as my halberd materializes, resplendent under Lux’s sun.
True to my earlier practice, only the faintest wisps of black smoke curl from its edges, subtle enough that an untrained eye might mistake it for a shadow effect.
A few murmurs ripple through the crowd. I hear someone whisper, “That’s a serious weapon for such a novice.”
Falcen circles, critically assessing my posture, my grip, my weapon. “Wider stance. Lower your center of gravity.”
I comply, adjusting my feet and bending my knees slightly. The halberd feels lighter than it did during our pre-dawn training, as if the ember is lending her strength to help support its weight.
Anxiety thickens my tongue. The ember responds to my fear, flaring once before sending a wave of heat down my arm. To my horror, the halberd shudders in my hand, the shaft elongating by several inches before my eyes.
I gasp, nearly dropping it. No one told me soul-weapons could change shape.
“Focus,” Falcen hisses, close enough that only I can hear. His eyes flick to my weapon, a flash of … concern? … crosses his features before he masks it.
The rumbling begins again, this time from the other tunnel. The arena falls silent except for the scraping sound of something heavy being dragged across grit.
“Your opponent approaches,” Falcen announces, backing away to give me space. “Remember your training.”
I want to laugh hysterically. My training consists of being sliced open by a man I both loathe and lust after and learning to contain black smoke. Nothing has prepared me for whatever is about to emerge from that tunnel.
“Remember,” Falcen says, his voice still pitched low, “the core. Strike the center mass.”
Before I can nod, another Void widow explodes from the tunnel, this one larger than the one Davrin faced.
Its limbs, too many to count, carve through the air as it skitters across the arena floor, leaving trails of decay in its wake.
The stench hits me first, like rotting flesh and an acrid burn in my nostrils.
I barely have time to register its approach before it leaps.
I dive to the side, rolling across the hard-packed earth as one of its limbs smashes into the ground where I stood. The impact sends tremors through the floor, and dust clouds billow upward.
“Move!” Falcen shouts.
I scramble to my feet, bringing my halberd up just in time to deflect another strike. The impact jars my arms, sending pain shooting up to my shoulders. The creature is impossibly strong.
Its multiple eyes fix on me, black and shining, and it stills. A sound comes from its body, a trilling vibration that almost sounds like a purr.
It likes you, my ember says.
The widow’s strange behavior freezes me in place. This isn’t right. The one that attacked Davrin had been all rage and violence, but this one has its head tilted at an unnatural angle and is studying me.
My halberd throbs in my hand, the shaft growing hot beneath my palms. To my horror, the weapon begins to change again, the blade shrinking and blunting itself.
What are you doing??
Making friends, my ember replies, her strange voice tinged with amusement.
The widow inches closer, its limbs no longer poised to strike but moving with an infantile curiosity. One appendage stretches toward me, the tip hovering inches from my face.
“Kill it!” the initiates shout.
I raise my weapon, ready to strike, but the widow’s behavior stops me. The creature isn’t attacking. It’s ... communicating? The black ichor dripping from its maw begins to float upward, defying gravity, forming patterns in the air that mirror the spiraling tendrils on my weapon.
My ember skitters behind my ribs with satisfaction, and suddenly I understand. The Veilrot in my weapon is calling to the creature. They recognize each other.
The widow chirps, a sound almost like delight.
Oh, this cannot be good.
“It’s not attacking her,” an initiate whispers. “Why isn’t it attacking?”