Chapter 39 Emory #3
The earth shuddered as the gate the eldritch had come out of blew off its hinges.
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd before they erupted into cheers again as beasts of all kinds charged into the fighting pit, each more terrifying than the last: feral boars and horned wolves and three-eyed deer, and more of those corvus serpentes that took to the sky.
Following in their wake was another sort of horror, one which Emory knew all too well.
A dozen umbrae slithered out of the dark. In their midst was the demon wearing Keiran’s face.
The arena devolved into utter chaos as the eldritch monsters attacked the guards and whatever prisoners remained ran for their lives to escape the umbrae.
The crowd broke into genuine screams of fear now, realizing this wasn’t part of the fight; the corvus serpentes swooped over them, grabbing whoever they could in their talons.
Two frightful words swept the arena like a tidal wave:
Night Bringer.
Something clicked in Emory’s mind as she looked to Keiran—who was heading straight for Tol, those blazing eyes flaring bright with murderous intent. And she knew then, without a doubt, that Tol was the key.
And the demon would rip his heart out.
Emory unleashed herself. A blast of light surged out of her with a deafening boom, blasting back eldritch and umbrae and the demon himself, yet leaving her friends and the draconic guards and the remaining prisoners untouched.
Dark satisfaction seized her as she watched Keiran’s body hit the arena wall, as he pulled himself slowly to his hands and knees, visibly hurt.
She could end them all right here. The ley line burned through her, crackling seductively as it lent her its strength, powered her up as it sought to make her invincible.
“Em.”
Romie stared at Emory’s arms, the silver rippling in her veins.
Around them the beasts had already recovered from Emory’s blast, and they were angry now. They mauled the remaining prisoners and jumped into the stands to have their fill of spectator blood.
Keiran drew himself up and set his murderous gaze on Emory, the umbrae swirling around him like a protective second skin.
His focus was torn by Tol as the draconic picked up a discarded golden sword and arced it down on the demon.
The demon was quicker. He sidestepped the blow with lethal speed and produced a shadowy sword of his own, blocking Tol’s next attack.
“He’s going to kill him,” Aspen said, staring horrified at the dance of gold and shadow.
Emory grabbed hold of Romie, pretending not to see her friend flinch as the silver in her veins flared brighter. “You have to go. I don’t want to hurt you, but I—I can’t—”
All that power whispering in her ears, illuminating her veins, searing through her soul… It was a swelling river inside her, and she was a dam bound to break. There was nothing she could do to stop it.
“Emory! Romie!”
Their heads snapped toward the sound of their names to find Virgil, Nisha, and Vera running across the fighting pit toward them.
The ursus magnus jumped between them with a growl, spittle dripping from its open maw as it headed straight for Emory’s friends.
Romie’s grip tightened around her wrist. “Do it!” she screamed, eyes wild.
The dam around Emory broke.
She blasted back the demon and the beasts once more, erecting a barrier between them and her friends.
It wouldn’t last. She opened herself up to all the magics around her, to the three bright spots that called to her like lodestars: the power in Romie’s blood and Aspen’s bones and Tol’s heart, all of them demanding to be used.
She drew the magic into her, and instinct propelled her into the mind of the giant bear.
Emotions and senses and wisps of dreaming overcame her as she felt everything the ursus magnus had ever felt. The freedom it had once known. The daily torture it underwent under its captors. The terror and death it was forced to instill.
She laced this new magic coursing through her with the power of Glamours, influencing the bear’s mind to do her bidding, pushing it in the direction she wanted it to go.
She extended this magic to the other beasts too.
All at once, the eldritch stopped fighting the prisoners and bystanders—and turned instead on the guards.
The draconics who had captured and tortured them into submission.
“Heretic!” one of the draconics yelled, pointing at Emory with pure terror before the ursus magnus trampled him.
They thought she was aligned with the Night Bringer, even as bright, silver light emanated from her.
Still Emory did not feel on the verge of Collapsing.
Power coursed through her like a river unleashed and filled her with elation.
Only a small, weak voice in her mind made her think to check on her friend.
Romie was on her knees, face drawn and pale, lips gone colorless as if all the blood in her had left.
At her side, Aspen writhed in pain as her bones broke, her arms and legs snapping at unnatural angles and rearranging themselves under some invisible torture.
And where Tol stood before the demon, he suddenly dropped his golden sword to the ground and clutched at his chest, doubling over in pain.
Leaving himself undefended for the demon to rip his heart out.
“No!” Emory screamed through the rush of power, trying desperately to let go of it, to shut the conduits open between her and these other magics she was tapping into, these three lives she felt vibrating in the palms of her hands, but she couldn’t, and now the darkness was pressing in, lunar flowers in her mouth and sprouting from her lungs, ghosts tearing at her clothes and shouting in her ears—
“Em, behind you!”
Virgil’s warning came a moment too late. Emory had barely begun to turn when she caught the glint of golden armor, a blade arcing down toward her, and knew death, at last, had found her.
Except it didn’t.
For a second, she was too stunned to realize someone had jumped in front of her, taking the death blow that had been meant for her. More stunned still to realize who it was.
The demon held her at arm’s length, fingers digging into her biceps, a pained, surprised expression on his face as he looked down at the sword tip protruding from his middle.
He met her gaze, and for a moment that seemed suspended in time, everything was clear.
All the darkness Emory had been drowning in vanished, as if drawn into the demon, silenced by his touch, chased away by the shifting light of his eyes.
She could feel the magic she’d been leeching from Romie and Aspen and Tol slowly returning to them as her own blood faded from silver to red and the ley line beneath her quieted.
It felt like when Baz had saved her from Collapsing, except Emory knew this had nothing to do with time, and everything to do with the demon who had taken a sword for her. As if he were a stopper on her magic, a balm against this twisted, uncontrollable, deadly side of it.
Time resumed as the sword was pulled out of the demon’s middle, making blood splatter. But instead of crumpling to his death, the demon moved with lethal speed, turning to tear the sword from the knight’s hands. With it he sliced their helmeted head clean off their body.
He looked every part the demon he was then, a thing of death and darkness and blood.
With movements that were too graceful to be human, he heaved himself onto the ursus magnus’s back as the beast bounded toward the blasted gate.
But Emory saw the way he clutched his middle, the wince of pain as he gripped the beast’s back.
And the face that looked at her over a shoulder, deathly pale.
The demon might not be human, but Keiran’s body was. And with a wound like that, Emory knew he wouldn’t last for much longer.
Her gaze cut to her friends, worry and guilt warring inside her.
Tol was picking himself up, looking winded but fine.
Aspen had stopped writhing in pain, her limbs unbroken, set in all the right angles.
And though Romie had regained some color, she looked at Emory with an ashen, defeated expression.
As if saying, You see now? This is what you are.
Tidethief.
And she was right.