15. The Damned #2
My sword was already moving, muscle memory I didn't know I possessed bringing it around to block the next attack. The clash sent vibrations through my bones and left burning white streaks across my vision.
"Is this a light show, or a fight?"
Fuck him. Fuck his commentary. Two more souls circled me. My lungs burned. Sweat stung my eyes. The star-sword hummed in my grip, eager for more destruction.
The one on my right feinted left then came in low. I saw it coming this time, sidestepped, brought my blade down in a vertical cut that burned through its neck. The head hit the sand and rolled, trailing wisps of smoke, before dissolving .
"Is that all you got?" I panted, awaiting a response that never came.
And then, three bodies were racing towards me simultaneously.
Well, fuck.
I dove left, sand filling my mouth as I rolled. I came up swinging. My blade carved through the first soul's chest, leaving a line of fire.
Steel whistled past my ear. So close I felt the wind of it. I spun?—
Fire exploded across my back as a blade found flesh. The pain was immediate, blinding. I pitched forward, hot blood soaking through my shirt. Behind me, I could hear the soul drawing back for another strike.
"That’ll probably leave a scar,” Xül mused.
But there was no time for me to think of something cutting enough to say back.
I threw myself around, my sword slicing through the air. Starlight seared through the thing's neck, cauterizing as it cut. Its head tumbled into the sand even as its body took another step forward before collapsing in a heap of dissolving shadow.
Another was coming for me, black blood streaming from the burning gash across its chest. I stepped inside its clumsy strike, grabbed its wrist, and drove the star-sword's crossguard into where its nose should have been.
Light flared on impact, and I smelled burning tar.
As it staggered back, I opened its throat with a cut that left a trail of blazing silver in the air.
The last few came faster now. Hungry. My feet found their balance in the shifting sand.
The starlight sword moved where I wanted it to go instead of where panic took it.
I caught one's thrust, used its momentum to spin it around, and drove my blade through its spine.
It arched backward before crumbling to ash.
Another came high. I went low, sweeping its legs and finishing it with a downward thrust that pinned it to the beach.
The final soul circled me, weapon raised.
I didn't wait for it to decide. I rushed forward, my sword coming in at an angle it couldn't quite block. Starlight sliced through shadow and whatever passed for sinew in this place, leaving nothing but the smell of rot clinging to the air. The soul folded in on itself and was gone.
Xül was watching me with those unreadable eyes, his expression searching in a way that made my skin crawl.
"I didn't realize mortal food provided such sustenance," he said slowly.
My blood ran cold. Because I recognized the tilt in his voice. Suspicion. Curiosity. I forced myself to shrug, wiping blood from my blade on my ruined shirt.
"Hard work builds muscle," I said, hoping my voice sounded steadier than I felt. "You should try it sometime."
But I could sense his eyes burning holes right through me. The last thing I needed was for Xül to suspect anything was off about me. He'd been half-divine himself before ascension—he knew exactly what that kind of power felt like, how it moved through mortal flesh.
I'd have to be more careful.
For a moment, I thought he might call it a day. My muscles ached, my back burned where the soul's blade had found its mark, and exhaustion was starting to creep in around the edges. I took the moment to catch my breath.
"I think you can go another round," Xül murmured.
I wasn't so sure, but I wasn't going to say that out loud.
"Bring it on."
His smile made every instinct I possessed scream in warning. There was wickedness in it, a promise that I was not going to like whatever came next.
The ground began to tremble again. I raised my hands, calling starlight back into sword-form as another being clawed its way up through the dark sand. I braced myself for another faceless soul, another mindless opponent to cut down.
Except this time, it wasn't faceless.
This time, it was my brother.
The weapon almost slipped from my fingers.
I knew it wasn't him—knew it couldn't be him—but the wrongness of seeing Thatcher standing before me, looking exactly as vibrant and alive as the last time I'd seen him made my blood thicken in my veins.
Every detail was perfect. The way his dark hair fell across his forehead.
The hint of a smile bringing out his dimples.
Even the way he held himself, that easy confidence that had always made people gravitate toward him. But his eyes were empty. Cold. Dead.
"You're disgusting," I spat, the words aimed at Xül like poisoned arrows.
The thing wearing my brother's face advanced toward me, and I stumbled backward.
My sword trembled in my grip. I couldn't do it.
It didn't matter that he wasn't real. I couldn't bring myself to raise my blade against that face.
"Learn to put your attachments—your emotions aside," Xül said conversationally. "It’s the only way to survive."
"If I have to kill Thatcher, then I guess we’ll both die."
"And you've proven me right. This is exactly what I thought of you." His voice was filled with cold satisfaction. "I've wasted my time."
Rage flared in my chest, hot and sudden. "Is every mortal emotion simply drained from you the second you ascend?"
I couldn't understand how someone with a mortal mother, who had been mortal himself, could be capable of such cruelty.
"I'm the better for it."
"Have you never loved anyone? Never cared about anything other than yourself?" I was nearly screaming now, any residual feelings of desire I'd felt the night before completely evaporated. They were monsters. All of them.
Xül stayed quiet, watching me with that same amused detachment.
"How does your mother even look at you?" I hissed.
The smirk dissolved from his face slowly.
His eyes went dark. And in an instant, Thatcher was coming at me, no warmth left in those features.
Its sword whistled through the air where my head had been a heartbeat before.
I threw myself to the side, sand flying as I rolled and came up in a crouch.
Thatcher followed, moving with unnatural speed. "Fight me!"
The words didn't come from my brother's voice. Instead, a thousand whispers intertwined, pouring from his mouth like smoke. The sound was wrong—a chorus of souls speaking in unison, their voices layered and discordant, scraping against my ears.
I parried desperately, our blades meeting in a shower of sparks. It was stronger than the other souls had been, faster, more skilled. Every attack came with brutal force.
"I can't," I screamed, even as my sword moved to block another strike. "I can't do this."
"Then die."
Again, that terrible hiss of whispers emerged from my brother's lips.
The disconnect between Thatcher's face and that chorus of voices made the situation somehow worse—a perversion of everything he was.
Shadow leaked from the corners of his mouth as it spoke, tendrils of darkness that dissipated in the air.
The false Thatcher's blade caught me across the ribs, opening a line of fire along my side. I gasped, stumbling, and it pressed its advantage. Another cut across my thigh. Another along my shoulder.
"Please," I whispered. "Please don't make me do this."
But there was no mercy in those empty eyes. No recognition of our shared past or the bond that had defined my entire existence. This thing might have worn my brother's face, but it was hollow. It raised its sword for a killing blow. I finally snapped.
My star-sword blazed brighter as rage flooded me, white-hot and pure. I caught its descending blade on my crossguard, muscles straining. For a moment we were locked together, face to face. I could smell the dirt that clung to its false skin.
"You're not him," I snarled.
And drove my blade through its heart. Its mouth opened as if to speak, but only shadow poured out, along with a final dying whisper that seemed to come from a thousand tortured throats at once.
The body began to dissolve around my sword, crumbling like ash in the wind. A tear ran down my face as the last traces of it scattered on the strange breeze.
It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.
Slow clapping echoed across the beach. Xül stepped into my field of vision, his face drenched in dark satisfaction.
"Now there's my killer," he said, and his voice held genuine approval for the first time since I'd arrived in this realm.
The sound of it—the pleasure he took in what he'd forced me to do hardened my grief.
I brushed past him without a word, heading back toward the castle.
I couldn't bare to be near him for another fucking second.
I reached out through the bond with Thatcher as I walked, feeling for that familiar presence.
There—alive, safe, pulsing somewhere in Bellarium.
I finally reached a shadowed corridor deep in the castle and collapsed against the wall, sliding down to the floor.
My knees came up to my chest, and I wrapped my arms around them, making myself as small as possible. I slammed my eyes closed, but it didn't help. I only saw my blade sliding through my brother's heart over and over again.
Tears had dried on my cheeks, leaving behind salt trails that pulled at my skin. My throat burned raw from sobs I'd muffled against my sleeve, refusing to give Xül or his servants the satisfaction of hearing me cry
This hadn't been about preparing me for the Trials. This hadn't been about survival or strength or any of the other justifications Xül had offered. This had been about seeing how much pain I could endure before shattering.
A test. An experiment. Entertainment.
I pushed myself upright, legs unsteady beneath me.
The corridors of black stone seemed to bend around me as I walked, my reflection fragmented in polished surfaces. I barely recognized the woman staring back—eyes too bright, jaw too tight, wildness and danger radiating from within.
Good. Let him see what he's created.
When I reached Xül's study, I didn't knock. I simply pushed the door open.
He sat at his desk, not bothering to look up as I entered. "There are proper protocols for entering my private chambers, starling."
"Look at me." The words escaped through clenched teeth.
His eyes flickered up, assessing me. "You're upset. How predictable."
My composure shattered.
"Is that what you wanted?" I moved closer, my voice low and dangerous. "To tear me down?"
"You confuse necessary preparation with cruelty. The Trials will demand worse of you than anything I've required."
"This wasn't about the Trials." I slammed my palms on his desk, scattering parchment. "This was about you. Your sick need to control, to dominate, to make others suffer."
"You know nothing of me." His voice remained level, but his eyes held a threat.
"Let me take a wild guess, then." I leaned closer, refusing to be intimidated.
"You hide behind that cruelty because you're terrified someone might actually see you.
You push everyone away before they have a chance to reject you.
You treat people like pieces on a game board because it's safer than treating them like people who might matter. "
"Careful, starling." Each syllable cut like ice. "You tread dangerously close to insolence I cannot ignore."
"Go ahead." I spread my arms wide. "Punish me. Torture me. Kill me if that's what you need to feel powerful again. But we both know it won't fill that emptiness inside you."
He stood in a fluid motion, power rolling off him in waves. "You forget yourself. You forget who I am."
"No." I met his gaze steadily. "I see exactly who you are. Your perfect mask doesn't fool me because I've worn one my entire life. I know every crack, every seam where the truth bleeds through."
"I am death itself," he hissed, his face inches from mine.
"Perhaps." The words scraped past my lips. "But you’re also afraid."
His fingers twitched momentarily, as if he would grab me. But no. He stepped back as if burned.
He turned away—a gesture so uncharacteristic it momentarily silenced me.
"You think you know me." His voice was different now, stripped of its cold perfection. Raw. "You see fragments and believe you've assembled the whole."
"Tell me I'm wrong." I challenged, circling to face him.
He moved to the window, shoulders set in a rigid line, and for a very long moment, he didn’t say anything at all. "Report at dawn for training. We have work to do."
The dismissal was clear, but as I turned to leave, his voice followed me, carrying an undercurrent I couldn't quite identify.
"You're not what I expected, Thais Morvaren."
I paused at the threshold, not looking back. "Neither are you," I replied, and closed the door behind me.