5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
F lames crawled up the wall behind her, and the curtains caught fire, crackling and blazing in the background. Imani waited even as the heat roared behind her.
Malis didn’t respond.
“What are you? Tell me!” she snarled.
“A better question.” Blood hit the floor as he spat. “What are you ?”
“You know I’m a High-Norn elf,” she lied, her voice wavering with a mix of trepidation and confusion. “You saw my sigil when we …”
The answer to his identity hit with the force of a stoning. She had touched someone of another breed besides her siblings and the naiads she’d slept with for money. She’d touched Malis when he had attacked her in the shop last month.
Malis was her heartmate.
She leaned against his desk to catch her breath and steady her shaky balance. It couldn’t be. No, no, no.
Meira would beg her to have mercy on her heartmate. Imani wished he was someone else, anyone else. In another life, she might have wanted him as a friend, if not a lover.
Imani shoved those thoughts away. Contrary to what Meira believed, Imani agreed with her grandmother regarding heartmates. Finding them could be a blessing or a nightmare. While there were rewards, including increased power and acquiring new magic to share, the risks were as significant and permanent. It was repulsive to think about tethering herself to Malis in that way.
“ Don’t you dare tie yourself to such a beast ,” Ara had warned.
Indeed, if she pulled this off tonight and followed through with the plan she had been scheming for weeks now, Imani would cherish the memory of murdering him until her dying breath.
Malis continued, undeterred by her gaping face. “You put far too much stock in the physical. You may come to find your skin has no bearing on who or what you truly are,” he rasped, shutting his eyes from the pain. “Ara understood exactly what that was.”
Fury overtaking her muscles, Imani shook him by the neck. “Why would she keep such a thing from me? Why did she keep you a secret from me?”
“Because she was a secretive, spiteful bitch.” He bared his bloodstained teeth at her. “But she knew what she was doing, hiding you. The Fabric is unraveling. Magic like yours rips holes bigger than anyone in this kingdom has seen.”
A pit formed in her stomach. Was her magic really so dangerous?
Her voice was softer than she had intended it to be. “Why wouldn’t you mention we are heartmates? What breed are we?”
He narrowed his eyes. “ We are nothing of the sort and never will be,” he spat again, curling his lips in disgust. “But you aren’t the only thing Ara kept hidden in this shithole.” Malis’s wild eyes glanced around the room as her shadows moved. He gave her another sinister grin. “Tell me what Ara knows about fixing the Fabric. An answer for an answer.”
“Shut up,” she ordered, not understanding his question. “I’m issuing the demands and questions now.”
Darkness gathered around her. The shadows pulsed with each one of her breaths. It encased the room, blanketing every surface, except Imani and her prey, until the flames barely penetrated her black cloud.
Malis coughed and laughed at the same time, more blood spraying. Imani felt him slipping away; she was losing her chance to learn anything helpful.
Hitting him in his bleeding nose, she held his face and stared into his wide brown eyes. “With Ara dead, you thought to take advantage of me, didn’t you? All you did was irritate me.” She grabbed him by the throat with her bare hands, letting more blood gush from the wound. “If you don’t give me the answers I want, I won’t be merciful. I won’t kill you quickly and let you drift peacefully into the Under.
“Instead, I’ll seal up the slit in your throat, and you’ll be locked in our shop, alive and well. Each day, I will personally rip out a patch of your flesh until you’re nothing but torn skin and bones. Then, right before your body dies, you’ll remember—and regret—every second you tried to take advantage of me.”
He sputtered out a wet laugh. “Come find me in the Under when you’re dead, and I’ll answer your questions. Ara and I will wait in the deepest realm with the darkest monsters. A place where you truly belong.”
“What the fuck are you? What are we ?” she hissed into his ear.
Malis’s nostrils flared, and when he tried to smile, she knew he wouldn’t respond. She’d interrogated enough people to understand he was ready to die.
Insane with rage, she screamed from the depths of her chest, “ Tell me! I need to know the truth! ”
“Then it is”—he coughed blood—“my-–my … my dying wish for you not to know, pretty little Imani?—”
“Don’t ever call me that again!” She stood abruptly, letting him tumble roughly onto the floor, and stalked to his desk. Snatching the maps, Imani scanned each in haste. All of them were of Niflheim.
She still didn’t understand what Ara had wanted with these scraps. Some were damaged and nothing but crude drawings with scribbles. A parchment practically falling apart caught her eye. It was a map of Kehomel, Niflheim’s capital city. A note written in tight script at the bottom stood out. Ara’s handwriting. The rest had faded too much, but her grandmother had circled a structure in Kehomel, and several words stood out— Royal Library. Manuscript 1148. Wand Efficacy of the Second Age . The Second Age was a millennium ago.
Under the scrap of paper lay another—a list.
Test IV. Goldwood.
Test V. Bone.
Test VI. Draswood.
Test VII. Drasil.
Draswoods were the dominant wand of the modern age, but Imani had also read about people using the first two types of wands. The fourth wand truly piqued her interest—she’d never heard of it. The Aowyns were one of the foremost wandmakers in the Draswood Forest and the Essenheim kingdom, so she considered herself well-read on the subject. It was strange she had never seen it mentioned before this crumpled document.
Stories of different wands used ten thousand years ago circulated. Some could even travel between the realm doorways. But those ancient wands had all disappeared, if they had even existed.
A final map caught her eye as she was about to toss them aside. Rolled and tied with a distinct red leather string and in far better condition than the others, it stood out. Inside, she found the most detailed map of the Niflheim kingdom she’d ever seen and dozens of other mysterious pieces of information about the magic and people immediately south of the Riverlands.
She found it strangely beautiful. What would she encounter if she crossed the river outside the manor into Niflheim? A mountain range dominated part of Niflheim’s southern border, so large she wasn’t sure if anything was beyond it. Handwritten notes scrawled at the bottom of the map pointed to various areas. Imani squinted, trying to make out the words.
One jumped out at her repeatedly—Drasil.
Her mouth went dry as her eyes flicked back and forth between the notes. If her reading was correct, this wand could open doorways, like the ancient wands from the stories. Not even the strongest Draswood wand wielded by the strongest monarch could do such a thing.
Turning on her heel, she waved the maps in Malis’s face. “What did Ara want with these?”
His shoulders shook as blood coated and dripped down his mouth. His eyes fluttered. It wouldn’t be long now.
Her vision darkened with rage. She shoved the maps into her dress pocket and, with a swift kick, slammed her foot into his gut.
He tried to laugh again, but it sounded like he was choking on his blood. Imani had never heard a sound she liked more.
It was time to finish this; Malis was already dead, and she was fresh out of sympathy for this piece of shit.
“You stole something precious from me, something I protect more than anything. Without it, I have nothing; I am nothing.” She pointed her wand at him. “No one steals my freedom and my dignity like you did and gets away with it. So now, I’m going to take everything from you. Everything. Including your soul.”
Imani didn’t have to kill him with such ferocity, but she wanted to obliterate him for what he’d done. She needed it.
When she imagined killing him, Imani didn’t hesitate, as planned. But with the whispers urging her on, she called her magic forth, wanting to be powerful.
Now.
The barriers holding back her magic fell as her control disappeared. An impenetrable, thick night exploded around them.
Magic surged through the room as a massive vacuum filled every crevice, sucking the life away and creating a void of nothing where there used to be everything. It took only a second for it to destroy his whole body.
Warm liquid sprayed her face. Blood and guts saturated the air she breathed, soaking into her lungs. She tasted him on her lips and smelled charred flesh with each breath.
Imani’s magic didn’t simply explode. It destroyed.
The gore didn’t bother her. It meant he was gone.
A snap of cold air hit her, mixing with the heat from the flames. Imani asked the magic to return with her trembling, outstretched wand. The darkness receded, barely. A thick, peppered smell filled the air, remnants of harsh magic.
Imani’s mind raced. She hadn’t meant to cause such agony and destruction. What had she unleashed?
With such destruction, it had to be the red brand. She might have accidentally drawn too much power from the Fabric, using it to kill Malis.
Her panting increased, frantic at her violence. With her wand still pointed at the pile of flesh, ash, and bones, she stood over what remained of her bastard heartmate. Numb, she hardly noticed a wall from the manor had collapsed and small fires raged behind her.
Clouds gathered and swirled swiftly across the dark sky as she wandered around the desolated grounds, distress mounting at the amount of magic she’d unleashed. Atrophic magic was simply too destructive compared to the nascent magic of Essenheim. It was why everything about it was illegal here.
Swirling snow had blown in and wafted around her, making her ill. Something was wrong. She was wrong.
Malis’s soul signature lingered in the air, hovering near its recently dead body. Unlike ghosts—lost beings separated from their souls and unable to make it to the Under—this spirit was still attached to its life essence, mingling with it in the first few moments after death.
A noise made her jump.
Panicking, Imani whipped her gaze around, terrified she’d find someone striding out of the nearby brush. But no one was there to see her scrape her hands down her face and silently scream.
Stumbling forward, Imani tilted back her chin. She reached out, swirling her fingers through the ethereal spirit form and letting the entire signature surround her. Bending her will and giving in, she breathed deep, taking all the air, smoke, and essence into her chest.
The entire glorious signature filled her, and Imani trembled as the bliss spread. The panic receded momentarily as she clutched her head and groaned. An invigorated feeling like she’d never felt made her shudder and collapse to her knees.
Imani wouldn’t need to eat for weeks. Feeding on two entire signatures in one day was unforgivable, but at least they were already dead when she had started consuming them.
She didn’t know where their souls went, but Imani was sure it wasn’t to the Under. It was quite possible they still lived inside her, but she’d never found any answers because no elves ever fed on an entire signature—or at least any scholarly elves who wrote about its effects.
Twelve years ago, Imani had taken her grandfather’s soul while he still lived, killing him, much to her family’s horror. Such a menacing and unpredictable soul draw was the reason they had sent her to live with her grandmother, who eventually beat the urge away and taught her restraint. But it didn’t mean she’d stopped wanting to do it again.
All elves received nourishment from siphoning a part of someone’s essence. It was a blissful experience, but taking an entire soul was forbidden. Not every elf could even do it. Some could only take a sliver. Indeed, it was rare for a Norn to be able to take more. If they did, the consequences were dire, as Imani had learned as a twelve-year-old.
Her soul draw was deadly, and yet there was no better feeling she’d ever known.
Her trance broke as the ground shook. Loud, deafening cracks boomed one after another in the distance. Like stones skipping across a pond, the Fabric itself moved and churned above her in a sinister, foreboding swirl of black, all its normal, colorful splendor disturbed.
Imani ducked when a nasty spider web of lightning cracked across the entire sky. A reverberation, maybe even a Fabric event, rumbled above as if the whole world wanted to splinter itself into pieces from the magic taken from it. Then, in quick succession, dozens of lightning bolts hit the town’s surrounding area.
A strangled cry escaped Imani’s throat, watching in helpless awe as a massive one lit up the space then dropped to the ground in the nearby orchard, setting the land ablaze. The ground surrounding rumbled like it wanted to rip in half.
Unable to move for several seconds, Imani covered her mouth with a shaking hand. The house burned, flames popping and bursting with heat and noise. Chaos momentarily mesmerized her and rooted her in place.
This amount of magic would draw everyone’s eyes for miles, maybe even the Crown itself.
Imani imagined the Royal Order and the queen coming for her. Her mind snapped into survival mode.
Move .