Chapter 45
T he scene before me is so much more harrowing, so much darker than I ever could have imagined. It’s as though the cruelty that led to Obi’s body hanging upside down, bound in icy spells has sprawled across an entire world.
The coppery stench of blood fills my nostrils, a sickeningly sweet perfume that clings to the back of my throat. Broken bones and piercing screams flood my eardrums. Hellfire rains from the sky, each impact leaving a smouldering crater in the earth.
Twisted, demonic figures, their forms vaguely humanoid but grotesquely exaggerated, stalk through the carnage. Their eyes burn with glee as they tear into the Nightelves, their claws leaving ragged wounds that bleed an eerie, phosphorescent ichor.
The Nightelves fight with the desperation of the doomed. Their elegant, moonstone blades flash, but for each demon that falls, two more seem to rise from the shadows.
I stumble over the corpse of a Nightelf warrior, her delicate features frozen in a mask of terror. Sickness rises in my throat, but I can’t afford to stop. At the very least, I don’t see any civilians, Dad must have heard what the demons plan to do and evacuated.
A demon comes storming toward me, shouting a rallying cry. I duck out of the way, throwing myself into an all-out sprint, grateful for the years spent running from Dae in the forest.
Ahead, a castle looms, gleaming spires stabbing at the smoke-choked sky like defiant daggers. Great fissures scar its facade, and chunks of masonry lie scattered like broken teeth at its base.
Dae is here to kill Aberith, I’m sure of it. He’ll be heading straight for that castle.
I sprint harder, ducking around blood drinking demons and stone-faced Nightelf warriors.
The buildings surrounding me are shattered shells, their walls breached and their roofs caved in. I scramble over rubble, the sharp edges tearing at my clothes and skin as I head deeper through the blood-drenched obstacle course.
The air crackles with the energy of dark magic. Spells erupt in blinding flashes, leaving trails of noxious fumes in their wake. I press on, heart pounding in my chest. The screams grow louder, the stench of blood thicker. I have to reach the castle. I have to convince Dae to pull back, before his army meets the civilians. Nightelves may have stood and watches as I was about to get sacrificed, but an entire world should not suffer for the sins of a few.
Besides, I can’t hold my death against them—since I am not dead. I tumble as the earth shakes a little beneath me. No one seems to notice, but with the shake comes a voice. A thousand voices, calling to be pulled up from beneath the earth. Trees and moss and wildflowers.
I duck to the left, then the right. I sprint faster and faster and faster with the great castle’s doors looming above me.
I reach the precipice, expecting to see a battle raging within. Instead, the doors are lightly ajar and all is quiet. The stairs are empty, as though a line separates the castle from the war, and all outside know not to step too far.
Climbing the stairs at a sprint, I finally reach the door. I’m about to step inside when Selene pulls the door open further and we’re caught face to face.
The sight that greets me stops me dead in my tracks. Selene is pale and shaken. Her eyes, normally filled with moonlight, are clouded with sorrow.
Draped across her shoulders is a woman I do not recognise. Her body is a patchwork of scars and burns. Her hair is thin and brittle, streaked with grey. But it’s her eyes that truly haunt me. They are hollow, devoid of life, reflecting an eternity of pain and torment.
Behind Selene, five other women emerge from the shadows, each bearing the same marks of cruelty. They lean on each other, their movements slow and laboured, their bodies trembling with exhaustion. Their faces are etched with pain and fear.
After a brief silence, with a slow voice, Selene says, “Don’t die for people who don’t deserve it,” and then she’s moving past me without a second glance.
I edge slowly through the open door. A long hallway spreads before me. Sprinting down it, I reach the entrance to a throne room.
The scene within is a whirlwind of chaos and despair. My father sits upon his throne, his expression a mask of cold indifference. Around him, his personal warriors fight with desperate fury against a swirling mass of shadows—the occasional show of red eyes tells me the shadows are Micah. He engulfs the warriors one by one, their screams cut short as they are consumed by the darkness.
Dae stalks towards the throne, his eyes fixed on my father with chilling intensity. He moves with a predator’s grace, every step radiating menace. My father seems unconcerned, his gaze is fixed on some distant point beyond the carnage.
But then Father sees me.
His eyes widen, and finally, a flicker of something akin to fear crosses his face. Dae turns, his eyes narrowing as he spots me. A cruel smile twists his lips. “This is for Callacombe,” Dae snarls, and with one swift motion, he pulls out the jewelled knife—the same knife he used to teach me I could never defeat my father in one-on-one battle.
He hurls it towards my father.
“No!” I scream, the word tearing from my throat.
Dae stands, a smirk playing on his lips, but it doesn’t contain the same certainty I expect from him. It’s as though he’s testing something, prodding at some possibility. Again, ancient, lost trees call out to me. He lifts his fingers, a spark of light igniting at the tips. The knife, mere inches from his chest, is suddenly deflected, spinning away harmlessly to clatter against the far wall.
He sighs, his shoulders slumping slightly as relief falls across his face. “Silly boy,” Father says, his voice dripping with disdain. He seems utterly unfazed by the screams of his warriors as they are swallowed by the darkness. He descends the stairs of the dais, his eyes fixed on Dae. “Did?—’’
Creeping, slow, purple magic coalesces in a thick mist behind him. It climbs up and up and up, until it reaches my father’s height. A hand appears in the mist, heart shaped apple cider lips follow, then a swirling purple base until finally, Abnehor’s full face emerges from the shadows, cold and certain.
“Dad—,” there is a tremble in my voice as I point a shaking finger to the spot behind him. I know Father was planning to kill me, I know he hurt my mother and I know he’s brought darkness to the trees, but he’s my father. I can’t let him die. When I look at his cold, sharp face, all I see is the man who took me to buy ice cream for my sixth birthday, who let me bounce on the bungee jump as many times as I wanted, who bought me books and princess outfits and sugar-berries and honeyed persimmon leaves from the magical world my traitorous lover has now swept in darkness.
But my warning comes too late. In one swift, decisive movement, Abnehor slices Dad’s throat.
My father’s eyes widen in shock, his hand flying to the gaping wound in his neck. He collapses to the steps beneath him, blood staining the pristine marble a deep crimson. The smirk is wiped from his face, replaced by an expression of utter disbelief.
The throne room falls silent. The shadows dissipate, revealing the carnage wrought by Micah. The air is thick with the stench of blood and the lingering taste of dark magic.
I stand frozen, shaking my head as though that will rewind time.
From the blood that pours from my father’s throat, moss and wildflowers grow. As Gaia finally finds her way back to Ellyllon, his body is swallowed by roots and low’s pitcher-plants and ghoul’s fungus and split gill mushrooms and a million other blood-thirsty denizens of the forest floor, eager to feast upon their fallen king, until, right before my eyes, he is swallowed whole.
My limbs begin to shake.
Dae is a stranger, his face contorted in a mixture of rage and triumph. He takes one step towards me, hands outstretched, as though I’m a lamb in need of herding, and says, “Elly?—.”
It starts at the tips of my fingers.
A slight buzzing. Controllable. Reasonable.
But then it grows.
Spreads across my body in a slow, creeping wave, like a thousand tiny spiders crawling beneath my skin. The buzzing intensifies, becoming a roar that fills my head, drowning out the sounds of the throne room.
Every tree I ever shut out comes swarming in, until I’m swallowed alive by the same plants that ate my father. But instead of feasting on me, they run rampant through my veins, not devouring, but becoming.
Their roots intertwine with my very being, with everything that makes me me. Whistling wind and rustling leaves and ancient oaks and creeping vines… all of it surges through me, mingling with my blood.
The forest pours its soul into mine, its memories becoming my memories, its instincts my instincts. I can feel the centuries of growth and decay, the endless cycle of life and death, pulsing within me. The whispers of the wind become my thoughts, the rustling of leaves my voice.
I am not a vessel for magic, I am a conduit for the very heart of the forest.
My vision blurs. The world around me shimmers, edges dissolving into a kaleidoscope of colours. Purple and green and silver, swirling and twisting like a living aurora borealis. The air crackles with energy, each breath sending jolts of electricity through my veins.
Magic surges within me, a wild, untamed force threatening to break free. It pulls at my muscles, contorting my limbs into unnatural positions. My bones creak and groan, straining against the pressure. It is as if every fibre of my being is being stretched, reshaped, reborn.
The power builds, an unbearable crescendo of raw energy. My skin is about to split open—there is no other way to release the torrent within. I gasp for air, but my lungs seem to have forgotten how to breathe.
The room itself trembles, dust raining down from the ceiling as the foundations groan under the strain.
From every corner of the castle, from every crack and crevice, long-dormant seeds awaken. Roots snake through the stonework, tendrils burst forth with unstoppable force. Mighty oaks, their trunks thicker than any man, erupt through the floor, shattering the marble tiles. Vines, thick as pythons, coil around the pillars, their leaves unfurling with explosive speed.
The throne room groans and shudders, the foundations straining under the onslaught. The ground beneath my feet buckles and heaves. With a deafening roar, the roof cracks, sending chunks of masonry crashing down around us. Dust and debris fill the air, choking and blinding.
Micah’s shadows are gone in a wisp of nothing as Dae jumps out of the way of a falling slab of granite.
Dae takes a step towards me, his arms outstretched. But as the floor beneath us cracks, he bucks. “Elly—,” he says, unable to finish his sentence as Abnehor storms across the room, grabbing him by the arm.
Abnehor shouts, “We have to go.”
“I’m not leaving her,” Dae shouts back, bucking under another ripple through the earth.
Abnehor, his voice tight with frustration, hisses, “We have to go, now!” He grabs Dae again, trying to pull him towards the crumbling exit.
“She can control it,” Dae shouts. “Can’t you, love?” His voice is barely audible over the cacophony of splintering wood and shattering stone. He struggles against Abnehor’s grip, his eyes fixed on me with desperate intensity. “She needs me!”
Another piece of granite comes hurtling down, separating the two as Dae is thrown closer to me and Abnehor is thrown towards the door.
And then my vision is lost. Every single part of me is lost as the forest swallows me whole. It is no gradual build-up, no gentle merging. It is an instantaneous, absolute takeover of all my senses.
I am not in control.
The magic consumes me, transforming me into something... different. Something terrifying.
A scream tears from my throat, a primal, wordless sound that echoes through the throne room. The magic explodes outwards, a shockwave of pure force.
And then, as quickly as it began, it is over.
I fall to the ground, changed forever, but finally something akin to myself again.
The dust settles. The echoes fade.
But as my vision returns, through the haze of pain and confusion, one horrifying truth emerges:
Dae is dead.