Chapter 19 #2
It was not fair. Everything had been taken from me.
My mother died, leaving me with the shambles of a family.
My father’s obsession with the fae, his quest to loot their riches for himself, had killed my sister Janessa.
The diadem. The fae queen had worn it in the gorge.
Had the fae not done enough, taken enough?
Their hunger for power had brought down the curse from the gods.
My mother might have lived, in a world where a healer with magic could have been called.
Instead, the fae hoarded the remnants of their magic here in Balar Shan.
The frost was not just in my blood. It covered my skin.
The whorls that appeared when I was close to losing control…
the painted swirls of glowing, sparkling blue across my hands and forearms. I couldn’t see my chest. But the color around my eyes shifted.
They’d taken over my face, this power that I’d never wanted.
Even my afterlife was not my own. Resurrected by the witches. I became an abomination. I was not good. I’d never been good. But when I awoke in the center of a pentagram, the choice had been taken from me forever.
The power swelled. Cold poured out of me. The Dark God held me tighter, his fingertips digging into my skin to the point of pain.
My life had been nothing but pain. Isanara was a joy who could be taken away from me.
Kyna died. Kyrelle would die, too. Everything I had risked would come to nothing.
Loving Garrick was supposed to be an escape, but he’d hurt me, too.
And when it all ended? When I finally, finally, met my second death?
I would be bound to the Dark God for eternity.
Anger vied with despair. Loneliness. Even if I had Garrick, it would only be for a moment. A blip in the never-ending hellscape of my life. The Dark God was right there in front of me. He’d gifted me this power. Maybe it was enough to destroy him.
It was him or me.
My power did not just rise. It roared. It blurred my vision, a haze of pale blue and sparkling white consumed everything.
The air around me was not just cold. The tiny particles of dust crystallized into ice.
Frost took physical form. I dragged in a breath, my throat punctured by a thousand tiny, icy cuts.
But it felt right. Why had I ever tried to hold it back?
I could have anything I wanted with power like this. I could kill anyone who wronged me.
I could kill a god.
My power reached into him. There were organs, just like mine, and I froze them all.
Blood rushed, thicker than mine, its composition more complex.
But it was no match for me. I turned it to ice in his veins, stopping that critical function.
Another moment, another flood of power, and I’d never have to see the handsomely smug face ever again.
His voice would never invade my consciousness.
I would be free. Just a little bit more.
“Do it.”
My control snapped. I’d never really had it.
The power controlled me. It took everything I had, and it still was not enough.
I could still feel his hands gripping my arms, still feel his presence in my mind.
I pushed harder. I’d give everything. This was the only thing that mattered.
This was why I’d been resurrected. Power should not be contained or controlled.
Turquoise eyes flashed in my mind. A shimmer of lavender.
“That’s enough.”
The Dark God severed our connection with a singular, definitive snap.
I fell back on the bed, the physical connection broken as well, the force sudden and almost painful even with the soft cushion of a mattress and blankets. He’d insisted on the bed. I’d thought it was to torment me, but it was for this. He’d known this would happen.
More manipulation. The surge of power had taken everything. It had almost taken my life. It had tried to erase Isanara and Garrick.
I blinked rapidly, the fog of frost clearing. The fire was dark. The only sounds were my gasps. “That was…”
“Glorious?”
“Terrible,” I said.
I pushed myself back up to sit. Every muscle in my body ached, but I could not leave myself vulnerable to him a second longer.
“Great power usually is,” he said. He looked precisely as he had before—before I’d tried to kill him.
“You are supposed to be teaching me to control my power.” I meant it as an accusation, but it came out confused.
There was no control in what had just happened. It was the complete absence of it. The frost took on a life of its own, taking shapes with a force I’d never imagined in my worst nightmares.
“You cannot master a power you do not understand or respect,” he said. The hands that had gripped mine and carried me through that torrent of power rest on his knees now, perfectly poised and relaxed. As if I had not just tried to murder him. “And to do either, you must learn its full extent.”
I’d never had a chance. When he’d decided it was enough, he’d snuffed my power out like it was nothing. I thought what lived inside of me was powerful. But the Dark God… the darkness inside of him redefined the word.
A chill of fear straightened my spine.
“And is reading minds the full extent of your power?” I asked even though I was now afraid to know the answer.
His blue-black eyes narrowed on me. I could not tell if the expression was annoyance or interest or something else. “I can read your mind, Koryn.”
He drew out the word for emphasis. My own brows contracted, but I did not try to stop them. There was no point in trying to school my features when he could see into my mind. At least for the moment, he was speaking aloud.
“So, you don’t torture Garrick this way,” I said slowly.
His lips thinned into a line. “I am not saddled with a mind-tie to the halfling,” he said.
Relief shook through me. He did not have a connection to Garrick. They were not talking about me while I was in the room. Not growing closer while I—while I what? I did not care what either of them did. They could have each other.
The only relevant information here was that I was the only one being mentally violated by the Dark God.
It was because of the bargain. Which meant— “What is your power?”
I asked because I had to know. After what I’d just experienced, the untethered darkness of my own power…
I had to know. No matter how afraid I was.
I’d lived in darkness for four hundred years.
At least if I knew, I would have a chance at understanding that darkness.
Maura had resurrected me. But this man was my maker.
A small, self-satisfied smile curved the Dark God’s disgustingly perfect mouth.
He held my gaze as he leaned back, resting against one of the posts at the end of the bed, and stretched his legs out before him.
He managed it all with preternatural smoothness.
He did not have to look behind him to make sure that he was indeed about to lean back against a wooden post and not thin air.
I was the one who shifted out of the way so that his long legs would not brush up against mine.
He noted my movement, tracing the lines of my body back up to my mouth, where it lingered just a little too long.
“You have already experienced it,” he said.
My mind whirred into action. He could transport me to his dark realm.
The humans thought it was below the ground.
Heaven was up, hell was down. I knew it was not as simple as that.
Twice, he’d tugged me from this reality into his.
But that could not be the extent of it… nor were the cold winds that I felt in the moments before he appeared.
Those could just as well be a manifestation of my own power; an alarm of sorts, tied to our mind connection.
Unless his power was manipulation… but he seemed to use his words to do that, just fine. Oh…
No, it couldn’t be. It was ridiculous.
“The Dark God’s power is making people aroused against their will?”
For the first time, a smile flashed across his face. The bored, unimpressed expression of aloofness he wore was handsome. But when he smiled… gods, I knew I wasn’t supposed to invoke them, but there was nothing else I could think of… his smile was devastating.
I thought the expenditure of power had completely wrung me out. But a feeling lit up my stomach. Not new in its existence, but in its provenance. Him.
He dragged his tongue across his lower lip as the smile faded.
“I cannot make anyone feel something that does not already exist within them.”
But he could make them feel.
“I awaken the darkest parts within you. The secrets that you try to hide, even from yourself, are mine to see and amplify. I look at you and I see your darkness, Koryn. I see the desire you try to hide.” His smile disappeared completely as he spoke.
“If you imagined my hands upon you, it is because that is precisely where you want them.”
The long fingers I’d felt inside of myself had not been Garrick’s but his. Mine… but my fantasy about Garrick had transformed into one of the Dark God. Now he was telling me that fantasy was all mine.
That’s what he’d done while holding my hands. He’d taken the hate I bore for him, the secret hope that his death would somehow save me from an eternity I did not want, and used it to whip my power into a frenzy.
But that desire was already there inside of me. In answering my questions, he’d confirmed my worst fears about myself. I was not so different than the other witches. Maybe I’d fought harder, longer. But I was a creature of death and darkness, too. The Dark God had just confirmed it.
A new feeling chipped away at the ineffectual ice I used to try to protect myself. Sadness. I was sad for myself.
But I did not have the luxury of feelings. They made me lose control. I had to keep control. The Dark God could see anyone’s darkest desires.
It was a mind gift, like Garrick’s, but different and infinitely more dangerous.
Another realization struck me, a single piece of the disastrous puzzle that was my life slipping into place.
“That is how you knew Maura was creating a talisman,” I said. But he could do more than that. “Did you… did you make her murder that fae woman?”
His power was darkness. He was the god of death, creator of the witches, and keeper of my afterlife. I should not have asked. Not when it suddenly felt like so much hinged upon the answer.
The Dark God did not ask who I meant. I had a feeling that he was keeping watch on everything happening in Balar Shan, and maybe beyond, as well.
“I saw her darkest desire,” he acknowledged. “But her darkness needs no amplification.”
I pressed my eyes closed. Weakness be damned. He could see all the weak, broken, dark parts of me already. There was no use trying to hide from him.
My power should have been depleted, but even now I felt it stirring again in response to the flux of emotions. I spread my palms against the quilted coverlet.
“You said that the talisman she seeks to create will change the balance of power in Velora forever,” I said from behind the safety of my closed eyes. “You want me to stop her.”
“I want you to be ready for what is coming.” And then into my mind, “Despite what you might think, I hope it is another thousand years before you join me in darkness. I will have you forever, Koryn. I am content to wait.”
“Forever might be how long it takes me to find the talisman.” If there was anything that this exercise had taught me, it was that I was nowhere near controlling my power, let alone using it to best Maura. Until now, I had not even realized the strength of the players in the game.
“Then you’d best get started.” My eyes were closed, so I could not confirm if it was a breeze or his fingertips that skimmed across my knee. “A gate is always near.”
And a god is always watching.
I did not need to open my eyes to know that he was already gone.