Chapter 43
Elorie
Blood is everywhere. Running in rivers down the streets. Raining from the sky. Screams pierce my ears as I step out of the Gateway and try to catch my bearings.
There’s no preparing for the sight in front of me.
“What in Sarrow…” Callum’s voice trails off as he stands with his sword gripped tight.
Greer is at his other side, with Wilder to my left.
What attacks aren’t rebels or ravagers. They’re beasts unlike anything I’ve seen before, climbing out of a lightning bolt split at the edge of the city.
The creatures are carved from shadows. Only partially formed, with rotting faces and razor-sharp fangs.
They slither across the ground, slipping in and out of shadows from one side of the street to the other.
“It’s not possible.” Wilder’s jaw tenses.
“What?”
“Creatures from the Well,” Callum answers.
One of the beasts opens its jaws, swallowing a large bite of a building and spitting it out.
“I didn’t think the Well reached Solace?” I hold up my daggers, my spine stiffening. “I didn’t even think the Well reached all of Rohldova. The map in the king’s palace shows the Well isolated at sea, not touching the continent in either realm.”
“It doesn’t reach them on the surface. But it’s started cutting pathways in the ley lines below,” Wilder says, flinging a spit of aether when one of the beasts sets its sights on a couple running past with their child.
The split in the ground thrums, as if it were a being itself. Awake and purring with the magic of another place climbing out. The empty void they escape is not a hole. It’s like the Gateways we step through. Rips in the very fabric of Lyrichia.
“Gods cursed.” Lochlan steps through a Gateway beside Wilder with an army at his back.
He and Wilder share a look, and when I try to toe the edge of Wilder’s thoughts, I find him closed off.
There’s no time to ask what he’s thinking as a beast with wings as black as tar shoots from the tear in the realm and into the night sky.
It stretches its neck to the moon, baring its teeth, before shrinking into a tight ball and plummeting back to the ground.
“Duck!” Greer shouts as Wilder pulls me behind a pillar, pressing my back to the hard stone.
Rocks fly through the city as the creature’s thick claws rip into the street.
Lochlan holds out a hand, forming a wall of wind between us and the creature in an attempt to diminish the blow.
And when I glance at Callum, I see he’s twisting into it with his own power, casting a shield around the group.
“Shouldn’t you be back in your manor before you leave your people without a leader?” Wilder’s aether reaches out when Lochlan creates a gap for it to slip through, tightening a noose around the creature’s neck.
“Shouldn’t you be doing the same for your realm?” Lochlan shoots back.
But they’re both grinning, and I sense this might be why Wilder said they were once friends. Neither seems like the type to sit aside while their armies fight on their behalf.
Wilder moves with Lochlan, pushing forward. The daggers in my hands feel small and useless in comparison to the brutal strength of magic swirling in the street.
The beast rips through the aether bind, tearing its teeth down the shield of wind like it’s a piece of silk. It rests its jaw on the path and opens its maw for a swarm of creatures to crawl out. Some burst into the sky. Others slither on the ground.
They barrel toward us and Lochlan’s army.
“Where’s the Crown Guard?” I ask as I drop low and shove my dagger through the throat of one of the creatures.
Thick red blood spills out. Black wads like tar pump out of its throat as it clings to its last breath. If it’s even breathing. What hums inside these creatures is not life. It’s not anything I can sense or draw a thread to. It’s almost as if they are empty vessels of death.
Callum swipes his sword, beheading one of the creatures before spinning to drive his blade through another’s belly. “They must be back at the manor.”
My gaze moves to Lochlan in time to see his eyebrow creep up. Because he was back at the manor—we all were. But for the Guard not to join the fight in defense of one of the king’s territories is a bold statement.
There’s no time to think about it.
We’re swarmed with a flood of birds. Their beaks snap at us as they dive low and circle all around. Wilder does his best to craft a protective web but falters when his magic draws the attention of a larger beast.
“I thought you were stronger than this, great aether wielder.” I smirk, shoving my blades into the sides of the creature’s neck.
“Is taunting me the best use of your energy, Elorie?” Wilder quips back.
He drops to a knee and touches his fingertips to the ground. It’s the gentlest movement, but it wreaks havoc from the sky. Bolts slice through the night, decimating half of the oncoming pack.
“Seems it’s a perfectly good use of my energy if it riles you up.”
He catches my gaze. “You have no idea.”
The caw of a birdlike beast splinters through the screams. I turn in time to see it charging toward Greer. Her back is to it as she battles a creature with black eyes and two screaming mouths.
“Greer!” My cries don’t reach her in time as the creature pierces her side.
Wilder sends a surge of magic, shattering the beast into feathers and blood before it can open its mouth and swallow her whole. But the wound is gaping.
I’m not quick enough to reach her before she hits the ground. Her fingers clutch her side while she fights for breath. Dropping to my knees, I put pressure on the gash, but there’s too much blood.
“There’s something—” Her teeth grit as she takes a sharp inhale. “Poison or venom of some sort. I feel it.”
I peel my fingers back to see a sticky black fluid mixing with her blood. It drips over her skin and surrounds the wound. The black substance is cold to the touch. Not by physical sensation, but in its being.
Everything has an aura. A pulse. Even in the frozen landscape of Alyssium, a cold stone on a beach has a physical presence. But as I rest my fingers over this, there’s nothing but a void that moves life through it.
I burrow deep, focusing on the tunnel and wrapping my magic around it. I search it for a thread to hold onto, but instead I find a chasm that pulls from Greer to—
My gaze moves to the split in Solace.
We’ve been so focused on the creatures flowing from the gap, we’ve missed what flows into it. It’s not just coming for us; it’s feeding on us. Like the Well is said to do to all things. It drinks us down until there is no life.
No magic.
“Wilder.” His name is barely out when he blinks in front of me, holding a sword dripping with blood.
He must have gotten it from one of the many fallen members of Lochlan’s personal army.
I look up at him, pressing my palm to Greer’s ribs as her head lolls to the side, and she loses consciousness. “It’s feeding on us. Every bit of magic we throw at it makes it stronger. We’re giving these creatures exactly what they need to grow.”
His gaze moves from the onslaught of beasts to me. “Magic is the best thing in our arsenal. There are too many of them to take them on with swords alone. We’ll drown in beast blood before we slaughter them all.”
I watch the creatures, slipping in and out of the shadows. Twisting and bending into every attack. Each hit has them shrinking in on themselves before they grow larger. Fiercer.
“I didn’t say we don’t use magic.” I hitch an eyebrow, and his jaw sets as he reads my thoughts.
“Why do I get the impression I’m not going to like this?”
The smile that pulls in the corners of my mouth makes him frown. He won’t like this, and it might kill us. But sometimes that’s the only way.
“Gods, Elorie. You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Won’t be the first time.”
He chuckles, but there’s little amusement in it. Wilder jogs to meet Lochlan, helping him hold back another wave with him and Callum, while I turn my attention back to Greer.
I press her wound as more blood comes out, and the pain from the pressure has her eyes fluttering open.
“I need your help,” I tell her.
“I’m not sure how much help I am right now.” Greer’s voice is weak with her blood loss. “This venom—”
“It’s not venom.” I look down at the black mixing with the blood. “They aren’t venomous. They’re feeding on you. Like a drain.”
When the creatures first appeared, I couldn’t see the binds because I was focused on the beasts. I see it now. The split is pulling our magic in large gulps, sending it to the Well.
I press my hands to Greer’s wound. “We need to push the Well back.”
“How?” Greer’s silvery eyes are as dark as the night around us with how her energy is draining.
My gaze meets Wilder’s through the space between us, and he freezes.
He senses the lie I told him through the thread moments ago.
I let Wilder think it would be him to end this so he wouldn’t argue with what needs to be done.
But he isn’t the one. Aether is life; it is the essence of all that exists.
His magic will do nothing but feed the Well.
But me…
Last night, when my magic sparked and Wilder’s wove through it, I finally began to understand what I am.
While he is the substance of all things, I am the space between them.
Resurrecting him was not me manipulating life; it wasn’t even resurrection.
It was my fingers toying with something else in the darkness.
Shining light on the shadows—on death—and forcing it back.
I don’t know what it means, except that maybe I can do it now. If I burn bright enough, push hard enough, I can starve these beasts. I can push back the Well.
“Greer.” I shake her hand as her eyes start to close again.
“Am I dead?”
“You’re not dying.” I grab her hand, refusing to let her go. “You said you could feel my magic inside me? Even though you don’t know what it is?”
She nods weakly.
“I need you to look at it. Amplify it. That light you became in Ruse Village… I need you to make it brighter.”
“Elorie?” Wilder’s voice is muted in the thread as I clamp it closed.
I block him out as he tries to get to me when the beasts begin to circle.
It’s like they sense something brewing. I’m leaking out just enough magic to draw their attention and lure them in.
It’s slow at first, but when Greer’s magic caresses mine, the creatures turn wild. They draw in fast and hard.
Greer and I lock stares as I grab her hand, and for a moment, we’re here in the street with vile shadows barreling toward us. Screams pitch. Beasts flail. One moment, we’re here, and then, it’s like the rip in Solace opens its mouth and swallows us in darkness.
“What is this?” Greer looks around at the nothingness.
It reminds me of the empty chasm I wandered through the night I found Wilder beyond death. My magic pushes against it, searching just as I did then, trying to find the other side. Except this time, there are small veins of golden light pressing back. Almost like, some other magic is already here.
It throbs, calling to the Well and forcing it to stretch.
Did something else summon the Well to Solace?
“What are those veins?” Greer’s eyes widen as she takes in the gold.
“Light.”
“It looks like—”
“The king’s magic.” I finish her thought, and we look at each other.
King Malachi’s magic is bound through the kingdom, so that might explain why it’s flaring now. But it doesn’t explain why it seems to be calling to the Well instead of pushing against it.
The darkness blinks, and I refocus. Tunneling my vision as I pull those creatures in. Pull them away from the edges of the city and into this darkness where there are no walls and no escape. I become their prison.
I become their cage.
“Keep going,” I say as Greer amplifies what I can barely hold.
The creatures fight against the restraints. Frantic when they find nothing to feed on. No aether here. No life here.
At the edge of my mind, I hear Wilder screaming, scratching, clawing. But I don’t let him in. I can’t risk it. I cling to this bubble of emptiness. Greer’s grip on my hand is all that holds me together. The destruction of our kingdom is on the tip of my tongue. Surrounding us both.
The Well wraps its fingers around my throat and drains light from my bones. Life from my heart.
I drink it down.
Or does it drink me?
Our magics swallow each other whole.
And when the nails of the Well reach the deepest part of my marrow, I hold it in my grasp as if my bones are the bars containing its very essence.
I cling to Greer’s magic while she strengthens it inside me.
I use her power to reflect this emptiness that stirs in my chest. Where all things connect. Life. Blood. Death.
I cling to the dark space that nothing can survive, and I flip this mirror around inside myself to become a burst of light so blinding, so fierce, it turns the shadows to nothing. It gives them nowhere to hide and nothing to feed on.
They scream as they collapse inward, pulling me with them.