Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Nova
There was a thick veil of black separating me from where my companions had once stood. It tumbled and raged, a wall of shadows shot through with chaotic pulses of purple and blue.
When had that shown up?
“Just me and you, then,” I muttered, turning back to the sentier, holding up my hand and letting more dark ripples of power pour from my palm.
I’d left Grimnor behind in Noctaris—concerned about how the sword and Lorien’s essence might react to the magic here—so I instead formed my shadows into a sharpened point and brandished it like a blade.
The sentier’s shiny eyes narrowed on it.
In the next heartbeat, it shot toward me, its horrible voice filling my head as it came.
I am the Curse Keeper!
“Yes,” I snarled, ducking to avoid its clawing, skeletal fingers as it swooped low and made a grab for my hair. “We’ve established that.”
It hit the wall and ricocheted off it, doubling its speed. I couldn’t avoid it a second time; it grabbed both of my arms in a violent hold. Like its wings, its long fingers proved much stronger than they looked, circling my wrists so tightly I quickly lost the feeling in my hands.
It stretched its grip wide, pulling as if it intended to rip my arms straight from my body.
I curled this way and that, trying to loosen the pressure while also trying to somehow keep my throat angled away from its mouth full of sharp, glistening teeth.
Its hold tightened as it brought that mouth terribly close to me, breathing the foul stench of rot and damp earth directly into my face.
Why have you revived me, necromancer?
The question briefly stopped my struggling.
That odd pulling sensation I’d felt earlier…
I hadn’t been trying to revive it—I’d never managed magic as advanced as that. The closest I’d come was reversing Phantom’s death, but that hadn’t been a complete spell, nor had it been on purpose.
But what I’d done moments ago had felt different. I’d been aware and in control of the threads of my power slipping in, and maybe I had unconsciously encouraged it to grab hold so that I might pull it up from the grave. I’d been so desperate to get answers, whatever it took, so maybe…
Why have you revived me, necromancer? it repeated.
Instead of replying, I went back to trying to break free.
Why? it howled at me.
Catching a flash of an Order symbol etched into the altar it had once rested against, I deflected with a question of my own: “Why were you locked away in this room and left to die?”
It let out another howl, its words unintelligible this time. The shadowy energy swirling all around us grew more dense. More chaotic. I focused on summoning even more, calling it forth with a violence I hoped would knock the sentier off balance.
It worked; it twisted away, screeching and throwing me to the ground as it went.
“Who left you to die here?” I demanded again, staggering to my feet, reforming some of the shadows into a blade for each of my hands this time. “And why?”
The sentier stopped its screeching. Slowly, it swooped back to me, landing with the full force of its weight and rattling the ground as it did.
I parted the dense magic surrounding it so I could look more fully into its eyes. It rose to its full height within the clearing, those silver eyes darkening. Calculating. Its wings stretched wide again. Cold energy washed over me as it exhaled a slow, rattling breath.
I willed myself not to cower beneath its glare.
“And why?” it repeated, speaking out loud, this time—though its voice had changed to something entirely different. Something almost human-sounding, as though parroting some other being; maybe the one who had killed it. “Why? Because the dead keep their secrets.”
I sidestepped as it lunged.
“Not from me, they don’t,” I said, gritting my teeth and guiding one of my blades into something more flexible—a whip of shadow that snapped out and caught the sentier’s long neck, jerking it to a stop.
I dug in my heels and pulled. I didn’t have the strength to draw it in, but my shadows did; with another violent flex of my magic, we were standing inches away from one another.
I wasted no time darting a hand toward its gruesome face, digging my fingers into its hollow cheeks. Its skin felt bumpy and slightly slimy, like a toad’s.
“You will reveal what you know,” I commanded. “Show me the knowledge they tried to bury about the curse you keep—whoever they are.”
It closed its eyes, breathing out another cold wave of energy. The entire room was abruptly overtaken by dense fog. All sound disappeared.
Everything disappeared for a long, tense moment.
Then I felt a vibration rumbling toward me, spreading like a ring out from a drop in still water. I blinked.
The room changed.
Before me was the sentier as it must have been when it was still alive: A powerful creature pacing restlessly, like a lion in a too-small cage.
Less emaciated, more muscular. Eyes like starlight rather than tarnished silver.
Still monstrous looking…yet with an unmistakably divine glow around its entire body.
The sound of voices rose from somewhere. Visions of bodies, swirls of magic, and a storm of different emotions rushed around us—a sampling of all the many things this creature had seen and survived, I realized.
A ghostly apparition of the present, corpse-like sentier appeared alongside the memory version. I fixed my gaze on it, my mind focused only on what I had commanded it to show me.
As my thoughts honed in, I felt its gaze do the same. Its silver eyes bored into mine, and more pressure grabbed at the reservoir of magic inside me. This time, I didn’t resist it; I let this beast born of my same shadows tangle itself fully with me.
It crept forward and laid its forehead against my palm.
And, suddenly, I could see.
The chaos rushing around us stilled, and I saw a brief, but clear, memory of Calista standing tall before the sentier, looking down at it with an anguished expression as she gave her command.
Keep them safe.
Then I saw what she was referring to: The same fragments of light I’d witnessed in the vision Lorien had guided me to.
But, this time, the scene didn’t end with them shattering their way through glass; instead, I saw a world rushing beneath them as they flew, the fragments dipping and diving for miles before twisting back into one piece…
Only to divide once more into three shards that raced off in different directions, curving and falling like shooting stars to the earth.
One landed in a grove of trees with trunks that looked like brittle, sun-bleached bones.
Another fell into a pool of silver-blue water surrounded by polished, gleaming walls etched with words I couldn’t make out.
I was holding my breath, anticipating the landing of the third, when I felt the sentier’s head jerk away from my touch.
I blinked, and it disappeared.
“No,” I said, voice echoing in the space that had gone abruptly silent. “No, there must be something else! There’s a third piece, another resting place you aren’t showing me—”
The fog rolled in again, then away just as quickly, carrying me back to the present. The reanimated sentier was before me, solid once more, arching its neck like a snake preparing to strike.
But it seemed to have lost whatever fury had been driving it—or maybe my magic really had revived it, and now the spell had reached its limit. Whatever the reason, it seemed near-death once more. Its voice was quiet, almost mournful as it slipped into my thoughts.
You should have let me keep my secrets.
I couldn’t catch my breath.
The weight of my knowledge is too much for this world.
As if to drive its point home, weight was all I was aware of, suddenly—a heaviness on my chest that made it even harder to breathe.
It sank deep into my stomach, pulling me down to my knees.
The thought of ever standing again, of carrying this weight with me, dragging it back into the world outside of this room…
It is too much for you, the sentier said, breathing out another frigid breath.
As the cold overtook me, I decided it was right: This all was too much.
Darkness edged my vision. I was sinking fast into a mire I likely wouldn’t be able to rise from, and I didn’t care; I wanted to rest in it. I wanted to die and take all the knowledge of Calista’s curse—all its awful weight—with me.
I looked over my shoulder. Saw the wall of dark, tumbling energy still separating me from the others. Maybe they would be safe on the other side of it, at least.
Stay on the other side, I thought, dully.
Light parted the veil an instant later.
It slammed into the cold entombing me with a suddenness that made my head burn and throb. The darkness around my vision caved in completely.
When I finally blinked back into awareness, I found myself cradled against Aleksander’s chest. His light hovered around us, its warmth coaxing my lungs into deeper, steadier breaths.
Breathe.
I hated it. Hated him and everything else in that moment.
But I knew I had to inhale, no matter the heaviness.
After several moments, his face grew clearer.
The room took on a clearer shape, too, though it continued to spin around us.
I clenched his shirt, trying to make the churning stop.
Once it did, I fought my way out of his embrace and back onto my feet, taking in my surroundings, searching for the sentier.
It was gone.
The light surrounding Aleks and me had spread throughout much of the room, gathering toward a single scrap of wispy white cloth in the very center of the floor. It looked like the same material the sentier’s robes had been made from.
Eamon was staring at that scrap, his brow furrowed in concern, while Thalia was circling the room, her staff clenched tightly in her hands.
Zayn was avoiding looking at any of us.
And I realized, all at once, what had happened: Aleksander’s light had obliterated the sentier.
His hand, pressing against the small of my back, nearly made me jump. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. But I felt strange as I stared at all that remained of the sentier. Oddly…drained. As if pieces of me had been obliterated along with it.
And I wasn’t sure how to get those pieces back.