54. Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Four
Blinding light flashed over my vision, and I should have crumbled but strong arms kept me upright.
I heard my mother’s voice asking if she should do it, but that wasn’t how the experiment worked. The patient had to be the one, had to guide the dagger down the left side, and feel the pull of their core’s magic to gather and push it down to their palm.
The ground shook, and I screamed, as pain unlike anything I’ve experienced before burned inside me.
“Her veins are glowing!” someone said.
But I wasn’t there in the throne room. I was somewhere else, looking at the veins before me. They were glowing but they weren’t on a body, and they weren’t mine.
Male hands pressed against a thin membrane where darkness crept up… what was this?
Thump.
The membrane turned red, and more darkness spread like a spider’s web then glowed.
Verin’s voice echoed, “I am master of the Heart Tree.”
Then I was back in the throne room, the ground shaking, the pain and blood dripping down my collarbone as the tip dug into my shoulder.
“Keep going, Sapphira. Don’t let him win,” someone said and Verin’s snarl rippled through my head.
“Shut up, voices. Fuck, shut up,” I cried and the power inside me followed the dagger like a magnet. Sharp and slicing through me as it moved from my toes, my fingers, the top of my head. Receding in the most bloodcurdling way possible.
Screams came from outside the palace as the whole palace continued to tremble.
“The sky’s red. That can’t be good.” Nyx’s voice sounded so far away as I blinked to shut out the light from that damned skylight.
Scents of earth, and water hit my senses and I was back in that place in my head with Verin and the glowing…
Tree.
The Heart Tree.
“You won’t defeat me, little gem. The ritual worked. I am master of the Heart Tree. I am master of all magic,” Verin said but I didn’t see him. An arm rose in front of me, and like the tree there were black veins in those hands, glowing... like mine.
I was there… Seeing the tree and Verin’s body through his eyes.
“Attack the princess in the throne room. Kill the traitors to the one true king,” he bellowed into the cave.
Glass shattered and I shook, the room swirled and I was in my mother’s arms, dagger in my elbow while my father battled two soldiers wearing red and black armor. Desmire knocked the helmet off one with his sword, and I gasped. Not from the pain but from the black veins across their face.
“Verin’s controlling them from the tree,” I said through clenched teeth and what felt like tiny shards of glass were all gathering in my chest and following the line of my blood.
Celestine’s voice drowned out the battle around me. “Verin has not won.” Whether real or simply a voice in my head, I forced the dagger into my forearm.
The shards inside me shot to my shoulder, and I was transported into his head. The darkness trying to pull me in, seducing me with power, and the promises of love, of control over all.
Verin moved like a slithering snake, with one last look at a tree with a swollen trunk, and blue leaves glowing in a red cave, before exiting a dark passage to the sound of fighting.
Soldiers battled three massive tree-like women, their roots ripping apart one of Verin’s men.
“Did you do it?” His daughter sliced a root that was wrapping around her legs. She looked like hell.
“It is done. The ritual to mix my blood with the potion is coursing into the Heart Tree, sealing out fate. The transfer of powers to me has already began. The tree will die, and I am the master of all magic, controller of fate, the new Heart Tree itself. Now I will kill that seer so no other can defeat me.”
“No.”
I screamed and was back in the ballroom. A solider gurgling before me, his eyes red, black veins flickering, and suddenly red blood dripped from his lips onto my shirt.
Mother kicked him away, removing her diamond sword from his chest with a sickening sound. “Finish it, Sapphira,” she commanded and I looked down to see the dagger at my wrist. This was it. The moment of truth. Would the experiment work?
Would the pain, Verin winning, the deception, all be worth it?
“I’m scared.” What if I made the wrong choice and doomed everyone to a life of darkness?
Her brown eyes softened. A drop of blood from the soldier smeared on her shimmering cheeks as she smiled sadly.
“You’ll come back to us. It’s your fate, Sapphira. No matter how far you go, you’ll always find your way back home. This is not the end of your story. It’s just the beginning.”
This is not my ending.
This is not my ending.
“A portal is growing. He is coming. We must act now,” Ryka yelled.
“Goodbye, Mother,” I said and dragged the blade through the final inches into my palm. The shards of my power tore through me, cutting connections to my core one by one.
Rune’s mountainous, steady presence, gone.
A dragon’s roar I’d never gotten to master, silenced.
Ice and fire burned in my skin, and then blinked out of existence.
“I’ll see you again.” I heard a soft voice as the tears in my eyes blurred my vision and all the pain vanished.
The sounds around me muddled, the lights blinked red and white above me, all shaking violently, and then there was nothing.
Silence was the answer. The success of my choices were a void so deep, too unfathomable that I had no choice but to surrender to the darkness.