Chapter 10 Killer
Killer
Desdemona
T
he next time I train with Mial, Icarthus is with him, and seven people stand in the center. All of them are Arcanes, but none from the small circle that lives here. I wonder how many Arcanes there are and why so few get to live with Mial.
“Pleasure to see you,” Mial greets me.
I glance at Icarthus, who says nothing. His hands are clasped behind his back as he watches, like he’s seeing more than just me. Like he can see the image of that frozen woman in my gaze, haunting me.
I take a sharp inhale, looking away to scan the room. I wanted to ask Mial about the woman, but now doesn’t seem like the time.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“You’re yet to beat me.” Mial gestures to the line of people. “They’re going to try to beat you.”
“What—”
“Go!”
Before I can react, my feet give out, and the blood clots.
I crash on my back. The wind is knocked from me. On all sides, the six Arcanes begin to close in, their magic reaching me before they do.
My organs curl, as if they’re shriveling in on themselves. But the pain is familiar. My fingers try to dig into the floor, to clutch onto anything for release. Instead, my nails break against the surface.
One of the Arcanes approaches. My survival instincts finally kick in. Still out of breath, I rise to my feet.
A sharpness meets my back. Warm blood soaks my shirt, the fabric sticking to my skin. It’s the worst pain yet.
A new one.
The Arcane behind me holds a blade, and I twist toward him, not sure how to fight back. I don’t have a blade or magic.
Another steps next to him, both of them smiling as my heartbeat picks up. This time, two Arcanes are commanding the organ. But the pace of my heart is softer—slower—than when Mial kills me. Less merciful, I realize.
This will be a prolonged and painful demise.
The other four are close behind me. I try to turn, to fight them before they use their magic. But two hands grab each of my wrists, pulling them tight behind me. It’s impossible to turn.
They must know I can’t use blood magic. My hands are my only weapons.
There’s no point in trying, is there? I’ve tried with Mial a million times. I can’t use their magic. I’ll fail in front of everyone, and then they’ll smile as they kill me brutally.
Death prickles at the edge of my vision.
Claws sink into other parts of my body—the magic burrowing deeper.
Etching into my lungs, carving holes in my kidney, ripping my insides into ribbons.
I feel cartilage shredding. I taste iron.
It coats my tongue, thicker than saliva.
It’s in my throat. I choke on it, gurgling as I try to take a breath. My throat aches.
I want my mom. The thought is a cry in a room full of screams. I want warmth, comfort, love. I look for Mial, trying to reach him, but red spots fill my vision, taking me under. How could I survive this?
How could anyone?
I try to grip onto something. Anything.
There’s nothing for me to hold.
For the first time since I’ve been in The Void, I burn. But this isn’t what I’m used to. The pain whittles down to my bones, my weak and broken cry echoing through the room like a plea for mercy.
Then, my organs stop shredding. I’m no longer frozen, free to fight back. The Arcanes let me go, but sweat beads at my temples. Pain ripples down my body, and when I try to move, my shoes meet something slick.
I slip, crashing onto my back. Liquid seeps through my clothes. As I try to press my palms into the floor to push myself up, my hands slide away, red.
Blood.
Knees slam into my wrists. Something cracks. One Arcane is on top of me, while the other five surround us, blocking any hope of escape.
My bones beneath his knees crunch against the cold floor. I think my wrist is broken. I try to push away, but the bones in one wrist pop and hiss, sending pain shooting up my arm.
They won’t just do me a mercy and kill me.
They want to torture me.
Aimless and desperate, I bring my mouth to the legs that pin my wrists down, biting as hard as I can. The Arcane jerks back, just enough.
I pull my wrists up. White fills the room, pain stealing my vision. Before I get far, my head slams back against the floor. An Arcane looms above me, his hand around my neck.
Stars fill my blurry sight.
But my hand is still free.
It finds his chest. From my left, another Arcane swings at my shoulder. The blade sinks deep, gnawing at the bone. But he isn’t strong enough to cut through—or pull the blade out. He tries. I press my hand into the firm chest of the one above me.
His blood swirls beneath, his heart racing like mine was. Good. I want them to feel what they did to me.
Emotion is power, and I have the worst kind: betrayal, fury. I take it all. All my broken pieces, all my missing parts. I bend them, wishing I could break them.
And just as his chest begins to part beneath my palm, just as I start to reach past skin and bone, my hand goes limp.
My body lets me go. I fall to the floor, paralyzed.
The Arcane remains above me, a wound on his chest where my hand nearly pressed through.
The other five are out of view—but their magic holds me down, something within me beginning to boil.
My skin beneath my clothes itches, pressing against the fabric.
The Arcane lowers a blade to my throat. I can’t move. I can’t even scream as the blood in my veins heats. From my peripheral vision, I see my arm. Blisters rise from my skin.
But this can’t be over. I can’t prove Mial wrong. He’s the only one who’s ever believed in me. He thinks I can win—that’s why he’s doing this.
I focus on the heat in me, but it’s not the Flame. It’s pressure, moving through my bones, demanding release. My power. The pain makes it easier to grasp.
For the first time, the liquid of blood magic doesn’t slip through my fingers. It thickens, solidifying around me, wrapping me in armor. If power is emotion, I could become a killing machine. I am every emotion at once. I am grief. I am anguish.
I am sick.
Killing has never scared me. It’s always been instinct.
Light floods my vision. Another death presses close, but I refuse to give them the satisfaction. Mial isn’t teaching a lost cause.
I have the power he says I do.
All I have to do is feel it—just like Mom always said. Just like Mial told me.
Magic is emotion. And I hate the Arcane above me.
His blood is calm when I find it. It moves through me like smoke—something that shouldn’t be in my bloodstream. But I clutch it. I feel it.
A boil pushes against his skin, mirroring the ones along my arm and beneath my clothes. He drops the blade and raises his hands.
I smile.
“Stop,” he tells the others as his blood burns with mine. “She’s— Stop!”
Suddenly, the blood in my veins cools. But I don’t want that. If I can make them feel what they do to me, I’m unstoppable.
I sit up, breathless, and another opponent grabs my broken wrist, tight. They’ve chosen physical attacks now.
They know my power, too.
I twist, punching the Arcane who grips my wrist in the nose. He stumbles back, raising a hand. I wonder how long it’s been since someone hit him.
I press my hand into another’s chest. His heart beats frantically beneath my palm, molding to my will like warm wax. It pushes against his skin, filling my hand as his chest domes outward. Skin rips and bones give way as his heart fills my hand.
The Arcane collapses on top of me, dead, and I push him off, dropping his heart next to him. It hits the floor with a wet sound, and I wipe the sweat from my brow. Not sweat. My finger comes away dripping with blood.
Across the room, the rest of the Arcanes hesitate. They all look at me, covered in blood as I rise. My wrist lies limp, broken at my side, but I step forward. Beneath my foot, the heart squelches against the floor.
I look at Mial.
He’s smiling.
His voice is eerily calm as it fills the room. “You’re not done.”
For just a second longer, the Arcanes resist. But then they come back to life, like puppets trying to kill me.
I step forward. My body defies my demands, dropping to the floor. Again, my heart thumps, pumping something more than blood as I stare at the remaining five. Unlike last time, it isn’t a slow beat. They no longer want to torture me; they just want me dead.
The room stretches, blurry with a pain I’m growing used to. I reach inward, my magic slipping beneath my ribs and wrapping around a pulse.
Their blood answers all at once, frantically trying to escape me. But my veins feel like they grow into the Arcanes’. Five pulses slam into mine. I wrap my hands around them, like squishing roots.
The blood turns sluggish—every drop growing in weight, a thousand pounds too heavy. One of them buckles under the gravity of my will, falling to their knees as the others push toward me, their movements slow. One is nearing. I doubt he’ll make it.
I feel the strain of power, like sinking in quicksand. But this magic is different from fire—better. Fire is fear—fire is murder. Blood is essential.
This is what I was always meant for.
But that one Arcane is closing in. His hand rises, shooting toward my chest and breaking through my skin. He pushes past my sternum. His hand goes through me.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t look down.
I can’t feel.
His real physical hand tightens around my heart.
I pull the blade out of my shoulder, where the other Arcane had left it.
As this one begins to pull my heart from my sternum, I bring the blade against his wrist, hard.
His fingers flex, nails scraping across my ribcage, and my bones feel like clay—porous and weak.
It feels like he could rip right through me.
I raise the blade and swing again, finishing the job.
His hand severs.
Then, a prickle behind my eyes. Something thrums inside them. It’s less painful than the severed hand in my chest, but I blink a million times on instinct.
Until my vision goes out. A scream rips through my chest, and I tug the thread that binds the Arcanes’ hearts. Their heartbeats crash into mine, threatening to liquefy my ribs and spill right out of my chest.
Whatever I do to them, I do to myself.
But I have to end this.
All our hearts try to tear themselves free in unison.
I nearly stop, afraid I’ll kill myself in the process. But if I stop now, I’ll die anyway. And if I die trying, at least I’ll have accomplished something. It’s not like I’ll stay dead.
A hand grabs my shoulder, trying to drag me down. I wonder if all this pain is making them weaker. I can’t see anything, but I feel their veins giving out.
The grip is weak as it rises up my neck, trying to suffocate me.
But their hearts ring in my ears.
My heart is ringing.
And I force it to fucking scream.
It’s like my heart is ripped straight from my chest and sent flying across the room. The pain is acute, but I don’t drop. I don’t die. None of the Arcanes’ hands are on me anymore.
My heart is still here. I’m alive. I won’t be for long. There’s a gaping wound in my chest, but I’ll finish them first.
I search for the rest of the hearts, for blood, for something to cling to so I can stop them.
There’s nothing to find as tears trickle down my cheeks. They land in my mouth, warm and metallic.
Blood.
I raise a hand. My fingers rest on my eyelids.
I don’t feel anything solid beneath. My eyes are gone.
“Mial?” I scream. “Mial where are you?”
My hand presses against the gap in my chest, as if I can hold the blood and bone in. I pull the severed hand out of me. It’s still warm.
“I knew you had it in you, child,” Mial says.
I crash to the floor.
“What’s happening?” My breath shakes, my body limp. My fingers twitch at my sides, but that’s all I can move. It feels like someone still has power over my blood, and it’s slowly dripping from my body.
“Mial?” I ask, panic making the words spill rapidly. “Mial, are you doing this?”
I feel him at my side—but I don’t see him. “You’re well,” he whispers. “Just weary.”
Something sharp and cold slips into my heart. It’s soothing against the warmth in my veins and the thrumming of my heart.
I never thought a blade could be comforting.