Chapter 24
Aimee
Iburn with unkept rage and disbelief, the mounting embers of the last months sparking into an open flame of violence that threatens to consume me and everything in its path.
My fists clench at my sides, buzzing with the need to strike the smug Goddess off her gleaming pedestal.
“I am not your friend, you conniving bitch,” I spit, each word scorching my tongue.
Killian approaches cautiously, wrapping an arm around my middle in a protective show of support.
“You might not remember it, shadow wielder, but we once were. All of us.” She sweeps her hand in a wide gesture toward the statues of the other Gods and I snort in dismay.
“I think the fuck not. I would never frolic with the likes of you—uncaring, implacable Gods with no regard for the beings of this realm.”
She ignores my retort as she descends from her dais, her silver hair dusting the marbled floor as she inclines her head at Killian in affable reverence.
“My liege,” she murmurs, her argent fangs glinting in the unnatural sconce light.
A tightening of his fingers around my hip is his only reaction; his mouth is set in a vigilant line.
“Don’t brush me aside, Ereshkygall. I will not be silenced so easily.
You tried to kill us thrice for no reason at all,” I say, my voice cracking from the rising pressure of my anger.
My shadows slither against my limbs in soothing circles, a comforting sensation meant to appease me when all I desire is to shake some sense of remorse into this stupid deity.
“I am merely giving you time to gather your emotions, Foretold One. I am not the enemy here. Far from it.”
“Could have fooled me.” I throw my hands in the air, willing my shadows to unleash upon her, but they don’t budge.
“Little umbra, let her speak.” Killian’s voice breaks through the veil of red-hot fury shrouding my mind, grounding me.
“She’s not saying anything, though. Just toying with us for her petty amusement.”
Ereshkygall’s sigh fills the chamber with a quiet exasperation, like a mother worn down by her child’s antics.
“The trials were not meant to hurt you. Their purpose was simply to keep the unworthy away. To keep me safe until your arrival.”
“And why all this ruse? Why do not come to us instead? Why would a mighty Goddess require safety?” I ask, confusion lacing with my anger, quieting down the rage inside me.
“She’s not a Goddess, umbra,” Killian answers in her place, his words slow and measured. “She’s a vampire. Much older than me.”
Ereshkygall nods, a small smile playing on her lips. I take her in more thoroughly. Her statuesque stillness, her unnatural beauty.
A fucking vampire.
“I never would have expected you to be the more sensible one this time around, my liege.”
“Killian, his name is Killian. Stop calling him that.”
She bows her head in acknowledgment, her calming stance irking me further.
“I apologize; I do not know your current names. Only the ones I used to call you.”
“And what did you use to call us?” Killian asks, genuine curiosity shining through.
“Friends, brothers and sisters, leaders, the ones we’d die to protect. Many of us indeed die for you.” Her longing glance at Allektriona’s statue doesn’t escape me.
“That’s not an answer, and you know it.”
She nods again, her fingers weaving into the folds of her dress.
“First, I need to tell you a story. No, not a story. Memories you have forgotten. The beginning.”
My jittery nerves flay me from the inside, making me feel like a raw, open wound awaiting a soothing balm of remembrance.
I seek Killian’s hand on my waist and he squeezes my fingers in reassurance—a silent gesture that speaks volumes for my anxious mind.
Whatever Ereshkygall throws our way, we’ll face it together.
“Back then, Imiryion was a battlefield. A cold, corrupt landscape where power was handed unequally and the forceful ones thrived on the pain and slaughter of the weak. Many aspired to seize power, but only one Fae creature wielded such dark magic as to make the whole realm tremble at the mere mention of his name.”
Ereshkygall’s fingers clench into white-knuckled fists, gripping her gown as if it’s physically painful to utter the next words.
“Arwan. The Dark Lord.”
The name bears no meaning to me, yet my shadows hiss in agitation, pooling at my feet and joining Killian’s crimson ones, as if they’re looking to pacify each other.
“He was a Dark Shadow-wielder, a sorcerer that used his magic to drain, to consume everything in his path. He left a trail of decay and desolation in his wake.”
Ereshkygall’s voice turns mournful, her gaze lost to times forgotten.
“No one dared to oppose his reign of terror. No male brave enough to face him, no female strong enough to deny him. His conquests were hollow shells of beings after he was done with them, many descending into madness or taking their own lives rather than bearing the shame of his violations. He spawned many discarded bastards, none bearing his powers. Until the cursed day he met her.”
“Akaori,” Killian breathes the word against my ear, and a shudder courses through my high-strung muscles.
“She was my friend since we could barely walk. A fierce flower of pure light that learned to grow thorns to survive in a world stained by violence. He became utterly obsessed with her. A human girl who would not bow down to his every twisted whim, whose spirit he could not break, no matter how vile his attempts were. He would alternate between rageful abuse and promises of devotion, but she did not yield.”
A lonesome silver-nuanced tear glides down Ereshkygall’s cheek, and she makes no move to wipe it away. Her quiet pain melts away the last remnant of my wrath, leaving only a cold emptiness inside. This story does not have a happy ending; that much I know.
“She became with child, a fruit of that abuse. It was the single worst moment of her entire existence, and the happiest of his. Arwan believed this offspring would carry his powers. His rightful heir. She sought to extinguish that flicker of life, but no one dared to lay a finger on her in aid. She did it herself.”
The horrors of a female so desperate, so broken in her fierceness that she reclaimed control over her own body in such an act of defiance, wash over me like foul, oily tendrils of inkling. I could have been her if the Fates had been much crueler than they already were.
“Arwan did not take it lightly. His aberration knew no bounds. He accursed her with the darkest magic known to any creature. A vile blood ritual meant to bind her to him for all eternity, to strip her of any free will or sense of self. Her thoughts should not have been her own anymore; her desire nothing but a tool in the hands of her master. But something backfired.”
“He created the first vampire,” Killian says, his voice stripped of any emotion.
“All magic comes at a price. Not even the Dark Lord, in his arrogance, could have prevented what happened. His powers split in two: the crimson shadows of Akaori, and the lethal silver shadows he remained with. His magic dimmed, but still tarried a weapon of mass destruction. In his weakened state, Akaori fought him off and escaped.”
Ereshkygall bares her fangs, the pointy tips of her canines almost glowing like dying stars.
“I was the first vampire she created. A companion to bear eternity with her, to help her keep her demons at bay and hide from Arwan’s scourging fury.
We spent the next decades on the run, not forming any allegiances or roots.
But that all changed when we stumbled upon a buoyant band of misfits, thieves hell-bent on wreaking havoc in the southernmost parts of the realm.
They viciously murdered and pilfered, descending like chimeras in the night, but only taking from the scum of the realm and giving to the many unfortunate.
Their leader was an unbearable male, handsome as he was prideful, wielding his powers to bring justice in a pernicious world. ”
“Aeon,” I murmur, the name heavy on my tongue.
“Arwan’s bastard child and true heir. A Dark Shadow-wielder. Hidden by his mother so his father could not sink his vile claws into him.”
“He was the child of her abuser?” I ask in shock.
“Indeed. It was hate at first sight,” Ereshkygall chuckles, deep in her memories.
“Akaori saw his parentage in his shadows, and he regarded her as just another one of Arwan’s whores.
Their mutual hatred was so passionate, everyone around them could see the undeniable truth to which they were blind.
But when they finally came together, they were a force to be reckoned with.
The kind of love they write poems about.
The kind that ignites wars. And ignite it did. ”
Her smile fades as she casts her weary gaze back upon us, and my skin prickles in dreadful anticipation. I can’t stop wondering how this all ties back to us?
My shadows churn, pressing into my skin, as if willing me to remember a life that isn’t my own. Yet, there’s a murky cloud of nothingness surrounding the parts of my mind that ache with this tale. Where recollections should reside, there’s only a gaping void.
“We stopped running, and that was our downfall. The beginning of the end. They started dreaming of a better world. Of peace and prosperity for all races. Ending Arwan’s reign and all the atrocities. We were all swept up in that hopeful illusion; we couldn’t perceive failure as a possibility.”
“But you failed,” Killian says without judgement, only sorrow.
“Spectacularly,” Ereshkygall answers, ghosts of past regrets flashing in her eyes.
“We underestimated the length of his vicious obsession. When he discovered it was his own bastard that had Akaori’s heart, blood of his own blood, wielder of the dark shadows he had lost, he didn’t just retaliate.
He called upon the vilest blood magic in this realm, trying to obliterate us all, to decimate Aeon from existence and ensnare Akaori once and for all to his infernal will. ”
I hold my breath, sensing the culmination of this story approaching, and my shadows twirl around my ankles in comfort.
“But, you see, magic has a will of its own, good and bad intertwined, as they have always been since creation. That’s something Arwan never understood or chose to ignore completely in his demented delusions.
He bound his blackened soul to theirs, ensuring mutual destruction.
Still, that should not have mattered, but mistakes were made on our end too.
We sent away the dragon before the last battle, hoping to preserve his life, and it cost us dearly. ”
“K’haram?” I whisper in surprise. The world around me dims as I sense his ancient presence coiling around the recesses of my mind.
“You summoned me, Omri? Your distress is pouring down the bond like bubbling tar. It’s quite jarring.”
“Ereshkygall is talking about the past. The ending of Akaori and Aeon at the hands of Arwan.” I project the words into my head.
“Ah, yes, their final moments,” comes his rumbling response. “Listen to her, Omri. You’re so close to the truth now. I shall await you on the other side.”
His consciousness vanishes from my own, only a slight pressure remaining, like a phantom limb’s ache.
“The night before the battle, the prophecy revealed itself to us collectively. We understood the price that had to be paid. The death toll. I was to be the only survivor, the one destined to guard the secret until your arrival. The realm itself found a way to preserve a sliver of balance, to give us the chance to restore it in an unforeseeable future.”
“However enlightening this history lesson was, it still doesn’t answer my earlier question. Who are we to you? I presume descendants of Akaori and Aeon. That’s the only suitable explanation for your prolonged overture,” Killian says, measuring each word as if tasting the imminent revelation.
Ereshkygall’s lips quirk upwards in a ghost of a smile.
“Hmm, not quite.”