Chapter 35
Aimee
My thighs burn in protest as I run the streets of Drovillan, shadows pouring out of me and slamming into every onpyr in my path.
The entrance to the tunnels looms just ahead, swarmed by creatures lurking in the dark like graves that refuse to stay silent.
Too many rotten sockets turn my way, jaws snapping, flesh gliding off bones, leaving patches of soot-covered tissue.
All the onpyrs I’ve encountered before, their bodies were still intact, even if their minds were lost to my sister.
But these abominations, they’re something else entirely.
Decaying skeletons animated, pulsing with nothing but delirium.
As if her corrupted will has eaten up their flesh from the inside out.
Mouths deformed, they screech in her voice.
“You deplorable excuse of a soul. You’re just proof that the wrong things can slip through the cracks of creation. Useless. Unworthy. Foul.”
“Coward!” I scream at the mindless beasts, addressing their master. “Hiding behind your vile creations. You’re the pathetic one. All this wreckage for a male who was never yours. How does it feel to know that no matter what flesh he’s in, he will always be mine?”
The onpyrs lunge, limbs flailing, bodies quaking, but I don’t cower. I unleash my dark umbras—the blackest parts of my tortured soul—in a ripple of violence that swallows the creatures whole, leaving only bubbling piles of goo behind.
I heave an exhausted breath, and just as I’m about to bolt full-speed toward the tunnels that will take me to Sangeries, Killian’s hand wraps around my wrist.
“There’s a faster way, my love,” he says as the shadows take over, our bodies disintegrating into mist, in that in-between worlds state where it’s just the two of us, stripped bare to the embers of our immortal souls.
His essence wraps around mine, choking me with so much devotion and a promise to always be by my side.
The next moment we’re palpable again, standing on the crenellated rooftop of a crumbling castle, devoured by unforgiving flames.
Our home.
Morweena stands like a blade of nihility, flaming mane crackling with electricity as she cackles venomously.
“Careful what you wish for, little sister. You come searching for death at my hands?”
Her fingers glow silver, static hissing from her ashen flesh as she releases a wave of perverted power our way. Hands tightly gripped, we block her attack, creating a shield of swirling shadows around us. Argent sparks fly everywhere, trying to breach our domed barrier of crimson-black.
Her crazed, sick gaze slides up to Killian’s face, traveling up from his leather-covered chest to the column of his neck, thick with corded muscles, halting at his plush lips, set in a feral scowl, fangs bared.
I don’t miss the look of venomous longing swimming in those haunting, milky orbs. I can’t pretend to understand how unrequited, age-old obsession turns into a rampage of destruction, damning the entire world to one creature’s revenge.
“I would have made the entire realm our playground, Akaori. You could have ruled beside me as absolute Gods of this forsaken domain, all the living and the dead cowering before us,” she tuts, shaking her head at our joined hands.
“Instead, you will perish alongside the filth you call a lover, and I will ensure history forgets you both.”
“There is no reality in which that would have happened, Arwan.”
The powerful feminine voice uttering Killian’s words gives me pause.
A part of me has never heard Akaori’s rasp before so clearly. Only subtle inflections woven through his voice.
The other part? It yearns to hear one last time those sweet nothings she used to murmur to Aeon.
“Power hungry monsters like you don’t understand devotion, only crushing possession.” His pupils glow red with ancient anger. The sign of a soul unleashed from all its shackles.
“You don’t know what I understand,” she screams, zaps of silver shadows exploding outwards, catching fire on the wooden wall-walk behind us. Flames lick the outer walls, turning the stone black.
“You are a monster yourself, Akaori. You killed our unborn, you chose him over me,” my sister spits, pointing an accusatory finger my way. “And I was still willing to forgive your betrayal.”
The way she frames her villainy, making herself the victim in the story instead of its knave, breaks any vestiges of fright holding me back.
My shadows discharge with a thunderous boom of cracking stone as they hit her full force, throwing her over the battlement.
I break into a run and jump over the stone crenels, the hot air wheezing around me as I fall, fall, fall.
I land in a crouched position in a melted puddle of snow. She’s nowhere to be seen.
“Fuck.”
Killian materializes next to me, his predatory gaze sweeping over my body, searching for any damage. His relieved breath is barely audible above the roaring flames eating up Sangeries.
“Where is she?” he asks, taking in our surroundings.
“By my side, where a Queen belongs,” comes a voice from behind us, a silhouette emerging from the darkness of the gardens.
A blond Fae male draped in gold armor and wearing an opulent, bejeweled crown takes two steps our way, hundreds of crimson eyes blinking open behind him. His obnoxious smirk widens as the creatures surround us.
“What a cheap replica of Aurora,” he tuts derogatorily, sizing me up with his sleazy gaze. “No wonder she wants you gone.”
Fucking Noahlin. The royal prick.
“We have no business with you, boy,” Killian says through gritted teeth. “You don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“Oh, but I do. Hundreds of years I watched my father enforce a treaty that should never have existed. Your kind is an abomination. A stain on the face of Imiryion.”
The onpyrs part, letting Aurora pass through, her body morphed back into the split image of mine.
Noahlin takes her gloved hand in his, kissing her lace-covered fingers, adoration swimming in his gaze.
“When such a breathtaking creature promised to help me end you once and for all, how could I refuse?”
He doesn’t know what she is.
The fool.
Bewitched by her cunning looks and feigned innocence.
“She tricked you, Noahlin,” I say with force. “You’re just a pawn.”
“Of course you’d say that,” he laughs, gripping her waist and placing a kiss on her neck as she wraps her hands around him, her gaze trained on us.
“Always jealous of your twin. Always trying to steal what’s rightfully hers.
She’s my Queen now. Helping me cleanse the realm of vampires once and for all.
I’ll rule the world with her by my side. ”
A sneer forms on Aurora’s face as her features contort, color leaching from her skin.
Her fingers lengthen into claws, piercing his flesh and breaking through the back of his skull.
Noahlin’s dull brown eyes widen in shock for a fraction of a second before turning lifeless.
His knees buckle first, swaying on the spot, before caving inward as gravity claims Morweena’s latest victim.
He falls into a bloody heap; the body hitting the ground with a heavy, final thud, settling into the earth that will become his grave.
Blood seeps from his slashed throat, staining the edges of her silver dress. Morwenna hums in disapproval, as if the life she just took offends her.
“Such a delusional, whiny brat. Thinking I would ever let him rule my domain,” she cackles, kicking the corpse as if it were nothing more than a rotten apple on the ground. “But he served his purpose well enough.”
“That was the last casualty of your madness. Even he didn’t deserve his fate,” Killian grits, releasing his shadow self that hurtles toward her at blinding speed.
Time seems to stop as Morweena throws her hand, catching Shadow Killian by his misty throat.
“Impossible,” I whisper in horror at the sight of the struggling crimson shadows.
“Oh, Akaori, now you’re mine,” she laughs maniacally, squeezing Killian double’s neck. Killian’s knees thump against the muddied ground, a groan escaping past his lips as he releases my hand. The whites of his eyes turn a shade of unnatural vermillion, and he contorts in pain, fighting the thrall.
What the actual fuck.
He’s turning onpyr.
My pulse becomes sluggish as blood roars in my eardrums.
“Run, umbra, run!” he screams, grabbing the sides of his head as if he can claw away the sickness spreading inside.
No.
I’m fucking tired of running.
My fists clench, nails biting the insides of my palms until they draw blood.
“Let him go, you psychopath.”
“It’s over, little sister.” Morweena chortles exuberantly. “His first act as my puppet will be to bleed you dry. End your worthless life.”
“Run!” Killian whispers again, as his features slacken, his free will vanishing before my eyes.
There’s barely anything left that makes him who he is.
“No, no, no,” I cry, tears blurring my vision.
This can’t be the end.
It’s not what Ereshkygall revealed to us.
A thunderous roar comes from the skies as the moon gets swallowed by a dark cloud of sable scales shimmering with molten heat and flapping wings.
K’haram.
“Grab him and go, Omri,” he rumbles in my head.
A wave of heat rolls forward, hitting me in the back, as the air trembles around us.
A low, vibrating growl emanates from his chest as bluish-green flames lick the ground, turning the onpyrs into blistering torches.
The fiery torrent hits Morweena, and she loses her grasp on Killian’s shadowy form.
I grab his slouched form and haul him up, not caring that he might already be lost to me forever. I half run, half drag him, searching for shelter.
There’s nowhere to hide, and Killian’s unconscious state is making it impossible to advance. My teeth grind against each other as I pull him with all the force I have in my body, my muscles screaming in pain.