Chapter 35 #2
“Please, love, please. Hang on,” I whisper brokenly as I drag him into an outcrop of trees left unscathed by the fire.
Their bare branches provide little coverage, but it’s better than nothing.
I touch his ashen, clammy skin, searching for his fluttering pulse.
It’s there, beating slow but steady, and a relieved breath escapes my trembling lips.
“What the fuck is happening here?”
Blaise’s voice comes out of nowhere, him and Sariah appearing beside us. I throw myself into Sariah’s arms, sobbing into her shoulder.
“She—she touched his shadows. Turned him. I—I don’t know,” I answer frantically, barely forming any coherent thoughts. “K’haram is holding her back. We need to help him. We need to run.”
I’m not making any sense. Sariah squeezes my arms in a comforting hug that does little to appease me.
“Is he…?” she trails off, the heavy question dying on her tongue.
“I don’t know. Heavens, I don’t know,” I hiccup against her leather-covered chest.
“Only one way to find out,” Blaise says, his mouth set in a grim line. His fingers clench on his bloodied blade, while his other hand raises in the air and comes down with a heavy slap that jostles Killian awake.
Thank heavens, the sickening redness has receded from his eyes. They’re still not quite right, rimmed in crimson, blood dripping from his eyelashes.
“What happened?” he asks, voice groggy as if waking up from a nightmare.
“You almost took a slight detour on the onpyr side,” Blaise says with a humorless chuckle. “We’re losing the battle, brother. We should regroup.”
A silver deluge of power lights up the sky, blinding us. K’haram’s wail splinters the night as his massive body barrels to the ground, hitting a castle tower. Part of Sangeries tumbles down like a deck of cards in the wind, heavy boulders smashing into the clamorous dragon.
“K’haram! K’haram!” My mind refuses to acknowledge what it sees, my cries turning hysterical.
I struggle against Sariah’s hold, trying to break free and run to him. She clings to me like a weighted chain.
“Let me go. He needs me,” I whine, twisting my arms to push her away.
“No, Omri. This is my purpose. My redemption.”
“K’haram, you honorable, stubborn fool. I forbid you to die, do you hear me?”
“There are some things worth dying for, Omri. The fragile warmth of life. The belief that this broken world is worth protecting.”
His words hold a finality that shatters my heart.
No. No. No.
His majestic head, bruised and battered, inches from the ground, rubble falling all around him.
His emerald eyes blink slowly as he releases another wave of flames that doesn’t reach Morweena.
She floats away from the ground, her entire body turning an incandescent silver before she hits him with another blow of electric argent shadows; his scales turning to ash.
Black turns to muted gray, scales crumbling like burned paper.
“It’s been a pleasure, Omri,” his weak voice purrs one last time before the soul bond erodes into nothing.
The emptiness in my chest is deafening.
Bile rises in my throat, and my insides break into a million shards. I claw at Sariah’s arms, drawing blood.
“He’s gone. He’s gone,” I chant in a hollow voice. Snot and tears drip from my face onto my leathers as Sariah rocks us both, whispering how sorry she is.
“Fuck. First Ereshkygall, now K’haram,” Blaise breathes next to us. “We’re screwed.”
“Ereshkygall?” I ask, barely surfacing from my heartbroken haze, already knowing the answer.
She told us what was coming.
“Dead,” Sariah answers somberly.
Blaise lifts Killian with a steady hand. “Let’s go.”
“No,” we answer both in unison. “This ends tonight.”
“You’re in no state to continue the fight, Killian,” he says, shaking his head vehemently. “We regroup. Count our losses. Find a better strategy for tomorrow.”
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Morweena screeches in the distance. “You can’t escape me, Akaori. I can sense you now.”
Killian shakes his head with a wince, trying to dispel an invisible thread gnawing at him. His bloodshot eyes bore into mine, and I acknowledge the silent regret with a teary smile.
We both wish there were more time, but Fate never cares about the whimsies of the creatures it weaves for.
“She’s trying to get into my head. We have to do it now, little umbra.”
“Do what?” Blaise asks in an alarmed tone. “Don’t be stubborn fools. We run.”
“There is no tomorrow for us, Blaise.” Killian delivers the last blow with a steady, sorrowful voice.
“We were never meant to survive this. You are.”
Killian
“You’re joking. You’ve hit your head and your sense of humor is utter shit,” Blaise laughs incredulously, turning his gaze to Aimee. “Tell me he’s joking.”
Her subtle head shake is weary but determined.
“There’s a hidden part of the prophecy, Blaise,” she enunciates each word slowly. “We are the saviors of Imiryion, but not its intended rulers.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Blaise’s rage is a living thing as he whirls on Sariah, pointing an accusatory finger at her.
“Did you know about this?” His eyes blaze with cold fury, his sea-colored pupils darkening like the ocean mid-storm, despair painting them almost black.
“Not… exactly,” Sariah stutters, rearing back from his harsh tone as if she’s been slapped.
“Not exactly?” he repeats agitatedly, his pitch growing in volume. “Not exactly!” he shouts, gripping his braids in frustration and pulling at the roots. “I’m not done with you or this conversation!”
“Brother,” I say, a knot forming in my chest. “It doesn’t matter. What Fate destined for us millennia ago, we can’t undo.”
“No, no, no. You are not fucking dying. Not on my watch.”
Red-stained tears leave trails on his angular cheeks, and it’s probably the first time in his six hundred years I’ve seen the boisterous persona completely shatter, leaving only the vulnerable boy behind.
The one I saved from death. The one that became more than my second-in-command.
More than any family I can recall, even though we share not one drop of blood.
“I am not losing my family again. Once is enough for all lifetimes. Not again.”
His words rush past his lips like frantic pleas, the supplications of a male no stranger to grief. To loss.
I grip his neck and rest my forehead against his own, trying to convey all the love I carry for him in my soul, all the hard-earned respect.
He is more than worthy of his new title.
The next Vampire King.
“You’ll make an exceptional ruler, Blaise. Better than I ever was.”
“I refuse,” he states as if it were as simple as a personal choice.
Aimee unfurls from Sariah’s embrace, coming to hug us both, head resting on my chest, her palm on Blaise’s wet cheek.
“We’ll always be with you, Blaise. Even from behind the veil.”
She takes out Kadirah, just as I unsheathe Alnashar, cutting our palms with them. I grab Blaise’s hand and he struggles to pull away as our daggers sink into his flesh, cresting the palm from base to the padding below his fingers.
“What are you…?”
Placing both daggers in his bleeding hand, we rest our palms on top, letting our essences and shadows blend with his blood. A rupture in my soul makes me flinch, as a wisp of crimson intertwines with black and enters his bloodstream.
“This way you’ll hold a part of us for all eternity,” Aimee explains. “We crown you King, the true and only ruler of Imiryion.”
Her amber gaze burns molten gold as she recites Ereshkygall’s words from the previous night.
“Only when bleeding darkness fights darkness,
May peace finally prevail.
Eimirya shall greet its rightful rulers,
Imiryion redeemed and prosperous under the wise hands
Of its new Vampire King and Queen.
Forged in love and loss, his gentle heart
Shall bear salvation and rebirth.
All hail Mortenghail!”
“The new Vampire King,” Sariah whispers in awe, “I knew you were important, part of a hidden piece of the prophecy, but not how or why. Please believe me.”
“Extend her the same courtesy you did me not so long ago, Blaise,” Aimee says with a sad smile, removing her hand from his.
Our shadows morphed the ancient daggers into a crown of pristine, almost translucent bones woven with threads of steel shaped as our marks, the Ouroboros and the crescent moon.
His crown.
His shaky fingers grip it harder, until more blood pours from his wound, staining the bone crimson.
“Fine. I accept your stupid title. You don’t have to die.”
Desperation coats his every breath.
“Don’t regard it so much as death, but as an ascension. To the next plane of existence. True immortality. Eimirya.”
Aimee’s explanation meets his obstinate defiance, the one I’ve always admired in him, even when it annoyed the fuck out of me.
“Bullshit.”
“It’s the only way, brother.” I rush the words out, feeling Morweena’s invasive perusal at the edges of my brain. She’s forcing her way in, pushing her control like a slithering snake wrapping itself around my mind, squeezing, squeezing until there’ll be nothing but her will left.
I can’t fight her forever. I know it.
Either way, tonight I die.
“Arwan’s curse keeps us tied together, Blaise. We can’t defeat Morweena without sacrificing ourselves.”
“No,” he murmurs defeatedly, more bloody tears spilling from his eyes.
“Killing her will kill us too. But our souls will live on. One day we’ll meet again, brother.”
A sharp inhale is his only resigned response as we stand and clasp our hands.
“Ready for our happily ever after, little umbra?” I ask Aimee.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, dragoste,” she responds with a sigh, grabbing the nape of my neck and bringing my lips down to hers in one last fiery kiss. As I taste her fierce sweetness, our shadows melt our bodies in a spiral of intertwined mist, carrying us to the last confrontation.
Blaise
As I watch Killian and Aimee fade away into shadows, a bitter taste coats my tongue, and I spill my guts on the charred soil beneath my fingertips.
My stomach churns though empty, my limbs heavy and unresponsive.
I’m locked in place, my thoughts raging inside me like a hurricane unleashed, begging me to spring into action, to stop this madness.
Yet my body is frozen, unwilling to move. Another one of Sangeries’ towers collapses, a cloud of ash and dust surging in its wake. The hot air singes my lungs as I struggle to breathe properly, searching the ruins for any sign of them.
A delicate hand clasps my shoulder, and I flinch on instinct.
“Blaise, talk to me, please,” Sariah whispers, her hand hovering an inch away from my skin.
“Not now. I will deal with you later.”
My clipped tone is too harsh even for my own ears, and I grab her retreating hand, holding it still between us, a beacon of comfort suspended in the chaos.
“It’s too much, moonlight. Too much.”
Her body slams into my back with force, arms engulfing me in a hug that both feels wrong and, oh, so right.
As the dust settles in the distance, two figures emerge from the flames; Aimee’s curls speckled with the falling ash.
Silver shadows rise all around them, crackling with horrific power.
It surges vast and towering, like a wave of destruction pulled from the abysmal depths of hell.
Black and crimson rush to meet the argent blight in a detonation of power that threatens to topple over the very foundation of this realm.
Stones crack, the moon darkens to a muted gray, and even sound warps with the impact of their forces colliding.
No, not impact. A catastrophic detonation erupting outward, fracturing the ground in bottomless cracks that splinter the earth like shattered glass.
The air distorts, screaming, as reality collapses inward under its own weight.
I cover Sariah’s head with my arms, forcing her to close her eyes and avert her gaze.
The violent surge of powers melts my combat uniform, leather fusing with flesh as pain erupts everywhere in my body.
And yet, I can’t tear my eyes away from the silhouettes of my friends, my family, valiantly standing their ground against the onslaught. Morweena’s torrent of power threatens to swallow the bleeding darkness whole, only to be ripped apart into a million pieces from within.
Everything caught between them vanishes into a soulless void. Expanding rings of nothingness swallow the castle in its entirety. The last vestiges of Sangeries disappear into a hollow vacuum of non-existence that pulses with ancient power.
Morweena’s screech reverberates through the night, rivulets of blood gushing from my ears and down my neck.
The sound of total annihilation followed by crushing absence.
A moment of utter silence before the blinding rupture.
Darkness folds into darkness, power fighting power, devouring each other in the ultimate struggle for dominance.
A whispered thought coils around my fraying sanity, a gentle hum of layered voices.
“You are our legacy now.”
Then comes the fulmination.
A sphere of thrumming light and shadows sweeping everything in its path, downpours of blood erupting from the cloudless skies.
Morweena’s body explodes in the shockwave, just a smudge of black goo remaining behind.
I rush to stand up, dragging Sariah with me, edging to the precipice of the scar left in the heart of Imiryion.
No sight of them.
My heart shrinks to a shriveled lump in my chest.
I burrow my head in Sariah’s seared locks, not even her jasmine scent appeasing my miserable anguish.
They’re gone.
They’re really gone.
Tendrils of faint, translucent umbras slip free from the chasm, hovering above the surface in a swirling motion. Two shimmering silhouettes like unraveling moonbeams stop before us, a sense of peace and love blanketing my mind.
Echoes of their former selves, Killian and Aimee smile unburdened, finally free.
No pain left. No fear.
Only a quiet release.
I blink the fresh wave of tears threatening to blur my vision.
“I vow to be worthy of your sacrifice,” I whisper, kneeling on the edge of the cavernous pit.
“You were always worthy,” the layered voices respond before the wispy apparitions drift upward in a spiraling embrace. My gaze follows the quiet procession of their souls rising into something brighter than light itself.
As they start dissolving at the edges like mist kissed by the first morning rays, their delicate shapes alter to a different couple.
The makings of a legend that bled for Imiryion over and over again.
Akaori and Aeon.