Chapter 11 #2
I reach to comfort him; to wake him and save him from his own mind. The boy lets out a violent scream the moment my fingers graze his shoulder, wrenching from my grasp. He crouches, darting beneath my outstretched arms toward where the Aeternalis bleeds on the floor.
Slow horror envelops me like a shroud as the boy kneels in the pool of blood beside the Everlasting, as piously as he would at an altar.
Like he’s making an offering.
“No!” The word is a panicked, strangled sound in my throat as I lurch toward him.
But it is already too late. His small body gives a violent shudder, and a golden light, no larger than a pinprick, lights at his chest. The boy trembles and jerks, spittle crusting at the corners of his lips as the glow expands until both him and the Aeternalis are encapsulated within a small orb of magic.
Small filaments form around the edges. Lines of magic that fizzle and spark as they bounce from the boy to the globe, before disappearing into the Aeternalis’ chest. The little boy’s colors dim while the dull pallor of Pan’s skin brightens.
I readjust my grip on the sword, rage burning deep in my chest. Pan is siphoning the child’s magic, just as he’d done to all the Strayed who came before him.
I’ve heard the stories from Niko and Tiernan, but watching it—seeing him steal something so innocent—is more depraved than anything I could imagine.
More instinct than strategy, I plunge my arm into the fading orb of magic, determined to drag the boy away from the Aeternalis.
But the moment I wrap my hand around his shoulder, something soft—something addictive—rushes from the point of contact.
My skin warms, my muscles loosen, my joints relax.
The edge of nausea in my stomach relents, and my lungs expand fully.
I jerk away, staring at my fingers in abject horror. Touching the boy didn’t save him—it diverted the flow of his power into me.
Lurching backward, I clutch my hand to my chest like it’s been burned.
But the child’s magic follows. Even as I scramble over the floor, desperate to get away, bright threads of innocent wonder spear from the orb.
The golden power wraps around my wrists, climbs up my legs, dives into my chest. The more furiously I fight against them, the more I try to shake them off, the tighter the magic grips me.
And then, the pure euphoria becomes too much to resist. I lose every thought beneath its irresistible thrall, my body undulating of its own accord as I drown in rapture.
My eyes fall closed, pleasure shuddering through me like nectar.
There is no pain, no regret—nothing but undiluted, gorgeous power.
Untinged with the traumas of life, unstained by the harshness of living.
It is unadulterated freedom. I can’t remember why I ever tried to run from it; I can’t remember anything but the high in my veins and the dizzying power.
“Doesn’t it feel good, littlest darling?” Pan’s voice whispers from somewhere above me.
His face flutters into view between my lashes.
Blood-spattered and ethereal, his expression somehow mirrors the feeling flowing through me.
He wraps his fingers around my wrist and pulls me to my feet, pressing me to his chest. The feel of his skin against mine nearly sends me back to my knees.
My senses are heightened to intoxicating levels, each touch amplified by the magic pulsing through my veins.
“Drink it in, Willa,” he croons, the words sensual and smooth. “You don’t have to fight so hard. I only want to make you feel good.”
I feel so good. The shadowed void has been ravaging through me since I woke in the Hollows, but now, it is wonderfully calm.
The pain of memories, the sting of regret—all of it has been consumed by the light.
Like the heaviness of the world has faded away, and I’m weightless enough to float through the stars.
“We are the most powerful beings among the worlds, Willa. We don’t need to live in agony when the universe expands before us. We will take what’s ours.”
I only want to make you feel good.
The words, which had been so delicious only a moment before, suddenly clang through me like steel.
I spent my life running from agony, until I met a king who taught me to hone it like the sharpest of blades; use it to carve out the edges of pleasure, to define the beautiful things with the horrible.
I snap my eyes open. I see none of the dark beauty of the Indomnitus; only the glowing green gaze of the Aeternalis. He is so close, all I breathe is the blood-tinged scent of him.
“You’re old enough to know, Peter,” I whisper, my words a hot breath against his lips. His lashes flutter, and a guttural noise sounds in his throat like the mere whisper of my mouth has left him undone. “There is no pleasure without pain.”
With that, I wrench myself from his grasp, and let the shadows in my chest rise. They mingle with my magic until I am nothing but my rage, nothing but a burning abyss. And with the fire, I paint.
I’ve painted time and I’ve painted life, but I’ve never painted death.
It isn’t Niko’s death—a magic of eternal silences and soothing endings—it is the depiction of death the Everlasting has earned.
I paint the ripped open bellies of sirens, and the pinned wings of pixies; I paint the empty eyes of the children, and violent urges in the littlest of hands.
The Aeternalis thinks he is above death. I will show him he is not. I will kill his power at the source.
The magic of the island rises up, tangling with mine until I no longer feel the edges of myself at all. I only feel the electric storm of power and shadows, rising, rising, rising.
The Aeternalis tilts his head, his eyes glinting with excitement. “You are such a delicious thing,” he purrs as I let my magic go.
The world tilts, just as it had when I brought Niko back to life. But this time, it isn’t only creation that spills from me. The shadows that have lived in my heart burst from my skin, from my eyes, from my mouth. My rage given form.
And Pan, the child, the Indomnitus—all of them are showered in my void.