Chapter Thirty-Five #2
“Thalion,” I breathe.
The creature laughs, a haunting barking sound produced only by vocal cords that shouldn’t exist—flesh that’s rotted away and been reconstructed by necromancy and blood magic.
“You should have listened to your father.” He smiles, revealing rows of jagged teeth.
A soul warped by three centuries in the hells, the flesh he’d been assimilated into reeks of death and decay.
He stands over eight feet tall, his movement anything but graceful, so unlike the last time we’d met.
Stunned by the hatred in Thalion’s eyes as he presses forward, I struggle to move, shocked by my father’s disregard for the dead.
Without hesitation, Eve launches herself at the construct, a crimson sword of hellfire appearing in her hands. She buries the blade into Thalion’s back, piercing through him, but he doesn’t slow.
Thalion roars, his voice thundering in my head, and it becomes clear to me Eve has no experience in fighting undead.
The creature swings himself around, fists landing against Eve’s stomach, sending her flying—she crashes against the bed as the hellfire sword in Thalion’s flesh vanishes. He doesn’t waste time and sets his sights on her, moving across the room.
My panic sets me into swift motion, shadows swirling around me, ready to strike. Snaking forth, they wrap themselves around Thalion’s neck, and I pull—his grasp at Eve returns empty.
She flails as she stands, my messenger bag falling to the ground, its contents dumping onto polished floorboards.
It’s all happening too quickly.
The door bursts open, shards of ice ripping through the room faster than I can see from Cyran’s hands. Black blood spurts from Thalion’s side coating Eve, my bed, and portions of the floor—the stench of sulfur and decay turning my stomach.
Thalion swings at Cyran with an arm, he dodges.
Barely.
Shouting something to Eve, she rolls out of the way of the hellfire that bursts out of Thalion’s other hand.
The bed catches fire like dry tinder, and more of my shadows streak forth wrapping themselves around his arms and legs, anchoring him in place. He’s abnormally strong and it takes more focus than it should to keep him restrained.
Bright red light catches my attention, gleaming beside the bed.
The obsidian box with the gold soul opens, dragged through some of the black blood.
It sits close to Thalion’s foot, and he notices the light.
Cyran launches more ice, blades this time, aimed for Thalion’s throat—a distraction. They tear the flesh to ribbons, but he gives them no notice.
“Eve!” I shout, sheer panic pitching my voice.
It takes her less than a second to see what I do, and she dives forward, hands outstretched. Her fingers clutch the box, but she won’t be fast enough to escape his descending foot.
Crushing my hand into a fist, my nails bury themselves into the flesh of my palm and my shadows react.
Thalion bellows with laughter, his leg falling away at the knee.
Severed clean.
A gravity-induced stream of congealed blood oozes from the wound.
Another clench of my fist, and Thalion topples onto his back, shaking the floor with his fall and roar. His severed leg flies across the room, thrown by my shadows.
As the fire grows, flames licking the ceiling, Eve closes the box, her bleeding hands trembling—the undead blood coating them is acidic to living flesh. She slides the box along the floor, toward the balcony, away from the fire.
I’m not going to be able to restrain him for much longer.
Rolling in a pool of blood, Thalion laughs and screams, thrashing against his capture—against my shadows. The cacophony of madness cuts through my bones, resonating up the tendrils of my darkness into my wrists.
Somehow, my shadows around his left arm snap and dissipate, and he reaches, the sound of bones breaking and joints popping out of socket as his fingers constrict around Eve’s leg.
A heartbeat passes and Eve is on the floor, screaming, hellfire streaming from her fingertips as she fights to sever the iron grasp upon her. She claws at his fingers, but the flesh tears and disintegrates with her touch, exposing brittle bone.
The shadows within me scream for full release with the same feverish pitch as the impending reality of Eve’s death.
I cannot lose her this way.
Netharis cannot have her.
Deep within me, something cracks and threatens to shatter as my breathing stops. With a final wave of fear and a blood-curdling scream, my feet carry me forward. The barrier over the wellspring of my innate gives way—in the same heartbeat, my darkness roars to life.
Darkness explodes around me, smothering the flames and light within the room. A familiar weight pulls on my back, as my glamour vanishes, a sensation I ignore.
The room becomes blanketed in void.
Screams of demons rise from the lawn below drowning out all other sounds. My hands land against Thalion’s chest, pinning him underneath me.
And I push.
Through the flesh.
Into the cavern of his chest.
Where his mutilated soul lies.
I scream as I pull and it leaves my throat raw, bloodied. The familiar thrum of a soul in my hands urges me to give one last pull and free it from its damned flesh. As Thalion’s body goes still, the darkness encasing us vanishes, dispelled by the silver soul in my hands.
“Red,” I breathe. “It should be red.”
Hands blackened with blood and burning as if I’d thrust them into the fireplace, my eyes widen. The silver orb transforms before my eyes—hardening, growing—becoming a soul crystal.
It gleams in my palms, pulsing with light and I yank my hands away.
Clattering onto the floor, I scramble away from it, pulling myself backward, breathing shallow.
“Good gods.” Cyran’s eyes are as wide as mine.
He’s kneeling beside Eve, holding her steady. Having pulled her across the room and propped her up against the wall.
“What are you?” he whispers, dragging his eyes from the crystal to my face.
“Ves!” Eve groans. Her leg is a mangled mess, bent in ways it shouldn’t be. “You have to go!”
She points, grimacing with each breath, to the balcony.
My head swivels.
The moon hangs in the sky, all but a sliver blood red.
“Hide all of my belongings. Let no one take them,” I instruct, throwing myself onto my feet.
“You’re to remain here,” Cyran shouts.
“You know I can’t do that,” I say, moving quickly toward the balcony.
Cyran rises, snatching my wrist and stopping me before the door.
My innate screams, and Cyran is launched across the room. His back slams into the wall, and he falls to the floor and remains still.
Well, perhaps it’s a good thing I’m returning to the hells. I won’t have to concern myself with the repercussions of that.
“Go!” Eve shouts. “I’ll take care of him.”
Racing onto the balcony, I peer up at the moon.
Ripping off my cowl and hood, I throw them aside, the cool night air greeting me instantly.
“Ves!” Fenryn shouts and I glance down.
The lawn is littered with hundreds of demon corpses, his soldiers warily stabbing and decapitating them to ensure they remain dead.
Leaping over the banister, my wings stretch to their fullest, and my shadows snatch me out of the air, ferrying me to the ground three stories below.
I land with a gentle drop, tucking my wings tight, and approach Fenryn.
The soldiers begin to back away, fear on their faces.
“Ves, your wings,” Fenryn says, gesturing with a hand to stop.
“The glamour shattered.” I say, brows furrowing as I glance over my shoulder.
Extending my left wing, several nearby soldiers scramble away, avoiding being struck. And my eyes widen upon seeing the part of myself I love most. My midnight feathered wings drip with billowing darkness that rains to the ground, killing the grass it touches—it withers, shrivels, and dies.
I snap my wing tightly against me.
“You’re living death,” Fenryn says, his voice trembling with fear.
The words pierce my heart, searing themselves onto my soul.
Shoving all the messy emotions aside, I meet his stare. “Help Eve and Cyran. I have to get to Celesta.”
Leaving him no time to argue, my shadows swirl tightly around me and he vanishes from my sight. Before my shadows can dissipate, I’m sprinting through the center courtyard toward the temple stairs.
Erus soldiers are strewn throughout clusters of demons, mortals fighting for their lives against the horrors Netharis has sent. Hellish creatures with too many legs, too many eyes.
Creatures summoned from the bowels of the hells.
Demons that appear human or fae upon first glance laugh as they sling blood magic without abandon.
I can’t let these people die.
Not for this.
My innate lashes out of its own accord, shadows racing underfoot in every direction. They flood the courtyard, wrapping themselves around the feet and ankles of demons, leaving the soldiers untouched—small patches of ground underfoot left clear.
As my innate tears through my body, beyond my control, again, screams rise—hundreds of voices at once as darkness wraps around them, forcing itself down their throats, in their eyes, and ears. Gorging itself on demonic flesh.
They’re being smothered, suffocated—
Bodies begin to fall and soldiers watch in horror, not daring to move. Faces swing in my direction, and I can feel my innate wanting to feed on mortal flesh.
Death is insatiable.
I am insatiable.
Channeling all my hurt, all my rage into my innate, into control, I command it to listen. It recoils violently and I gasp, clutching at my chest. But my will is stronger—barely—it retracts, leaving an ocean of corpses in its wake.
Willing strength into my legs, into my feet, I run.
Through the barrier and up the temple stairs.
A sharp pull in my chest nearly brings me to my knees. Whirling to face the source, his gold gaze meets mine from across the courtyard. The fear and anger he feels pours into me through our bond, but I don’t have time to process.
To apologize.
To explain.
A quick glance reveals the moon is now entirely red.
I only have time to act.
And even then, it may not be enough.
Knowing Ryc will give chase, my feet burst into a sprint, my shadows carrying me into the sanctum faster than I draw ragged breath.
Sprinting up the dividing aisle between the silver and black crowd, Artemise awaits me at the foot of Celesta’s statue.
Reaching her, I begin to peel back my leather chest plate, throwing it to the ground. Artemise moves with purpose, grabbing a silver-bladed dagger from Opal and returning.
She offers it to me, her palms turned upward.
The blade rests in her hands, reflecting the dancing light of the magelights overhead.
There is no coming back from this.
“Once this is over, Celesta will bring the change you both want,” Artemise whispers, her eyes mournful.
Behind me, cool hands land upon my shoulders.
“We will make it right,” my mother’s flowing voice sings into the depths of my darkness.
With a backward glance, Celesta peers down at me.
Her cerulean blue eyes glimmering, her silver hair flowing with an otherworldly breeze. She’s as haunting as the first night I’d laid eyes on her. And just like that night, her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
“I don’t want it right. I want our contract broken. I want him dead,” I snarl, snatching the dagger from Artemise.
It sits heavy in my hand, heavier than it should be.
With a quick billow of darkness, my wings are whisked away once again. Allowing Celesta ease of reach behind me.
Artemise stands aside as Celesta wraps her hands over mine, my eyes catch on a rune tattooed into the skin of her left wrist.
A rune.
Neither Malbolge or Yggdrasil.
It’s one I’ve seen before—but where?
Pulling me against her in an embrace, the rune becomes hidden under her sleeve.
“I am not worthy of you, daughter. I am not worthy of this sacrifice.” Her words are warm, but they feel empty. “We are the servants of Chaos.”
The pounding sound of armored boots floods the sanctum and my eyes dart up. Celesta waves a hand and the silver-blue runes of Old Magic shimmer into place around us and the congregation.
She’s created a ward, separating us from them.
My eyes fall upon Ryc as he races through the soldiers, his midnight black hair streaming behind him. His eyes search the room and find mine in less time than it takes for me to draw breath.
“Vestaris!” Ryc shouts, the desperation in his voice cuts through me like the blade in my hands. “Don’t do this!”
Flashes of light strike the ward, and the ward ripples.
“He will tear down the ward, Vestaris,” Celesta warns softly. “It must be now.”
Rowen and a fleet of soldiers surround Ryc, their weapons aimed, magic at the ready. Ryc’s eyes swing wild and wide, as a blade of light forms in his hands. My fingers tighten around the hilt of the dagger in my hands, its point aimed at my own awaiting heart.
Death, for the living, is inescapable.
Life, for a demon, is a wonderful, painful, joyous, and heartbreaking dream.
I catch his gaze one last time, the pain and pleading rips through my heart unlike anything I’ve ever known. It causes me to stumble, nearly dropping the dagger.
Celesta’s hands steady mine as tears well behind my eyes.
Every instance of staring into Ryc’s breath-stealing gold eyes flash in my mind as the dagger streaks toward my heart.
I send four simple words through our bond.
The same words he once spoke three hundred years ago.
“I will find you.”
It takes every ounce of strength borne of fear, hate, love, and mourning to push past the bones to my heart. Mind shattering, sanity tearing, white-hot pain erupts from within me. And my darkness folds in on itself, coiling and winding so tightly it threatens to crush my lungs.
The pain overtakes every corner of my mind, my soul, my essence, tearing at the very fabric of my being. No scream tears from my lips as my chest heaves and deflates.
The golden braided thread in my mind snaps, falling to the ground where its gleam fades before vanishing—the bond between Ryc and I breaks and my heart shatters.
I fall forward, meeting death head on.