Chapter 31
EMMELINE
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how Rain had never found Cethina, because the moment I stepped through the rift, I felt a tug. Her blight was familiar, like an old enemy. Because of it, her shadows called to me. You know us , they seemed to hiss, and I crept down an alley after them. With caution, I peered around corners, waiting to come upon the woman who had brought undue horror to Astana.
When I found her, I was surprised. I’d never seen Cethina this close before, only witnessing her path of destruction from afar. But I could tell it was her immediately, even though she wasn’t what I expected.
Seated in a darkened alcove, legs outstretched, I might have mistaken her for dead. She hadn’t struck me as a threat, and I supposed that was how she’d been able to infiltrate our soldiers. I found her just far enough away from the fighting that she wouldn’t be caught in the fray—or identified as the brutal woman who’d caused so much death.
When she leaned forward, spotting me as I moved down the alley across from her, I could make out her features. She couldn’t have been much older than Elora. With long, light brown hair and a delicately angled face, she easily could have been Nereza’s daughter by blood—rather than a conduit chosen for her gifts. She sat back, relaxed with her legs crossed at the ankles, as her tendrils of shadow extended from each of her fingertips. Slithering like snakes, they wriggled through the air toward my soldiers while she turned her intense eyes upon me. No one paid us any mind, Nythyrian and Vestian soldiers alike wielding their swords against one another. A young man collapsed, a sword sticking through his belly. I recognized him as someone I’d treated, removing the blight from him early on in the siege. I flinched, trying not to vomit, and the Nythyrian soldier who’d impaled him turned toward me.
Cethina shouted a command in another language, and the man pivoted on the spot. Heading back into the fray, I could tell their orders were to injure with haste. A tendril of Cethina’s vile power shot out, infecting her newest target with the blight immediately. I fought the instinct to run to my soldiers; if I was to kill Cethina, there would be losses I could not avoid. I could not become distracted.
“Mother told me you might come,” she said, voice clear amidst the din of battle. Her accent was faint, something not quite Nythyrian. She sat up a little straighter, pursing her lips. “She even gave me this.” The girl pulled a chain from around her neck, lifting it from beneath her collar. At the end was a clear, glass vial. Something to hold my blood, I supposed.
“Too bad you won’t be requiring it,” I said.
“I suppose not. They won’t need it if I bring them your body,” she said. “ Or your head .”
I’d come to kill Cethina; I hadn’t expected to find a child, let alone one with confident machinations of my demise.
“How old are you?” I asked, clinging to the idea that perhaps she’d performed the bond, and thus was far older than her appearance hinted at. But was that any better? A bond at that age couldn’t be completely consensual, could it?
“I don’t think you can trust any answer I give, can you?” she responded.
She was right. If she told me she was only a child, she could have been lying to garner my sympathy. If she told me she was older, she would have earned my pity. Regardless, I had to end her brutality.
Cethina stood, movements smooth, reminding me of a dancer. She waited in front of the abandoned home and began to pick at her nails. Gods, the action seemed so familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was likely something her sister, Keeva, had done. But many of my memories of that wench had died with Hy?e, so I couldn’t be sure. All I remembered was Keeva coming into my cell in Soren’s dungeon and insulting me—and the pain that came after her attack. Would this girl underestimate me like her sister had? I was the Beloved, and yet she didn’t cower in my presence. Perhaps Rain sheltering me had done me the favor of minimizing my gifts. I flexed my hands, uncertain about my course of action.
“Well, let’s get on with this—” she began, raising her arms. But I didn’t allow her to strike.
Creating a line of divine fire between us, flames reaching high above our heads, I could barely make out the girl. Slowly, I shifted the wall of flames to encircle her. At the very least, we could imprison her in our dungeons, not allowing anyone else to come to harm.
When Cethina crouched, I thought perhaps she’d already given up, but that was immature hope. Dark tendrils of power moved through the dirt-packed street, burrowing beneath my fire and speeding toward me with precision. I brought flame into my palms, pointing my divinity toward the encroaching threat, while attempting to maintain the flames around the girl.
She laughed, and everything went dark. Her shadows snuffed out my divine fire and smothered us beneath them. Her divinity started light, like the mist which had formed before dawn, but dense enough I couldn’t see. I coughed as the air grew heavier with it, and I summoned my light into my palms again.
Quietly, I moved backward, wanting to keep distance between myself and the girl. She had clearly fully come into her divinity, and so I was less fearful of harming a child. With control over massive power like that, she had to be an adult. Could she be the Accursed? Was she blessed by any other gods? Maybe she was the true enemy, being used by her mother and the Supreme to fight their war.
“Do you intend to do anything with that fire?” Cethina’s voice called out, but I couldn’t determine exactly where she was. “So far, you seem to have an even lesser understanding than your pretty Elora.”
“Don’t speak of my daughter,” I responded, allowing the flames in my hands to grow larger, floating over my outstretched palms. The urge to throw them and hope one would strike true was strong, but I didn’t want to be wasteful. Hanwen’s gift of abundance had almost gone dormant, requiring much more work to bring out the massive amounts of power he’d gifted me. Honestly, I was afraid of diving too deep.
“She doesn’t speak of you, that is certain. Yelling, cursing, raging? Yes. But speaking? No.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. They were watching her. I considered abandoning this fight to rift to Crown Cottage with haste. We’d known sending her there was a risk, but with Shivani, Thyra, a small regiment at my Second’s disposal, and the powerful wards in place, we thought it would be enough. But somehow, they knew what my daughter was doing. The contents of my stomach threatened to end up on the ground.
“If anyone touches her, they will die slowly.”
“You will have to kill the Folterran princeling, then, I suppose.” Cethina’s voice grew stronger—more singsong. “Loads of touching, they’ve likely been doing.” I turned as I sensed her circling me. She began to whistle a tune that I couldn’t quite place—some Folterran tavern song, if my memory served.
My eyes widened in recognition. The taunting, the pretty face.
The eyes.
“Declan sowed his seed all over the Three Kingdoms, didn’t he?”
There was no response, only pain, as ten whips of shadow cracked in unison, slamming into my body from below. Wrapping beneath my armor, up my thighs and around my torso, the sting was horrific. While I’d watched for her and been unable to see her, while she’d taunted and I’d responded, she’d been working her shadows across the ground to attack me. Encircling myself in an orb of my divine fire, I severed their connection. I licked my lips, tasting the errant drop of my blood which had flicked free from my wounds.
“The only parent I know is my mother. Nereza, Queen of Nythyr, and soon to be Empress of the Three Kingdoms,” Cethina shouted, and I knew I had struck a nerve.
“She will have to pry Vesta from our cold, dead grasp,” I countered, readying myself for another attack. But I nearly doubled over when acid tore through my veins. “Fuck,” I grunted, realizing my mistake. While attempting to save my divinity for attacking Cethina, I’d forgotten to heal my wounds. And she’d been counting on it.
I could feel the blight beneath my skin, pulsing as it wriggled toward my heart.
“Can’t give them my blood if you sully it,” I hissed, listening as Cethina’s footsteps paused. She’d clearly forgotten what she was here for. I’d rattled her by mentioning Declan.
“Heal yourself,” she demanded, moving closer. My fire guttered and spit in my outstretched hand, and I could just make out her silhouette. Snappy, her voice betrayed her nervousness. There would be consequences if she killed me and ruined my blood.
What could the Supreme possibly want as a favor from the gods? If I were dead, he would certainly get what he wanted, wouldn’t he? Unless, he didn’t want the Three Kingdoms. He needed my blood for something, and if dying this way meant he didn’t get it, perhaps it was a viable alternative.
“Heal yourself!” Cethina screeched, stomping closer, bending over me.
I did as I was told. Wrenching control of the shadows inside me, I held them still. Without hesitation, I burned the blight from my veins with divine heat. I screamed as my insides burst into flame and my healing divinity followed behind. And then, just as Cethina stepped back, I let my divinity soar.
Pure, white fire burst from my body, banishing Cethina’s shadows and setting everything ablaze. The conduit writhed on the ground, her clothing on fire, and the surrounding buildings erupted. Panting, I stood, stumbling over to her. My body ached, and it felt like my skin was boiling beneath my armor.
But I was alive.
“Surrender,” I said, unsheathing my sword while I held my divine fire in my free hand. Despite my desire to kill her for what she’d done to my people, I thought it best to question her instead—so I chose mercy. Cethina’s breathing was shallow, and she began to retch. The pungent scent of bile hit me, and my own stomach nearly responded in sympathy. “Roll over,” I said, looking for the nearest Vestian soldier to fetch me obsidian chains.
A rattling cough ripped from Cethina’s slim frame, and I thought perhaps I’d killed her. Just as I was about to use my boot to roll her onto her back, shadows poured from her, rising slowly from her body.
A dark serpent rose above her, as thick as a tree, and I watched in horror as the shadows swirled and grew denser within it. Soon, it towered over me. Coaxing my light to grow brighter in my hands, I was certain it was the only thing keeping the monster from striking.
Cethina laughed as I stepped back. Sitting up, she groaned in pain, and I noticed a few Nythyrian soldiers standing at the end of the street—watching and waiting to intervene.
I couldn’t let the snake grow any larger, or it would be that much harder to defeat, so I attacked. My divine fire struck through its long body, rending it in two, yet the shadows filled the gap immediately.
The beast retaliated.
Fast as lightning, it lunged, its open maw stretching wide enough to swallow me whole. I didn’t have time to react as it consumed me. Its teeth were sharp as it grazed my flesh, despite being made from shadow. Dully, I wondered if Cethina could infuse memory into this beast and make it more corporeal like my dragons. It certainly felt real, as I found myself in the shadowed belly of the serpent, unable to see.
Setting myself ablaze once more, this time, I left my divine fire to its own devices. I kept myself safe within the orb it created, but as the swirling, white flames grew, it became harder to manage. The serpent hissed, nearly deafening, as my divinity obliterated Cethina’s shadows.
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t see Cethina, but I let the flames grow and grow until I heard her cries. And I let them linger. She would scream for every person she’d given an agonizing death to. The woman had not been merciful, so neither would I.
In a final push to save herself, those wicked tendrils of shadow snaked beneath my fire, and wrapped around my ankle. Before I could detach them from me, they yanked—and I fell.
“Please,” she begged, dragging me across the ground toward her. My nostrils stung with the scent of singed hair, and the sight of her was something that would keep me awake for many nights to come. Patches of hair were missing from her scalp, her skin molten.
I wasn’t sure if it was kindness or a desire to stop looking at her burning body that led me to coax her shadows into my control. Was it vengeance which made me wrap those shadows around her throat? Was it ruinous pride when I used her divinity to wrench her head from her neck?
I couldn’t breathe as I dragged myself to my feet.
When I grasped her severed head by the hair, and the chain around her neck slipped free, I found a cruel kind of amusement in it. Picking up the vial, I rolled it between my fingertips. There was no relief or sorrow within me. There was no fear or anger.
I felt empty—like the vial I fastened around my neck.
My divine fire raged around me, swiftly overtaking the fighting soldiers. But as I watched, the only ones pulled into its warm embrace were Nythyrians. Was I strong enough to will the divine fire to only be used on those who would do us harm?
When the ground rumbled beneath my feet, and I felt sheer panic through the bond, I decided to find out the limits of my control on my divinity.
I rifted to the Dragon Hollow; it was time to unleash my fiercest weapons.