81
I heard only a deafening whistle. A mixture of blood and dirt coated my tongue like a poultice. I coughed and spat, producing saliva to try to expel it. My eyes watered from the dust as I blinked rapidly, and I struggled to lift my head.
My cousin was lying next to me, our wrists still tied. He coughed and complained, touching his breastbone with his face twisted in a grimace. We had ended up near the huge altar, which seemed to tower above us.
My father was already standing, his armor covered in dirt with a few leaves stuck to his cloak. His voice reached me muffled and distant, like I was underwater.
“Form a perimeter, quickly!” he ordered our soldiers in Elvish.
Araton was helping Queen Aloiv and her two acolytes, who were also coughing from inhaling the dust still swirling in the air along with debris from the undergrowth and bark fragments, to stand up.
Disoriented, I watched the younger witches scream and the older ones summon the gods, while terror drove the will-o’-the-wisps to dart among them like mad arrows.
My eyes met Aloiv’s wide ones, and her fear struck me with the sharpness of a blizzard.
Mornon had entered the Forest of Witches. In a few moments, he would arrive and carry out a massacre.
Just like he had promised me.
As if she had read my mind and refused to accept the inevitable, Aloiv set a look of determination on her face and called out to her coven. “Raise a defense barrier! Protect the retreat of the elderly!”
“Yelgnib, come on, get up,” I told him, standing up as the witches began to cast the spell vainly. “ Get up,” I growled, pulling him to his feet and then untying the rope around our wrists.
“We can’t dematerialize,” said one of the old witches.
“A dark force is holding us back,” another added in a trembling voice.
Dammit!
Time was running out. They had to flee, flee, flee.
“We’re going to die,” Yelgnib whimpered.
“Cousin.” I cupped his face in my hands, trying to calm him down, but his terrified eyes kept darting everywhere. “ Look at me.” He obeyed, his face pale as if he were staring at a demon. “You need to run to the village and find a hiding place. Do you understand? You must—”
Something crawled between my ankles.
Yelgnib inhaled sharply and looked down, wide-eyed. I gradually withdrew my hands from his face, took a step back, and, holding my breath, slowly turned around.
A blanket of darkness resembling snakes was sinuously winding across the ground, weaving between the frozen present’s legs. Paralyzed, I watched it curl around the tall torch shafts, snuffing out the flames one by one.
Until we were in the dark, cut off by those few, faint beams of pearly light from the stars and moon that managed to filter through the thick fronds of the trees.
I searched for my father’s and brother’s gaze, and the most primitive fear raked its icy claws down my spine. They responded with resolute expressions and drew their swords, followed by our soldiers.
The dark, smoky snakes started to rise from the ground.
I spun toward my cousin. “Run!”
A single, startled, suffering sob stitched out of him, for a black blade had just stabbed his stomach.
I looked at the tip of the broadsword, which had stopped just short of my belly, then raised my wide eyes to meet Yelgnib’s horrified face. Blood began to gush from his parted lips.
The weapon jerked upward, cutting his chest, neck, and skull in half.
Thick crimson streams spilled over my hands, which I had instinctively reached out to him, as well as over my dress and face, and splashing into my eyes and mouth. Petrified, I watched my cousin’s corpse collapse on the ground, his slimy organs sliding out of the two halves of his torn torso.
Just like it had happened with Serie.
Shocked, I looked up at the murderer in front of me. The shadows seemed to emerge directly from his black robe. The stiff onyx decorations resembled rivulets of shiny liquid running down his forearms, shoulders, and chest.
He was so majestic that I felt completely overwhelmed.
He was the embodiment of the end.
And his expression was so cold that it showed no trace of humanity.
“I warned you,” was all he said.
“Nauriel!” Araton yelled, about to make a dash for me.
But Mornon’s repulsive monsters burst from the darkness, quickly turning the clearing into a scene of pure violence.
Multicolored energy from the witches’ hands streaked through the air, striking the creatures but not stopping them.
The elves’ slender swords sliced through their twisted limbs, only for the limbs to regenerate immediately.
The elder witches tried to form shields using their white magic, but the monsters reabsorbed into shadows, slipping past the barriers and reappearing behind them.
Blood began to gush, staining the fir trunks and lower branches. Gruesome cries mingled with the creatures’ guttural calls and the slimy sound of bodies dismembered by their claws and the sound of bones breaking under their saber fangs.
Araton kept screaming my name at the top of his lungs, trying to push his way through to reach me, but he was constantly pushed back.
My father roared continuously to defend Calien’s Crystal, trying to reach the altar. “Queen Aloiv! Hide the Crystal again, quick!”
Mornon’s predatory gaze shifted to the woman.
She met his eyes, but despite her terror and blood-soaked wounds, she extended her arms toward the altar and began to make gestures with her hands, her lips moving almost imperceptibly as she recited the formula.
Mornon lost interest in me and, after his weapon vanished, he walked toward the woman with a clear intent burning in his eyes.
Killing her.
I had to do something. I couldn’t just stand by while the people around me fought and died because of me.
I had to stop Mornon.
So, I looked around very quickly for a weapon. An eviscerated soldier, a few steps from me, was still clutching his sword. I was about to dive for it . . .
But something blocked me.
I lowered my eyes, wincing. Darkness was wrapped around my wrists and ankles like chains emerging from underground.
“No, no, no,” I stammered angrily, pulling at them.
My gaze flicked to Mornon, who dropped the hand he used to command the darkness to stop me and shot me a sharp, reproachful glance over his shoulder.
A heartbeat later, he seized the queen by the throat.
She clawed at his wrist with one hand, trying to tear it off, but he was so steady he resembled a statue. Then, she called upon her own magic using her other hand—surrounded by a light aura with thin lightning bolts—and aimed to press it against his chest.
Mornon grabbed her forearm to block her and pushed it down with such force that, despite the chaos, I could hear her humerus snap.
The queen let out an inhuman cry, her eyes seeming like they were about to pop out of their sockets.
He began to tighten his grip on her neck.
She tried again to summon lightning in her other hand, but her magic was now so weak that the enemy did not seem to feel it in the slightest, as she buffeted his arm with punches.
Mornon was untouchable, unrivaled.
And he was about to kill her.
I had to help her. I had to break free. I had to . . .
All of a sudden, I remembered the words he had whispered in my ear as he took me.
Now his darkness belonged to me as well.
Did that mean I could control it? I wasn’t sure, but I had to try before it was too late.
So, I focused on the smoky darkness around my wrists and inside me, striving to draw it to me.
To command it.
I felt it hiss, as if it were almost confused by my interference, but nothing happened. And so, I tried again, with more conviction, with more despair.
But suddenly sensing Mornon’s sharp gaze on me distracted me, and I unintentionally shifted my attention back to him.
“You can play with my darkness all you want when we are together,” he taunted me. “But I am its master.”
And I was nothing.
I could do nothing.
“You are killing . . . your own . . . people,” the Queen of the Witches gasped, struggling for air. “The two peoples . . . you belong to.”
Mornon peered down at her with such a cold, murderous stare that I shuddered, while shadows gathered behind the woman’s feet and slowly rose to her mid-back.
“I belong to nothing and no one,” he declared.
The darkness took the shape of a spike that pierced the sovereign’s heart, blood splattering onto Mornon’s robe.
“No!” I screamed, gritting my teeth as I pulled with all my strength to break free.
Unsatisfied, Mornon made claws appear at the ends of his fingers, still gripping the witch by the neck, and pierced her flesh, tearing her throat open and also ripping out her windpipe and tongue along with her skin without any mercy.
I let out a sickening sound and, frozen, watched the woman’s body collapse onto the ground. Mornon flung the bloody mush in his hand at her as if it were trash, but I avoided his gaze when I felt his eyes on me once more.
I couldn’t stop staring at the hole in Aloiv’s throat, from which blood erupted in bursts so powerful that, for a moment, it reminded me of the freshwater mouth on the island beach where Amlach and I had stayed.
I slowly shifted my gaze to the torn corpse lying near me, lingering on one of its wide, already glassy eyes.
Eyes that would no longer light up like the sun as my cousin displayed one of his big smiles that made the root of his nose curl.
Shocked, I watched the expanse of quartered bodies that nearly covered the entire clearing. Elves and witches slaughtered because of me.
That carnage had to end.
Mornon needed to be destroyed, and only one thing could accomplish that.
My death.
In one go, we would strip him not only of the chance to reclaim Calien’s Crystal for his awful plans but also of the strength to survive. To go on without me, his mate.
Maybe he would end his life the moment he saw mine extinct. Perhaps he would run away and never return, barricading himself in his own suffering forever.
I couldn’t be certain, as he was half witch.
Right now, the only thing I was sure of was that I needed to die to defeat him once and for all.
So, with tears streaming down my cheeks, I let my eyes scan the ongoing battle until I spotted my brother. With his gray armor covered in blood and the blackish substance of the creatures, he decapitated a monster, and then, as if sensing me watching, his eyes snapped to me.
We stared at each other, and time appeared to stretch into an endlessness.
Please.
I gave him my most pleading look, praying that he would make the right decision before Mornon returned to me.
And he did.
Furious, he drove his sword into the ground to grab the bow. He pulled the white-fletched arrow from the quiver, and as tears escaped his eyes, he nocked it.
I sighed with deep gratitude and turned my upper body toward him. I closed my eyes with a small smile, prepared to face my destiny.
“Araton, don’t!” Father shouted.
Next, I heard the string snap as it was released.