23. Chapter 23
Screams filled the air. The small town at the base of the hill, Fernwick, was in complete pandemonium. People ran in all directions, some racing for the trees, others toward the road that led to Loamil Manor, but were all shot down with arrows by Black Raiders.
I quickly understood the charge in the air as I watched soldiers move with jagged motions with their swords, landing death blows to innocents. A mob of four men fought back, taking on one soldier, who only continued to rise from its place.
This death was an unnatural one. A mimic of the cycle and a disgrace to the name of balance.
These soldiers not only should not be on Grian soil, but should be dead and remain dead.
Anger swept through me like a rogue ember in the wind, adding more vows to how I would help make this right. My vision threatened to turn gray.
If only you knew how to control the very thing you’ve been cursed with, yes? Wouldn’t it be marvelous to simply call on those beings to stop and return the peace? You’re still nothing but pathetic because you’re not even willing to live up to your true promise.
I hated how right the voice was, even if it had sounded more like my own. Hated how it fueled my anger.
“How do we help them?” a muffled cry asked behind me.
“I have enough salves for those who—” a deeper muffle said before the sound turned to something akin to being underwater.
My Wielding thrashed when I spied more Raiders attacking the people, slaying them viciously in the streets.
Rage turned into molten fury the moment I saw the same beasts from the onslaught at the temple lunge and attack a woman running toward safety.
She barely had a moment to scream before the beast ended her life with a sharp snap of its jaws.
Hadn’t we stopped the Raiders from crossing our borders with the Rising Rock ceremony? Had these already been here, or had more come? We’d thought we could imbue the promise to protect Gria with our magic, but had we been wrong? Were we even more foolish?
Only you can stop this carnage. Claim what is yours, the familiar voice slithered again.
Dozens of Raiders and beasts rampaged through the town, separating children from their parents. Dimwitted heroes found only the end of their lives with swords through their necks and daggers in their chest.
So. Much. Death. My magic stirred wildly again, wanting to belong and be used. To take in the power in the air and imbue it into itself. Make it more powerful.
Something unnamed yet dangerous within me cracked beyond repair.
My muscles clenched as my body began to shake in pure, unadulterated rage.
Gray finally overtook my vision as I felt more and more death be set free.
I felt the charge of it on my tongue and could even see hints of lifesources leaving the array of bodies.
You’re going to let the sweet nectar disappear forever? This is your domain, and yet you do nothing with Thuvina’s divine power?
I licked my lips as I watched more lifesources turn into wisps before dissipating altogether.
“No,” I said to the voice that mimicked my own as I desperately clenched my fist to keep it by my side. I needed to find control. We needed a plan to defend these people, drive the Raiders back for good.
No? But it’s yours. You need to learn how to control them after all if you want to win this war. Unleash who you are. Break free from the chains of those who want to bind you. You. Are. The. Wielder. Of. Death. Act like it.
The voice was right. I needed to act, and these people were dying. These citizens were no match for what they faced. They probably didn’t even know these weren’t ordinary soldiers. We didn’t have time to devise a plan, and what good was my Wielding if not to save these people from a grueling fate?
It was easy to see the lifesources now in the living soldiers.
They sparkled so beautifully against the gray around me.
Like comets rising into the night sky. I felt my shoulders roll back as if they had a mind of their own.
The screams and cries grew muffled as a steady beat played within my mind—was it my heart?
It sounded so primal, but with each growing wave of the melody, my hands lifted before me like a puppet on strings.
My fingers splayed so wide that the skin between them began to ache.
Shadowy tendrils seeped from the tips and snaked in the air toward the Dokvalon soldiers.
“Mine,” I whispered and slowly rotated my hands high toward the sky to call their deaths to my fingers.
Instead of the lifesources dissipating into the air, the shadows tightly coiled around them.
I pulled, veering their course to fly toward me at lightening speed.
The glittering force was imbued into my skin, and I felt it warm my nerves like someone who’d been freezing and finally felt the thrill of a fire.
A sugary taste laced my gums, my tongue, coating my entire mouth the more I absorbed.
The more I fed. With each wave, I felt my power grow stronger.
An airiness I had never experienced before overpowered me.
A loud grunt and sharp hiss at my side barely registered as I felt the illicitus scream to be unleashed. To take.
Yes, girl. This is yours. All of it. Now command the damn fates in the way you see fit. CLAIM IT! Use him to aid your plan. Use him. Use him. USE HIM!
And so I did.
“Come,” I called out, hearing a strange voice escape my lips. It wasn’t mine but one that was deeper, older. And yet I couldn’t stop it even if I’d tried.
A sharp wind ripped around me, pulling strands of my hair out of my braid. It should have cooled me but my rage felt as if it belonged inside a burning furnace. I felt a massive wall of muscle stand beside me, tense and radiating with a power I wanted to drink and become drunk on.
“Kill them all,” I ordered, ignoring a plea beside me.
“As you command it.” The voice sounded so similar but not wholly the same.
It was entwined with malice and raw, undulating, ancient power.
Power that was mine to control. A vicious smile grew on my face as I watched the tall figure slowly descend the hill with a sword in each of his hands.
Four black bands were etched on his right forearm.
“What are you doing?” Delicate fingers grabbed at my shoulder but I easily shook them off as I descended behind the man. He had already decapitated one of the urthen beasts with exceptional speed before pivoting to another one that tried to stalk behind him.
A shrill laughter echoed around me as the corrupted lifesources of the beasts joined together in my palm, soaking into my skin. Any life in the grass I stepped on was absorbed through my boots, leaving a dusty trail in my wake.
Carnage sang all around me with each step I took inside the small town.
To my right, I watched the light in a man’s eyes fade as the Raider’s blade left his chest. The sun caught a faint glitter at the Raider’s neck right as they shifted their stance.
I called the lifesource to me, to strengthen my power.
Then, with the smallest flick of my fingers, I sent a roaring blast of fire to the Raider.
A gargled scream rose from their throat mere seconds before the Raider turned into ash.
I walked around the bend of a road, following the cries of the people, to witness a group of Raiders trapping citizens inside of a building.
Sobs and screams for help reverberated against the walls, but what caught my attention the most was the Raider who staggered to the building with a lit torch in their hand.
No! I cried to myself. They’re going to burn them alive!
Tsk. If only you would claim more of your Wielding.
I was teetering already, feeling movements that weren’t my doing.
It’s either you lose yourself, girl, or this entire town sees Cisoi before they are called. Do you want to live with that kind of guilt for the rest of your miserable life? Give in!
The answer was obvious. I’ve never controlled them before. I’ve only practiced on… I… I don’t know how…
Let yourself free. Become the thing they fear. CLAIM YOUR BIRTHRIGHT!
Let myself free? The silk string of control was already fraying. It was like placing canvas over a breaking dam.
I’m sorry, I whispered, praying that the others would forgive me.
I held my hands out wide as I closed my eyes and dove deeper into my well, fully letting in and letting go of everything I’d been fighting against. Layers of Wielding flew past me the faster I dove to fill my magic.
My magic. There was a reason death wanted to use me as its vessel, and here I was, ready to be Wielded.
My eyes snapped open as I felt a maniacal grin stretch wide across my face.
A sickening sense took over me, and the illicitus screeched within, ready to pour.
Instinct led me to craft my orbs into a force that now mimicked a rope made of shadows and darkness.
If one looked closely, small flashes of silver, like lightning, could be seen in the tendrils.
With another small twitch of my fingers, I aimed the illicitus rope around the neck of the Raider with the torch and flicked my finger back toward me.
In a rapid move, the Raider was flung hard into the air with such force that it dropped the torch onto the ground and then spun and landed with a crunching thud.
The impact alone would have shattered bones—if this assailant were living.
As expected, the Raider began to twitch and attempted to rise from its spot, but I was quicker.
With another small twitch of my fingers, the Raider disappeared under the fire and quickly became ash.
Stop with the theatrics. That was not control. You’re not a puppeteer—you are more. CONTROL THEM.
I didn’t have time to decipher the meaning as I watched odd sparks slither along the ground toward the building, aiming to set the whole thing ablaze.
Shadowstone. The glittering purple ore was mined deep within the Shadowcraig Mountains and fueled the furnaces at The Melted Forge because of how hot it could burn.
I shook with ire how Vovias had easily supplied Dokvalon with it.
If he were alive, I would enjoy the pleasure of killing him again.
The Raiders had used a trail of shadowstone to lead to the building. I had precious seconds before it reached its intended destination and was just about to use my Airus to scatter the granules right before I heard the ink roar.
CONTROL THEM!
Another wave of instinct jerked me closer to the Raider.
The lifesource within it was dim and lined with red and felt cruelly unnatural.
It was neither living nor dead. I blinked and threw my hand out in front of me, but instead of calling the lifesource to come to me entirely, the shadows from the illicitus coated it and pulled just enough, like a magnet to its match.
The muscles in my neck tensed as my body struggled against my own magic. Something unheard kept trying to tell me this was wrong. That this was all so very wrong.
“Move,” my voice commanded aloud. The Raider halted its tracks then pivoted to turn away from the building. Its shuffled feet scattered the shadowstone granules just enough for the trail to veer and fizzle along the dirt.
I had done it. I had controlled that thing.
“Destroy one another,” my voice ordered again as I turned my attention to the remaining Raiders, latching my power onto the pitiful excuse of death within them.
Each one took their sword and locked themselves into a grueling never-ending battle.
It was just enough of a distraction to free the people from the building.
The townspeople screamed and scattered around me, barely missing the melee of Raiders.
“Come,” I shouted toward the unliving soldiers, demanding they follow me through the streets. I stepped with assured steps as I heard theirs clank and shuffle behind me. I turned another corner and found another group storming a building, as if they were looking for something.
One of the Raiders stopped their task and looked right at me.
My head tilted as I studied their lifesource.
This soldier was human. Alive. “You bitch!” Something dark at her neck glittered in the sun as I heard the soldier yell.
She ran toward me with her sword ready to claim. “Attack her, you fools!”
Shadows danced around my feet as my smile widened. I stood still in the middle of the street. “Kill her,” I said to the unliving Raiders I commanded. My magic coiled against their source and pulled them to stumble past me. I knew they wouldn’t touch me. They couldn’t. I was now their master.
The human soldier stopped suddenly with fear written in her eyes as the undead Raiders overpowered and killed her.
Her agonizing screams bounced off the building walls and sounded sweet to my ears.
I watched her lifesource leave her body and imbue itself into mine.
I rolled my neck in relief as I felt my power strengthen again.
More shadows rose from the ground and twirled around me like delicate pieces of thread caught in a wind.
I commanded more undead Raiders to follow me to the opening of a field where Ora and Fyom were helping the people escape.
The worry and horror on my sister’s face should have been sobering, but I couldn’t find a reason to care.
“Phe! The Raiders! They’re behind you!” Ora cried as she drew her Wielding, ready to fight.
“These are yours,” I said evenly, as if nothing remarkable was happening.
“Ophelia, what have you done?” Fyom shouted, panic laced in his voice.
My face plastered on another wide smile. My arms raised up and out wide, shadows encasing me in a vortex, as the Raiders passed by me in slow steps. “Fire will do nicely.”
Ora and Fyom stared at me with wide eyes as a mob of thirty Raiders exited the town and into the field to be claimed. Ora shut her mouth with a sharp snap and sent a blaze of heat toward the soldiers, all without taking her eyes off mine.