Chapter 18 #2
“Your actions have thrown the Expanse into chaos,” I told her, ignoring her request to join her on the table and instead moving to Tobias’ side.
“After what you orchestrated in the cemetery, the Second Awakening came upon us. But it wasn’t another enlightening like the Magi hoped it would be.
Instead, mortals began to manifest magic across the Expanse.
Dangerous, unknown magics the likes of which we’ve not seen before.
The Council has been scrambling to contain this threat to Magi Society, effectively halting all negotiations with the Unseen in the process and throwing any progress made on that front into limbo. ”
Lynette grinned, an elation burning in her gaze. “Oh, if only Mother could have been alive to see this day.”
“You’re glad?”
“That mortals have been given the same access to power as Magi? Of course I am. This is far better than anything I would have imagined.”
“But no one knows how this magic will continue to manifest. They are a danger to themselves and others.”
“Spoken straight from the mouth of privilege,” Lynette countered. “Tell me, Cirian, could the same not be said for any of the Magi? Mortals are no less deserving of the gift of magic than any of us. Now they have the ability to choose what to do with it.”
A twinge in my chest, and the Source’s heat swelled.
Was it reacting to Lynette?
“I agree. But that wasn’t the only consequence of the Second Awakening.”
She nodded, copper curls bouncing. “You mean the Umbral.”
“You know of it?”
“I know the monsters that lurk between this world and the next, Cirian. The Umbral is just one of them. I tried to keep it from coming through that night in the cemetery, but I wasn’t strong enough.
Even Tobias, with the combined might of each of your Anima, was no match as it blotted out the stars.
But last I remembered it was contained to the Ether. ”
“Not anymore. It found a way out and seized the entire Cradle in the process. We were trapped there, lost in the daze of its corruption, forced to watch Saint Sancha grow weaker by the hour as she tried to save as many of us as she could. It came for her, in the end. Took her for its own, and then tried to take the Source itself.”
“And?”
“And Sancha was wise enough to have a contingency.”
Lynette’s features twisted with confusion.
“It’s ready for you, Cirian.”
Bastien carried the stone bowl over to me, careful not to spill the contents.
I tapped into that familiar heat in my chest, spreading it through my limbs and allowing it to course through every vein. Leaning over the bowl, I let out a breath, another cloud of cerulean smoke swirling over the contents, causing them to boil.
Lynette let out a breath of her own, her eyes going wide.
“The Source is with you.”
I nodded as Bastien returned to the counter, transferring the readied poison into another phial. “It was Sancha’s final effort. She knew that it was the only way to keep the Umbral from extinguishing the Source.”
“But it’s still out there?” Lynette asked.
“Yes. Wearing Sancha’s face. And I intend to put an end to it.”
Lynette let out another laugh, this one high and cruel. “Slay the monsters all you like, Cirian. Just make sure you don’t become one in the process.”
A chill shot down my spine at her words.
Azrael reappeared, tucking the communication device into his pocket.
“Are we ready?”
Bastien nodded, grabbing the first of the phials from the counter and squaring his shoulders. “Let’s wake him up.”
Lynette remained silent while we took our positions around the table.
Looking down at Tobias’s placid expression, it seemed almost cruel what was about to take place.
But I reminded myself of the reward waiting at the end of the suffering and steeled myself for what was to come.
Taking his hand in mine, I ran my finger over the sapphire-like stone embedded in his palm.
It had been dark for too long, and I wanted nothing more than to see it shine again with life.
I was sure that Bastien and Azrael felt the same as well.
Tobias had slept for long enough.
Azrael took the opposite side of the table, Bastien standing over Tobias’s head with the first of the phials. Even with the success of Lynette’s awakening, he looked petrified. When his golden gaze flickered up to me, I nodded my reassurance, and he steeled himself for what needed to be done.
The first phial went down with no issue, much like Lynette.
Tobias swallowed the concoction with no ill reaction, and as I held onto his hand, I could have sworn I felt the twitch of a muscle.
The second phial also went down without protest, Tobias’s breathing remaining unchanged as he lay on the table.
As Bastien pulled his mouth open for the third phial, I caught him by the wrist, stopping the progress.
I felt each of their gazes fall on me, but I couldn’t look away from Tobias and the small, dark spot that appeared under his left eye.
“What is that?” I questioned, pointing to the pea-sized blot as it doubled in size in the blink of an eye.
Bastien quickly stoppered the phial, tucking it into his pocket as he came around the table to get a view from my vantage.
“It’s spreading,” Azrael added, a panic in his voice that I’d rarely heard.
“What’s happening?” Lynette called from her table, craning her head to try to see over us.
“Bastien?”
His golden gaze had locked on the spreading blot, now covering most of Tobias’s cheek.
Swearing under his breath, he muttered an incantation, holding out two fingers directly over the spot.
Green light collected at his fingertips, creating an incision about half an inch long in the bruise-like section.
Black ichor bubbled from the site, spilling out onto the table, thin as water.
But the blot didn’t stop spreading, now eclipsing the left side of Tobias’s face. His breath hitched at that moment, a sputtering, wet sound that drained any heat from my veins.
“Bastien!” I cried helplessly.
He was dying. I gripped onto his hand, infusing him with as much magic as I could muster in the split second. Immediately, my mouth filled with the taste of bile, my nose stinging with the stench of rot and decay.
I knew that stench.
“The Umbral,” I said, wanting to shout it, but I couldn’t get the words around the lump in my throat. Bastien reacted at once, moving the hand he’d made the incision with away and placing a hand over his chest.
Azrael followed his lead, though his brow twisted with confusion. “It’s inside of him? How is that possible? He has not been anywhere near the Cradle!”
“I don’t know,” I seethed, grasping Tobias’s hand as the tether in my chest flared to life at the touch. “We need to pull it out. Just like we did for you two.”
“What is happening?!” Lynette shouted, the air around us quivering with the familiar weight of her magic.
“Shut up, Lenny!” Azrael shouted back, snapping his fangs.
“Here,” Bastien spoke, his tone the most controlled out of all of us, even though it teetered on the edge of breaking.
He placed the end of his tether over Tobias’ body, the dark blot now covering his arms. Azrael handed his over, and I followed suit, Bastien twisting the lines together into a cord that pulsed a white-hot light.
Turning the end downward like a dagger about to plunge into a sacrificial lamb, he drove the end of the corded tether into Tobias’s chest. As if he’d been struck with a bolt of lightning, Tobias’s body thrashed, his back arching off the table as a horrid scream tore from his depths, more monster than man.
“Together!” Bastien shouted as Azrael and I both flanked his side, each covering one another’s grip on the cord. “Pull!”
Azrael snarled, the veins in his arms bulging. Bastien gritted his teeth, remaining quiet as he pulled with concentrated effort. Being the man I am, I dug my heels into the ground, shouting at the top of my lungs, “You shadowy shit-stain! You will not take another from me!”
The gems embedded in his hands and chest burst to life, the shadows surrounding those areas of his body dissolving as the viscous matter retreated.
“Again!” Bastien shouted.
My nails dug into the meat of my palm as I tightened my grip, pouring any remaining strength into the effort. With a sudden jolt, a horrible tearing sound filled the room, and the three of us were sent shuffling backward.
The sound of sopping wet fabric hit the ground in front of us, a puddle of teeming shadow roiling towards us with another monstrous roar.
“Cease!”
The Command rolled over the room like a wave of pressure. Lynette stood by her table, her legs trembling and chest heaving as she stared daggers at the shapeless mass. A section of the swirling ooze peeled back, revealing Sancha’s familiar smile curled back over blackened teeth.
“The Sleeper’s interference will not stand, and his children will know no rest till this world belongs to me once more.”
His children? What were they talking about?
Lynette grunted as the wave of pressure lessened, the undulating mass reaching up toward Tobias once more.
Beside me, Azrael was a streak as he wrapped the cord around his forearm, barreling down on the Umbral with impossible speed.
He wrapped the cord around its mass, pulling it taut across Sancha’s throat, halting its advance towards Tobias.
With Lynette’s Command lessened, Bastien and I joined Azrael, latching onto the cord and dragging the Umbral several feet back, leaving a smear of black ichor as we moved.
“This world is rightfully mine!” bellowed Sancha, tendrils of inky darkness lashing out toward the table, but falling just shy.
The Source’s blessing pulsed in my chest, reacting to the Umbral’s words.
Releasing one hand from the tether, I pressed it to the gnashing face exuding from the ichor, the heat surging through my limb as a branch of blinding lightning coursed through the mass, reducing it in an instant to a puddle on the floor.