Chapter 49
Candles lit themselves and flickered like awakened spirits. Hundreds sat along the walls in burial holes where priests of ancient days used to lay sacrifices. Wax melted down the entombments, leaving ivory drippings over the darkened stones.
The cathedral sank downward. Each tier dragged me deeper towards the hollow heart at the center. Above me, the ceiling disappeared before meeting the end. Around me, pews bowed to the midpoint. The sacrificial blade was carved into each pews’ end, and stained glass cast soft shades of red and burgundy, melding into the candlelight.
I stood alone, though I was not alone. I only could not see those who lingered in the dark.
My breath bled into the cold, pale clouds slipping from my lips.
I took another step forward, my will surmounted by dark magic. I did not fight it, though a piece of me knew I should have—a piece of myself bound in shackles of curiosity. The matron claimed the Shadows had plans for me, and I yearned to know—what dark devise was I to the creatures of blight?
The Shadows hearken, the Shadows conjoin. To meet their savior, the crown to anoint.
The frail summons came from within though echoed beyond.
A thousand hums evolved from the silence. The candles trembled, or perhaps they were merely joining in the crotchet. The stained glass illuminated, all threads of dire light drawing to a single point at the center of the cathedral. And, where the light met the ground, black flames ignited.
I halted.
The air became thick, my throat choking on suffering. I understood here—whatever curiosities I had, nothing was worth meddling with the dark magic of this place. The hums chased my back, curling around me, tossing my hair, and urging me to fall further—to bend towards the cathedral’s heart.
I did not move. I refused to move. But something heavier, darker, held me.
With a violent wrench, I was thrown forward by my chest. My knees struck the heart of the cathedral. I winced and groaned, reaching to cradle my knees, but I stopped. The black flames burned before me, carving an incantation of thorns and rings. The flames traced the stones around me, surrounding me.
The Shadow spoke again, though more unseen joined like a choir. The Shadows hearken, the Shadows conjoin. To meet their savior, the crown to anoint.
I held my ears to drown out their chant, but it sang from my soul that was plagued in black. A coldness poured from my ears and wetted my hands. I set my palm before my eyes—they were covered in ink. It was cold. Burning cold. The same dripped from my eyes and lips. I wiped the black off my trembling hands, and it smeared and stained my skin and gown.
This was the Shadow in full reign of the living.
I had seen such in my father before. As he spoke to us in the banquet hall, no soul could deny that the Shadow dwelled with him. And, at the matron’s touch, the Shadow drowned him with ink flowing from his eyes and mouth. And the king, he seemed glad for it, but—
I was unraveling.
Chosen by gods, it was as though my insides were torn in two. As though the Shadows were claiming their own stake in me, unspooling whatever good was left.
I was coming apart.
A thousand instincts screamed at me to run, but my limbs would not listen.
The Shadows’ hum swelled, near deafening.
On my knees, my spine locked, and my throat strangled.
“Release me!” I wrenched from my throat. Ink spattered from my mouth. My words turned into a bloodcurdling scream as my insides drowned in the waters like an obsidian flood. But my voice died. I was severed from my lungs.
Davina Torrance, the Shadows sang like a war cry. Torn down to Rhoswen Fallen. We raise, you rise. Our essence is your life.
I gasped for air.
The Shadow took my spine and pulled me down.
Bow to your fate, it said. Bow to the Shadows.
I fought with all I had, but the power I wielded was granted by dark powers in this place.
There was no escape.
The black flames ascended from the incantation, all drawing to a single point.
To me.
Possessed to the ground, the backs of my hands were pinned against the stones. Dark fire crawled up my arms, following the lines of black-blooded veins. It stung like claws scraping for life. The flames carved my skin, writhed my neck, and devoured my eyes. My sight was overcome.
Without air in me, cries never left my lips.
I had never seen black so bright, never seen the purest of darkness. Until now.
Blinded by the dark, held captive by magic, I fell beyond myself and was taken to wherever the Shadows led. My body began to melt away from senses, and I fell.
I fell for a long time, never meeting the ground, as though I was falling between worlds.
I believed I was to awake in Oldurem, to walk the endless sands for eternity.
Though when the dark flames released my eyes, I was surrounded by mist. My body uncoiled, and my toes floated over a stone wall. Torn from the cathedral, it now stood far in the distance—the highest spire piercing into the clouds.
I had been here before. The castle stones had crumbled. Darkness folded around me, and shadows were mangled in the dark. Suspended atop the Sariem walls, I was at the very place Deceit had taken me. To the aftermath of Shadows’ conquest over Andrael. The vision from the God of Sight.
Sariem nestled beneath the mist that lingered both like seas below and clouds above.
Do you want to see? The god had asked when we stood here together, gnarled fingers ready to swat away the mist. I was quick to refuse. I remember Deceit could not understand what lingered in the realm beyond the death of its people. That, as the Shadows were not of the gods’ creation, death was all Sight could foresee. A revelation of what could be, Deceit had said.
Only now, I did not stand beside the god. I dwelled within the hold of the Shadows—the things that created this dark, twisted reality.
We raise, you rise, the Shadow’s airy voice beckoned from all sides.
I was lifted further from the stones beneath me.
I knew these Shadows would not offer the same mercy as the God of Deception, would not spare me from the sight of death. Just as I was plunged into the altar of the cathedral, I was now plunged into the mist, dragged below. For a moment, all disappeared. And, as the city revealed to me, I wished to disappear.
Deceit had told me that day, Shadows stretched out their lethal arms, embracing those unwilling and snapping their throats like twigs.
And I saw it.
I saw the piles of twigs.
My stomach and heart curdled.
My feet touched the ground. I would have sealed my eyes, but my lids were locked open by Shadows. Step after step, possessed by darkness, I climbed the lost city of Sariem, forced to behold the remains.
Streets were littered with the fallen. The air tasted sour, similar to my god’s magic.
Death did not spare any, claiming men, women, and children alike.
Through the quiet, winds summoned the rustle of cloaks and cracking of limbs. What light remained draped Sariem in a sickly pallor, leeching color from stone and skin. Some appeared to have fallen to disease, their skin black in rot. Though perhaps that was merely the effect of time. Others lay with incisions or blades thrust through flesh.
I did not contemplate their deaths for long, as such did not seem to matter. They were dead all the same.
Guided through the aftermath, the Shadow stayed at my back. I could not see the Shadow, but its fingers reached through my skin and clung onto my spine, compelling me further towards the castle of my father. To the castle of the King of Shadows.
“My father did this?” The question fell from my lips.
It laughed. The Shadow laughed.
But I did not know why.
As the Shadow and I neared the castle, we walked past the tapestry of my father’s reign. Only, it had changed. Where my brothers’ roots unraveled from the stalk, they had been cleaved away. A tree without roots, once golden, now black, was sewn into a crimson tapestry, the burgundy gone. Leaves had been plucked, the tree appearing decrepit and lost to age.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Like harsh winds against a splitting window, clarity shattered me.
Why I was here, what the Shadow yearned to reveal—it made sense.
The matron prophesied of my entanglement with the Shadows. Sight had declared a new crown would rise. The royal crest before me was altered.
This was not the prophecy of Shadows’ conquest. This was my prophecy. My role in the ruin.
As though the dark magic cradled my understanding, the Shadow embraced me, wrapping me in its sinister touch.
We rise, you rise, it said once more, and the heaviness of its vow fell upon me.
The Shadow’s presence swaddled me, covering my arms and torso. It held me tight, as though it would never allow me to leave this place. As though I were to sit upon the throne in this moment and claim reign over these fallen lands. As though I would never hear the God of Deception, never feel him in the dark corners of my mind.
Abruptly, it shot me forward, the Shadow thrusting me from my place. In an instant, I was charged through the castle’s passageways and thrown before the throne. I fell to my knees. With all I was, I kept my head down, but I was not in my domain. This was the domain of the darkness that surmounted my will.
My spine cracked, my neck craning apart from my say, and I saw her.
The Queen of Shadows.
S-she was me.
She did not look at me, though I do not know what she could see beyond the black eyes set beneath her ebony crown. She sat in unnatural stillness. The only tell of life was the slow breaths rising from her chest.
Undying, black veins drew beneath her ashen skin. I hardly recognized her, and yet I knew her. I’d stared at her reflection for days, sculpting her, skewing her features with crinkled eyes, sunken cheeks, and stretched lips. But this, who was before me, I would never sculpt. This was not of the gods. This was a face crafted from the damned.
My eyes were drawn from my vile reflection and captivated by a necklace strung around her thin neck. An amulet. And, within the setting, a jewel of dark light emitted. The Amulet of Light. In this revelation, the Shadows had found the holy jewel and corrupted its purity. A relic destined to tear down the evil of this age was stolen for the darkness’s own value.
Yee who carries the amulet, controls the light, Constantine had claimed.
My eyes fell further, and a grotesque sensation clawed through my core.
Nausea filled me. Faintness spilled throughout my body.
In this queen’s hand, in my hand, dangled a trophy—a trophy I had prayed would fall from my fates. Arm relaxed along the throne’s rest, her hand stretched past the edge. Strands of hair were woven around each finger. From the hair, suspending in her hand, was a face I knew—
My father.
Eyes rolled back, mouth dragged open, the king’s head hung alone.
My brother’s thrones were gone.
Acid burned my tongue. I sat ready to retch, but the Shadow did not allow it. I was to watch in submissive obedience.
Wait. The Shadow broke the silence. Someone approaches.
No! Another cried through the vision. Her fate is not to be known. Not yet.
Tear her from this place.
A banshee scream quaked the castle, and the illusion shattered around me.
The unseen hands seized me, and I was thrown upward. Severed from the vision, my body flung backwards onto the cathedral floor, and I gasped for breath. A swift breeze snuffed out the incantation, and the black flames released my eyes.
“Rhoswen,” a feminine voice said. Her tone was gentle, though eerie, like a flat piano key.
“I thought I had seen you come to this place.” Black hair framed her slender face, and her gown swept the stones with each step.
The Matron of Shadows approached as I dined with her children.
The dark powers continued their hum.
Able to stand, I arose.
Constantine watched me carefully as she tread down the steps.
“What has happened?” She asked in a high pitch.
“What are you doing in this place?” Her eyes then looked at the trembling candles and the hidden ceiling, as though to glean comprehension through her surroundings. Once the matron stood before me at the cathedral’s heart, she immediately receded one, trembling step.
“Gods, your face,” she said, studying me. Her nose crinkled, and her upper lip lifted, as though disturbed. Though I’d expect her to be pleased at my sufferings.
“Your veins. Y-your eyes.”
“I came to see your children,” I said calmly, the Shadow’s hold still present.
“The Shadows?” Their mother said with tense brows.
“Did they… did they speak to you? What did they say?”
This is not our mother, the Shadow uttered, its wispy voice lurking within. An impostor is before you. Their true face is drowned beneath magic.
Ire seeded.
“Why have you come to me?” I asked.
“Shall we sit?” They gestured to a nearby pew.
“I’d prefer to stand.”
With shifting feet, they pivoted their weight and flicked their fingers against their palms. Restless. Uneasy. This was a reenactment of when a mask-wearer came to me in Vera’s veneer last night. As a woman sworn to the art of deception, I was underwhelmed with their depiction of Constantine. Her mannerisms were sloppy, her eyes were void of knowledge, and her voice was uneven.
“You and I have not a moment to speak freely, Rhoswen,” they said.
“My children are keenly interested in you, as I am sure you know.”
“Indeed.” A sly smile carved my face.
“They drew me to this place.”
Their chest rose in a flutter.
“Then you should know, as their mother, you must be honest with me.”
Enticed by the prodding, I asked.
“What is it you wish to know, Matron?”
They twisted a strand of black hair around her slender fingers.
“There is something about you. Something I am unable to understand.”
A key of amusement played with my tongue.
“I thought you saw through the eyes of your children. One of your children has marked me. I do not believe what I am can be hidden from them.”
“And what are you?” Something lustful was alit in their eyes. Lustful for my secrets.
“What does your child say I am?”
They paused.
“It does not.”
I nearly scoffed at their pitiful deception.
“Then, matron,” I stalked around them like a vulture.
“I suppose you are not to know. What I am, what acts I will, what intentions I bear, are not to be known to you.” They twisted their body towards me as I paced in a circle around them. Their eyes were agape.
“If the Shadows desired the truth to be known, they would impart their knowledge, would they not?”
“Children can be difficult,” they said unsteadily.
Kill them, the Shadow said. Take their breath from their lungs.
As the fraud before me lessened, I grew.
“You had come to me last night, had you not? Seeking answers as to who I am.” I screwed around their back, whispering over their shoulder.
“What I am?”
“I do not know what you speak of,” their voice croaked.
“Of course you don’t.” I was amused. The dark magic played within me, and this felt like a game.
“You did not wallow in the dark of the corridors last night, wearing red hair and seeking my trust?”
Taking another step backward, the mask wearer tucked their hand behind their back, their elbow piercing the air.
A chant broke into the cathedral, a thousand voices dripping from the ancient stones.
“Yee who masks in magic—they are a threat that must fall!” The Shadows cried.
The cathedral trembled.
Bloodred light draped over us from the windows, and the false matron revealed a blade. Like a presage of the blood to fall, the red light cast brilliantly against the steel.
“They seek to kill!” The Shadows shrieked.
A sharp breath cut down my throat.
Constantine’s face contorted into wickedness. Nostrils aflame, eyes burning, and mouth stretched thin, every intention was written on their brows. If it was not the truth I would impart, they would take my life.
The blade came down with deadly purpose, driving towards my heart.
I lunged to my side. The blade scraped down my flesh. A long slice left black blood pouring down my arm.
I lifted my hand, hissed, and ink rained over us. My bones twisted, warped by dark magic. I curled my fingers, swung my arm, and sent them groveling on the stone ground. The knife broke from their hand, and they held their face. Through their fingers, I caught a glimpse of four long cuts dripping blood down their cheek.
I looked at my hand. Red was beneath each nailbed.
This strength I possessed—it was not within Deception’s sway. I mourned somewhere deep within myself, knowing this power was not derived from the gods.
The impostor reached for the blade. I kicked the dagger away, steel chiming. Stabbing the sole of my foot into their hand, they cried.
“Who are you?” I yelled.
“What do you want with me?”
Their eyes found mine, wide in dread. Once more this day, I was the beast. I was the evil. In a realm of darkness, it was I who should be feared.
“You are nothing but a monster, and you will not take my future,” they said. He. His voice was changing.
“My destiny was vowed to me. It is owed to me!”
“You seek to take my life for your own? I do not even know who you are.” The cathedral spoke beside me as my voice echoed against the stones.
“You are a coward who hides beneath masks. Do you know where I stand?” My arms opened wide.
“I am in the House of Tenebrous, strengthened by the Shadows.” I twisted my heel, and their bones crunched. They cried. Hunching low, I leaned nearer to whisper, “You are nothing against the powers I wield.”
He, wearer of the Matron of Shadows, reached out for my face. I flung back, but he clenched my hair and yanked me down. My balance was thrown, and in a final attempt at life, they charged up the stairs.
Kill he who seeks your life. The Shadow was with me.
And I obeyed its command.