Chapter 6 Svenn #2
Mal moves with terrifying speed, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
His skeletal hand shoots toward my chest. I evade by inches, my Strigon reflexes barely enough.
His fist slams into the ground where I stood, splitting the frozen earth.
He advances relentlessly, using Rhianelle's body to attack me. I can't fight back and risk her life.
Each dodge brings me closer to the gates.
He's herding me toward the Hollow and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
Another strike comes and his hand plunges into my chest. The pain steals my breath.
Both his skeletal hands dig into my sternum, squeezing to peel my ribcage open.
Bones crack and splinter under the pressure.
He's taking me apart, pulling back layers of flesh and bone to see what's underneath.
"This is quite the collection. So many pieces," the child on his shoulder leans forward, fascinated. "Look, Mal. There's hellspawn here, something from the fae courts. Oh, and a wolf. That's unusual. Is that a fragment of—"
"Yes… a strange puzzle box made of nightmares." Mal sounds amused. "What is he, Blight?"
"Something unsuitable," the child answers. "Our girl needs a proper mate. Someone whole. Not this fractured thing stitched together from curses and beasts."
I feel him tugging at the threads that hold me together. One more yank and I'll come apart completely, scattered into all the components bound by the Rhunhraefn.
I catch the movement from the corner of my eye. Part of Lilith's remaining soul tears free from the Hollow's grip. It comes screaming past us like a banshee wind. She's nothing but shadow and fury now, her form reduced to a shrieking wraith.
Blight swears viciously. The stream of profanity sounds wrong coming from a six-year-old. Mal's attention splits as well. His grip loosens fractionally as he tracks Lilith's escape with his eyes.
That's my chance.
It's insane but I'm out of options.
If he wants to examine my collection of monsters, he can meet them all.
I reach deep inside myself, into the cavern where I keep everything caged. The Noble Wolf in his den, Coinneach in his shadow realm, Wendy in the frozen wastes, the seven demons in their salt circles. Every hungry, broken, dangerous thing that I've been bound to over the millennia.
I open every single cage.
"What are you—" Mal starts, then his eyes widen in genuine surprise. "No."
They pour out through the connection he created, a flood of darkness flowing back along the path his hand opened. Every demon, every shadow, every hungry thing I've ever consumed or bargained with. They surge into him, seeking new territory to claim.
He staggers.
Blight shrieks, nearly falling from his shoulder.
"Clever." Mal's voice carries dark amusement. "But this is nothing to a god."
"Perhaps not," I say through gritted teeth. "But your mortal shell won't last. Rhianelle's body will tear apart first."
"I knew you were unsuited for her!" Blight hisses. "You're going to destroy her."
I meet her eyes. "Perhaps you were right all along. I am a monster."
It's a bluff. I'm already pulling my beasts back, commanding them to return to their cages.
But the gods cannot know that. They can't tell if this is a real attack or a distraction. All they see is the wendigo trying to reshape Rhianelle's bones and the hellspawn attempting to claim her soul.
"Release me!" Mal roars.
"Leave her body first," I counter, slowly pulling my monsters back one by one.
"You insufferable—"
The child on his shoulder makes a decision. She leaps off, landing in the snow gracefully. The innocent facade cracks, revealing something vast and ancient beneath. "Enough."
The word reverberates through the air.
Everything stops.
Mal withdraws his hand from my chest. The connection severs and I collapse forward into the snow, gasping. Every piece of my fractured soul feels raw and exposed.
But I'm still in one piece.
Mal does not look at me again. He lifts Rhianelle's hand once more.
The gates begin to sink.
Iron bars groan as they descend, bone and thorn folding inward.
The screaming faces pressed between them are dragged down with it.
Their silent agony disappears into earth and shadow.
Firelight fades beneath the narrowing seam of stone.
The curse bearers who found their freedom have already vanished, scattered like dandelion seeds on the wind.
Only scorched ground remains where the fissure gaped open.
Snow rushes in to cover the scar. The clearing is whole again, as if damnation had never opened its jaws.
Lilac eyes meet mine as the child begins to fade. She regards me one last time. "This isn't over, vampire."
Her silver hair catches the predawn light one last time before she dissolves completely.
Rhianelle collapses.
I catch her before she hits the ground. We both sink into the snow together, her weight familiar against my chest.
She's breathing. Her skin burns feverish from hosting a god. I wrap my cold body around hers, trying to draw the heat away.
"Svenn?" Her voice is raw, scraped nearly to nothing as if she's been screaming. Maybe she has, somewhere deep inside while the Keeper controlled her body.
"I'm here." I cradle her closer, pressing my lips to her silver hair. "I've got you. You're safe."
Her trembling hand comes up to touch my face. "The Rhunhraefn is gone, Svenn. You're free."
She traces my jaw with careful wonder.
“But you're still here," she whispers.
The words are soft, barely audible over the wind through the trees. But the weight behind them is enormous. I hear what she's really asking, the fear that's been eating at her since she decided to break the curse.
"Where would I go?" I ask her. "There is nowhere else I would rather be."
Her eyes fill with tears. They spill over, tracking down her cheeks. I brush them away with my thumbs.
"I was so afraid," she admits, her voice breaking. "A small part of me thought you only stayed because you were bound. Because the curse gave you no choice. When it broke, I was afraid you'd just... disappear."
The fear in her voice breaks something in my chest. How could she think that? How could she not know?
"Leave?" I lean down, pressing my forehead to hers. Our breath mingles in the cold air between us.
"I'm here because I choose to be." I pull back enough to meet her eyes. "If you'll have me. If you'll accept a broken, rotten thing that's tasted Hell—"
She kisses me.
It's desperate and fierce. Her hands fist in my hair as she pulls me down to her. I taste salt from her tears and feel her body still burning with fever-heat against mine. I kiss her back like she's the only real thing in this world.
We break apart gasping and she sits up in my arms. Snow clings to her hair and her eyelashes. She looks half-frozen and completely divine. I've never seen anything more beautiful.
Something steadies in her gaze. The weariness burns away, replaced by resolve.
"I can make you human now,” she says.
For a moment, I think I misheard her.
Not only did Rhianelle break the curse and destroy the Rhunhraefn, she found a way to restore my mortality. The one thing I've desperately sought for three thousand years.
"I found the way from an old grimoire," she continues. "The spell, the ritual, everything you need. It's what you asked for when we made the Arawynn bond."
My gaze drops to the mark on my wrist.
The sigil of Arawynn.
Kill the Fae King.
In return, she would make me human.
For centuries, the thought of true death had been my only comfort. The idea that someday my existence might simply end. I would finally find peace after endless nights of blood and shadow, a final, peaceful rest. The hope of oblivion sustained me through the darkest hours of my cursed life.
But looking into Rhianelle's eyes, I find something better than the death I'd craved.
I find a reason to live.
"Yes, it was the only thing I wanted," I admit quietly. "But that was before."
Her brow furrows. "Before what?"
"You." I cup her face in my hands, feeling how fragile she is. "I spent three thousand years chasing true death, wanting to end this existence. But then you happened. Now I want every moment I can steal with you."
Her breath catches. "But you've sought mortality for so long. You could have a real life. You could—"
"I have a real life. With you."
"Svenn—"
"Elves are long-lived," I interrupt gently. "If I become human, I'll have perhaps sixty or seventy years if I'm lucky. Sixty years against your centuries is a heartbeat. A blink."
I see the relief in her eyes, quickly hidden but unmistakable. She doesn't want to lose me to time's inevitable march either.
"And there's the war," I continue, voicing what we both know. "The fae king won't stop. He'll come for you and your people. As a human, I'd be useless to you. I'd be another fragile thing you'd have to shield."
"You're not a weapon," she protests.
"No," I agree. "But the power I have, the strength of the Strigon, the centuries of experience—you may need all of it. It wouldn't be wise to abandon that when battle approaches."
"So you'll stay?" Her voice breaks on the question. "Even though I could free you from this existence? Even though you could finally have the rest you've sought for so long?"
"There's nothing to free me from anymore." I pull her close, wrapping my arms around her as snow continues to fall around us. "You already broke my chains. What's left is what I choose, and I choose you. For as long as you'll have me."
"Forever, then." She buries her face in my neck. "I'll have you forever."
"Forever," I agree, and seal the promise with a kiss. Every time her lips touch mine, I can barely breathe past the perfection of her.
The predawn darkness gives way to the soft pink of sunrise. We sit there in the snow for a long time, holding each other as the world slowly lightens around us.
My forever is however long hers lasts. I'll walk beside her through centuries, through winters and springs, through all the years she has left.
But someday, when she grows weary of this world and is ready to lay down the weight of existence and step beyond the veil, I won't let her go alone.
When that day comes, I'll remind her of the grimoire, the spell she found to make me human.
I'll ask her to grant me mortality then—not to escape this life, but to follow her into the next.
For three thousand years, I walked in eternal night. Now at last, I see the light.