83. Vera
Vera
The entire world froze for a split second, everything glowing in vivid frames before me.
The threads of magic tying me to the High Elders and Mortep stopped.
I was left an empty shell, with only silence where my magic had once been.
The three Elders looked at me with wide eyes, hair and robes floating around them.
Rocks tumbled from the ceiling. Mortep stumbled backward, breaking his connection to me.
His lips were parted, his black hair wild and frayed as he ran.
At the foot of the platform swayed a shadow wraith that hadn’t been there before.
Then time sped back up. Sound engulfed me—the quaking of the earth, rocks clattering, fire raging from the torches. But the Elders didn’t move.
Thunder rumbled through the chamber, low and steady at first, then loud enough to vibrate my teeth. The air was sucked from the room, pausing everything in absolute stillness, until—
Magic and light detonated through the cave. It shattered back into me in a wave of power. My arms flew back, my head snapped toward the ceiling, and those threads of magical light erupted from the High Elders’ chests, connecting to mine.
Except this time, my magic wasn’t funneling into them.
They all cried out in alarm as power rushed from them and into the amulet around my neck. The golden light shone brighter and brighter, a blinding, cataclysmic energy soaring through my body.
I didn’t understand. The Fates had taken away my magic. But now…
It was returning.
I gasped as that well inside my chest, the one the Fates had sucked dry, drowned in power. Shadows, light, illusions, Alchemy, striding, fire. My phoenix roared to life, and familiar wings shot from my back with fiery fervor.
Around me, the High Elders convulsed. Smoke rose from their flesh, as if they were burning from the inside out. Flakes of skin landed at their feet.
“What is the meaning of this?” Julius croaked. His gold eyes were frantic as he watched the thread of life pour from his chest.
“Please, Vera!” Maeve begged. Clumps of her auburn hair singed and fell out. “You can stop this!”
“How many of your people pleaded with you?” I boomed. I stood on the altar, wings spread wide behind me. “How many did you watch burn as you took their life?”
“Never again,” Arcadia rasped. “We will never harm another again. Let us leave with our lives, Lightbringer.”
“Tell me why you did it,” I urged. “Tell me why you slaughtered all those innocent people!”
“The Fates cursed us,” Arcadia panted. “You don’t know what it’s like, being trapped here for centuries. Pyraeth begged for freedom that would never come.” His cheeks sunk, and the color slowly faded from his face. He looked as gaunt as a corpse with the shadows of my fire wavering over him.
“We gave those people a purpose beyond death,” Julius wailed. “We lived so we could keep finding a way to save them all.”
“Is that what you’ve told yourself this whole time?” I spat. “It’s because of you that there’s almost no one left to save.”
“We beg of you!” Arcadia cried. Ash sprinkled his skin from the flames coming from inside of himself. “Have mercy!”
“You can beg all you want.” I flexed my wings. “But the Fates aren’t listening, and neither am I.”
Their final dregs of magic pulsed into the amulet, into me, and the light flared as bright as the sun.
With shouts of anguish, the threads snapped away from the Elders.
They crumpled to the ground, nothing but scorched flesh and husks of their own making.
My phoenix fire leapt to their bodies, devouring what was left.
I collapsed into the altar and gasped for breath. Ancient power hummed beneath my skin. The Fates…they had given it back. All of it. But now, the power felt different.
In my prison, it was suppressed. In Scarven’s hold, it was weaponized. Even in my freedom, it was an anomaly.
Now, it was simply mine.
Tears of disbelief stung the backs of my eyes. Beneath the release was an undercurrent of heartache, a moment of remembrance for all the years I spent hating this part of myself, all the energy I poured into wishing I was different.
I pressed my hand to my sternum and felt all six humming against my palm. Shadows and light and fire, moving through me like water after a long drought. Wild and hopeful and free.
My magic spiked as another figure burst into my line of sight. Mortep, who had disappeared before the magic could consume him too, now rushed the platform. He yanked the amulets off Maeve and Arcadia’s burnt bodies.
“Once again,” he hissed, “I must do everything myself.”
He slammed the two amulets together. But before they connected, an otherworldly shriek filled the air. Shadows descended on Mortep, wrapping around his wrists and forcing them apart. Mortep hissed a spell that shot a wave of magic at the shadow wraith, sending it sailing backward.
“No!” I gasped, unsure why I was suddenly scared for this wraith. It looked like the ones that had ambushed us at the crypt. But why was it here? And why had it helped me?
Mortep’s magic didn’t keep it down for long. The wraith surged again, reaching for the Alchemist with its finger-like shadows. It latched onto his shoulder, and Mortep went rigid, unable to move.
The wraith slowly turned its head to me. It had no face, just a pit of blackness, but small pinpricks of light rested where eyes should’ve been. And…I could’ve sworn something familiar gleamed back.
My breath caught in my throat, not daring to believe it.
The ground quaked as a mighty roar rumbled from deep in the earth. The altar cracked in half, sending me tumbling to the floor. The wraith released Mortep and flew toward me. Cold, smoky fingers pressed into my chin to lift me, making the hair on the back of my neck rise.
But its touch didn’t bring the same wave of darkness it had that day at the crypt. This wraith was gentle as its shadows guided me back to my feet. I stood, frozen in place, with the faintest of shadows caressing my cheek.
“Swift?” I breathed out.
Magic blasted at us, and the wraith careened through the air. I whirled to face Mortep, who had regained his mobility.
“You’ve already lost, Mortep!” I shouted, distracting him from attacking the wraith again. “There’s nothing left to hide behind! No Scarven, no High Elders, none of your precious puppets.”
He scoffed. “Them? They were all blind.” He tilted his head.
“Scarven wanted power for power’s sake. He was short-sighted, in the end.
Why rule an empire when you can claim something greater?
” He waved a hand at the ashes of the Elders behind him.
“They were wiser, but they were driven by envy. Desperation.”
“And you?” I snapped. “What are you driven by? What could possibly be worth everything you put me through?”
“Answers,” he hissed. “Knowledge is power, little bird. Don’t you see?
It’s not enough to simply have it if you don’t understand it.
What good is it if you cannot replicate it, mold it, create infinite from the finite?
And you,” he chuckled darkly, “you are infinite. You have always been the answer.”
“I wasn’t even a human to you, was I?” I cried. “I was nothing but an object.”
“Ah, but you were mine.” His lips split into a manic grin.
“Anyone else paled in comparison. Scarven wanted you for his little missions, but he always handed you back to me. After you sated his desire for bloodshed, you were mine. My perfect answer to the magic in our veins. My solution to life beyond death. Once again, you have delivered it to me, little bird.” His gaze fell to the amulet around my neck, and his eyes gleamed.
My flames blazed higher around us, causing sweat to bead at his temples.
I expected to feel rage coursing through me.
I expected the familiar crave of retribution.
And it was there, yes, as sure as the blood pumping to my heart.
But it wasn’t just my own. It was the pain of all who had been unjustly sacrificed, the fury of innocents who had been in my place, who had suffered at the hands of those who only saw power when they should have seen a person.
My vengeance had been a brand for as long as I could remember, just like the number on my arm.
It was proof of his possession of me, even after I’d escaped the chains.
Every moment I spent dwelling on his demise was another moment of my life he stole.
But I would never let someone like him take a piece of me—a piece of anyone—ever again.
Mortep raised his two amulets in the air, and they shot a bright beam of light at me. It merely collided with the amulet hanging from my neck, and I batted the spell away with ease. Resolve burned through me, chasing any fear.
“Phyxie!” he cried. With barely a thought, I raised a shield charm.
I prowled closer, and a dark smile pulled my lips.
He scrambled back, stumbling off the platform.
Lifting an arm, he muttered another spell, and vines appeared at my feet.
They slithered up my body like snakes, rooting me to the ground.
I set the vines on fire with a wave of my hand, and they fell to the floor in charred clumps.
“No matter how strong you are, don’t forget, little bird,” he panted, “I always know how to cage you.”
“You’re right,” I said simply. “You took my freedom. My choices. My safety in my own skin.” I stepped closer, shadows rising with my flames.
“You chained my magic and broke my mind, and you called it progress. But I was never yours to take.” Before he could blink, shadows whipped from me and shoved down his throat. He choked and thrashed against my hold.
“I’m not afraid of you anymore.” I took one more step. “You don’t get my power. You don’t get my silence. You get nothing.”
Flames blossomed at my words, licking both of our heels. His eyes flashed. For the first time in all the years I’d known his face, I saw true fear. He tried to summon his magic, but my shadows blocked him, the way I’d been stifled so many times beneath his needles.
He looked at the amulet swinging against my chest, and I saw the moment he made the decision. He lunged for the final amulet. His fingers closed around the chain, and for one moment, the Sacred Three were in his grasp.
The power surged instantly, wild and hungry, flooding from the metal and into his hands. His eyes went wide—not in triumph, but in realization. This magic wasn’t meant for him. It would never answer to someone like him, who took and took with nothing to give.
My phoenix flames trapped him as the magical light glowed beneath his skin.
It spread from his hands up his arms, branching and splitting until it consumed his veins and he was nothing but pale flesh and rivulets of white light.
His mouth opened with an ear-splitting scream, amulets still clutched in his fingers.
His body began to smoke at the edges from the force of it.
“You wanted the answer to my magic so badly.” I leaned in, my voice a growl as I met his horrified stare. “I hope it’s everything you imagined.”
The magic ignited his body in a brilliant white light.
Another scream rang through the chamber as the power swelled brighter, hotter, higher, until I had to shield my eyes.
When I finally looked back, a white haze filled the entire cavern, swallowing him whole.
On its surface, I saw the reflection of my wings.
Gold against white. His ending to my beginning.
When the light retreated, there was nothing left of him at all. The three amulets clattered to the ground, and I bent to retrieve them, still warm and buzzing with energy.
It was over.
I stood there, waiting to feel something definitive. Something like relief or triumph, or perhaps my volcanic rage finally being spent. Something that matched the weight of seven years.
But there was only silence. Quiet washed over me, blanketing the crackle of flames and echoes of his cries—cries of his own doing, his own desperation, his own pride. This was the silence of something finished.
The silence that meant I had survived him.
Shadows flickered in the corner of my eye. Banishing my wings, I turned to find the shadow wraith still against the wall, struggling to float. I rushed to it and sank to my knees. “You protected me,” I murmured. “Are you hurt?”
It didn’t respond. But shadows in the shape of long, thin fingers slowly rose. Swallowing hard, I mirrored it, pressing my palm to the cold cloud of smoke.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” My breath caught in my throat. “You’re still inside there.”
Shadows lapped at my knees, and my chest squeezed. If this truly was Everett, if he had survived the water and succumbed to the infection, I had to get him back. I had to fix this.
I had to raise the kingdom.
Looking down at the Sacred Three in my possession, the memory of the original demithes’ scroll flickered to life.
When the amulets are made one,
the power of the Fates shall answer once more,
and Pyraeth shall rise from death into dawn.
I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the phoenix amulet, remembering the first time I saw it. Maybe I truly had been destined for this. Every moment, every decision, had led me here.
I stacked the three amulets on top of each other. Closing my eyes, I funneled phoenix fire into my hands. The metal became soft and malleable in my grip. With an inhale, I slammed my hands together, forging the three into one.
For a heartbeat, everything went deathly silent.
And then a powerful shockwave erupted from the amulets in a ring of golden light, flooding the cave and disappearing into the walls. I flew backward and hit the wall behind me.
A resounding crack split the air, and the earth began to shake.