Chapter 63 Caspian #2
We could kill her together, son, a rumbling voice says in my mind. You want to protect these people? You need to end her. I will help you. It would be so easy.
“No!” I scream in my head and out loud. My sword cuts through the smoky remnants of Sira’s neck. In place of the Queen of the Below, you’d have a tyrant. There would be no surface realms, no Below. Only ash and flame.
And from that, a world remade, the voice answers.
“I won’t give in,” I whisper. The sword disappears from my hand. Instead, I reach for all the power gifted to me. The golden bracelet around my wrist warms. “Sira, I thought I needed your love to have a family. But I didn’t. I was able to make one all my own.”
With a roar, energy channels up from the earth and into my bones. Encircling me, giant, spiked thorns crack through the stone bridge.
There’s a sharp gasp, and I spin to see Sira, hanging limply, one of the thorns impaled through her shoulder. I turn, using my hand as a conduit to tease the thorn higher up, impaling more of her chest.
Her body flickers slightly into smoke but then rematerializes. She gives a pained sob.
She’s…she’s trapped. I caught her. My footsteps are heavy as I walk toward her. With slow, deliberate movements, I reach into her pocket and pry out the glowing vial. “I won’t let you hurt Winter.”
Then, my sword forms once more, this time made of shadow.
I will end Sira with her own magic.
Her eyes shine as she watches my approach. “P-please, Caspian,” she whimpers. “I prayed for you. Birthed you. Nursed you. Rocked you to sleep.”
I raise the sword. You also tortured me. Ruined my sister’s existence. Corrupted the natural order of the world. I should tell her these things, but the words are thick in my throat. Besides, she knows. She knows.
“Caspian,” she says, a tear falling down her face. “You are my son.”
“No. I’m just another one of your monsters.”
I arc the sword down—
My mother starts to sing.
Beneath the earth where shadows lie,
A child of night with star-lit eyes.
The words slither through the air, silken, soft. A whisper from the past, curling around my throat like a noose.
My blade halts mid-swing.
I don’t mean to stop. I don’t. But the song—it’s my song.
Though we dwell where the cold winds blow,
We’ll dream of a realm where the bright sun glows.
Sira continues singing, tears flowing down her beautiful face.
A sickly warmth blooms in my chest. Not love. It can’t be love. But something aching. Something primal, something older than my rage, older than my hate.
A memory crashes into me like a tidal wave.
My mother’s arms wrapped around me as she whispered this lullaby against my temple.
I had clung to her, small hands fisting her gown, too young to know what she was—what I was.
I had believed her. Believed that I was hers, that she would protect me, that we were not the monsters the realms feared.
Lies.
I tighten my grip on the hilt of my sword. I have to strike now.
To sunlit lands that shunned our name,
Return as king, with fire and flame.
The melody curls like ivy, threading through my ribs, tightening, tightening.
I see her as she was—not the monster impaled on my thorns but a woman in the dark, rocking me to sleep. My mother. My mother.
So rest, my child, in twilight’s keep,
In dreams of glory, in slumber deep.
The song is a weapon sharper than any blade, the rhythm imprinted into my being.
I swallow hard, shaking my head. “You can’t—” My voice cracks, and I hate that it does. “Stop singing.”
Every word she speaks, every move she makes is a trick. I know this. I know this. I force the sword down again, aiming for her heart—
For in the morn, with dawn’s first light,
You’ll rise to claim your ancient right.
My blade stills. I hesitate.
I should remember all the horrors she’s committed, all the ways she’s broken me. The pain, the suffering, the ruin. I should end her here, now.
But the smallest, weakest, most pathetic part of me still hears my mother’s voice and feels something. Pity? Love?
I don’t know.
And that is the cruelest thing of all.
In that split second, her face changes. The tears stop falling. Her lip curls into a snarl, and her eyes are devoid of that false affection. “You will fulfill your destiny, my love.”
Grasping hands of shadow shoot up from the ground, driving into me like mallets. I slide, smashing against one of my own spiked thorns. I cry out as the spike impales my back.
Before I can stand, the shadows tangle around me. They’re ice cold. Everywhere they touch sends shivers of fear billowing through my body. My heart begins to beat rabbit-fast.
I watch in horror as my mother shifts into smoke, then rematerializes, shrugging her injured shoulder. It’s true. I don’t have the power to stop her…
But I protected Winter. I clutch the glowing vial tighter, yet the glass is strangely cool, slick with a magic I know too well.
A magic that belongs to me. The flask fades from my hands in a puff of smoke, nothing but an illusion.
And there she is—my mother, holding the real vial over the mouth of the volcano.
Her smile is a blade sheathed in sweetness as she tips the bottle. The liquid slips out, thick as honey and dazzling as sunlight on Summer seas.
“No!” My cry tears through the air.
My briars erupt from the earth, lashing like living whips, shattering the glass container.
Sira screams, stumbling back as shards scatter, spilling the last of the liquid fire across the stone. It sizzles, burning like acid, then vanishes into the heat.
But not all of it. I lunge to the edge of the rocky bridge just as the first drops strike the lava.
The glowing liquid spreads across its surface, devoured by gurgling flame. The mountain gives a furious shake. Stone walls tremble, and my palms tear open on the jagged rock as I cling to keep from tumbling off. Chunks of stone crash into the molten depths, sending ripples through the glowing sea.
I drag in the steaming air. Faustrius can’t conjure his eruption with only half a vial.
At least… I hope not.
Rosalina’s cry echoes through the chamber, drawing my attention. I whip my head around to look. Faustrius sends Dayton sailing along the bridge with a body slam. With his sword, he cuts Rosalina’s briars at the root.
Quellos lets loose a massive blast from the palm of his metal gauntlet. It hits Keldarion square in the chest. He flies backward, then falls hard to the stone. Ice cages his ankles and wrists.
Ez’s whole body is splayed out, trying to protect Kairyn. Aquila readies her spear, aiming for his spine.
And Farron, where is Farron?
I crane my neck to see him, caught in another net.
Sira waltzes toward me. “You’re coming home, Caspian.”
No. No, no, no. I thought I could do this. I thought I could escape her. But the coward was right all along. I’m weak. I’m so weak. There is no force in all the Vale—
The breath catches in my throat. Icy heat gathers in the chamber like an electrical storm brewing. A force of magic. Not ancient magic, not a blessing, not even that of the Below.
A magic alien to this world.
One growing in such power, I fear it may split the volcano in two.
And it’s not coming from me.
“No, no, no,” I breathe. “Farron, stop!”
But it’s too late. Farron rises, the net falling from him in shreds, his entire body engulfed in green flame.