Chapter 66
Sixty-Six
Bloodstone
Moros watches me closely, a hungry gleam swirling in his eyes as Adrian demands he open the door behind me.
“Whatever you’re doing out there, it’s time you got to the library,” I urge Graylen through our bond.
Silence follows, just as before.
Moros grins, and I shift on my feet.
“Now that we’re here, I believe we can be a little more open with each other.” He chuckles, the sound grating against my ears. “Don’t you think, Lunaria?”
I swallow.
Of course he’s known this whole time.
Moros folds his hands behind him and adds, “It’s a shame your sister and mother couldn’t join us.
I’d love to see them.” He pauses, delight sparking in his gaze.
“I heard your time in Penyth was productive—so much to learn in such little time. I’m sorry your trial didn’t go as planned.
Though your magic is coming along just fine regardless. ”
Opal makes a strangled noise behind me, but says nothing.
My heart pounds in my chest as his smile grows bigger. This changes my approach to him—he knows exactly who I am, knows I know who I am. Of course he knew about the trial, but I’d bet my life that he knows far more than that.
I clench my teeth together and meet his gaze as I say, “It’s coming along well enough.”
My fire stirs, and without hesitation, I yank on it. It rises to the surface, roaring to life in my palms and winding around my arms. My magic still doesn’t feel full—not even close to it—but it’s enough to hope that Moros believes me.
His eyes widen, the only indication that he might be surprised. “There she is,” he says. “Vidaris has been waiting on you to be ready.”
My nostrils flare. “Then she’s going to be waiting a long time,” I snap.
“Not as long as you think.” He grins again.
Opal grabs my hand, gripping it tightly. “Leave her alone,” she spits at him.
His attention turns to her, his slimy gaze quietly assessing her. “Come, Opal, this is no place for you,” he sneers.
The shard burns against my chest, heating up as my magic flares closer to where it’s stored.
Moros takes a step forward, his arm outstretched as he sends a rush of strange-looking shadows toward my closest friend. I try to call on my magic, but it wavers without answering my call.
It’s too weak to stop him.
A tendril flies past me, and from the corner of my eye, I watch as it wraps around Opal’s throat. She screams, the sound cut off abruptly as it tightens.
I try calling on my magic again, focusing as I frantically pull on it.
It still doesn’t answer.
Moros drags Opal toward him by her throat, the tops of her feet scraping against the floor, her face turning purple and her eyes reddening, unable to get air.
With my magic waning, there’s only one thing left to do.
I yank out the dagger, twirling it in my hand and lifting it in his direction.
“Do not touch her.” My voice drops to a low and deadly hum.
His pull on Opal pauses. His eyes widen, but instead of fear there, I find interest. He looks to Opal, a brow raised. “You gave this to her?”
She sputters, trying to answer but unable.
“That wasn’t yours to give away,” Moros says. He clicks his tongue. His gaze moves back to me, briefly falling to the dagger. “I’ve been struck by this before.” He grins. “Do your worst, girl.”
I smirk, rage fueling me. I just need a little distraction before I do far worse than he can imagine.
Adrian is still ramming against the door, trying to get it open. I wait for the beat of silence that indicates he’s moving back, preparing to charge.
The moment I hear his shoulder connect, I release my shadows—far weaker than my flame—and barrel them toward the handle. They wrap around it, snapping in place and yanking the door open.
Adrian bursts through, stumbling forward and falling into Moros’s back. They both tumble to the ground, and I don’t waste a second. Opal coughs from beside me as Moros’s hold on her finally loosens.
With quick fingers, I snatch the shard out of my vest. It heats up in my hand, already warm through the cloth.
Moros and Adrian struggle on the ground, Adrian shoving him down with surprising force. Neither seems to notice what I’m about to do.
I hastily unwrap the shard and let it fall into my palm. It sears into my skin, the faint scent of burning flesh filling my nose. My eyes water from the pain, but I hold it tightly.
Nightfall rests in my right hand, inches away from the jagged shape in my left.
I swallow. The two pieces hum in my palm as if they can feel their nearness to each other.
Shadows erupt in front of me, sent out in all directions—Moros using his magic to get Adrian off of him. Moros jumps to his feet, his rage set on Adrian.
I have to do this. Now.
The dagger buzzes in recognition as the magic swirls in the room, burning hotter in my grasp.
Moros’s magic pushes Adrian against the wall. Moros sneers at Adrian with a growl. “You little—”
But I don’t hear the rest.
I shove the shard into the side of the blade, pushing them together to reunite them.
Something shifts in the room—a cool breeze that slices through Moros’s rambling.
He spins around, blinking at me and the blade in my hand.
But nothing happens.
No burst of magic or flaring heat from Nightfall.
In fact, the warmth coming from it instantly cools—the feel of it now icy in my right palm. It looks like a normal dagger, nothing special about it. Maybe I used all of its power when I harnessed the shard, or maybe I’m not the one who can wield it.
My heart sinks. The warning was fake. It isn’t going to replenish my magic, and the blade isn’t going to help us.
Moros grins.
“Another unworthy of wielding the blade.” He laughs, Adrian going still behind him as he watches us. “Maybe Vidaris was wrong about you, after all.”
Confusion roils inside of me.
Moros takes a step forward, and I’m taken back to a time when Reichardt told me I wasn’t enough.
I was young—no older than ten—and I tried for an entire summer to be able to hold up a real sword, not just one of the wooden practice ones. The sword was nearly as long as me at the time, and almost as heavy.
I could almost hold it up with two arms, but never got close with just one.
What I didn’t know was that Reichardt was watching me. I thought I was hiding behind our cabin—a place no soldier lurked near because of who Reichardt was—but I was wrong.
The whole time, Reichardt watched. He watched me fail day in and day out to swing the sword one-handed. At the end of the summer, just as the cool breeze of fall began to set in, he walked into my room.
He dropped a dull blade at the base of my bed, jolting me out of a deep sleep.
With a frown, he had said, “A son would’ve been able to swing that by the second or third week of training at your age.”
Then he left.
It wasn’t the first time I had felt less-than—wasn’t the last, either. And as this dagger rests like a blade of ice in my palm, the same feeling washes over me.
Moros smirks, just a step or two away from me now.
Adrian jumps toward him, but the shadows lash out and shove him back against the wall. Opal screams behind me, begging Moros to let us go.
“Such a disappointment,” Moros calls out tauntingly.
Memories swirl around me: the number of times Reichardt called me a disappointment to him. All of those days in Penyth I failed to call on my magic. When Eurydice didn’t bless me the first time.
Then again when I lost Graylen, when it was I who let him slip through my fingers and be trapped in the Vale with the Goddess of Vengeance.
Blood rushes in my ears, silencing the protests from Adrian, the cries from Opal, and the sneering comments from Moros.
Graylen isn’t here to jump in and fight with me, and Soren is wherever he is. Leda is doing goddess knows what, while Zephyr is just as stuck in Penyth.
No one is coming to save me, not this time.
A flicker sparks in my palm, the slightest tingle of warmth permeating from the hilt of Nightfall.
I still have me.
I am not a disappointment.
I am not a failure.
I am Lunaria goddess-damned Manor, just as I’m Amira Ramsey. I’ve always been one or the other, but I realize now that they’re both two parts of a whole. Halves of me that I can’t abandon. I need each of them to make me who I am now. In this moment.
More warmth begins to spread throughout the hilt of Nightfall, heat wrapping around it and causing my palm to sweat.
It sings for me, teasing against the walls of my Essence and looking for a way in. It’s not that it isn’t working for me—it’s that I have to let it in. Let it take.
I don’t want to lose my magic—don’t want to be just Amira again.
But if I want to kill Moros, I have to let it go. Have to give the blade the hunger it searches for. It isn’t going to save me; it’s going to take from me.
And I have to let it.
Using the shard, allowing it to almost drain my magic, was just a taste of what it craves. This dagger—using it in its entirety—is going to require more than just draining my magic to the last dregs.
It wants it all.
And for Penyth—even for Crea—for those who sacrificed themselves in the trials, and those living on Kauri, for my friends and those who gave themselves for the good of the empire, I would do it.
“You don’t know me,” I snarl, twirling the blade in my hand. “You met me as Amira, but I’m Lunaria, too. Daughter of Evelina, Queen of Penyth. Rider of Zephyr. Daughter of two worlds. Goddess-forged.”
I take a step toward him, closing the gap between us. His shadows swirl around him, snakes preparing to strike.
“The blade won’t help you, no matter who you are,” he sneers. “Opal is at least smart enough to be afraid of what I’m capable of—of whose power I harness.”
In an instant, Moros’s shadows lash out at me, vying for Nightfall as they strike.
My own shadows meet his, clashing in a tangle of darkness.
Opal falls away from me, blown back by the impact. The shadows around Adrian fall away, but the moment they slide off of him, he’s blasted back too. His head cracks against the wall, causing him to slump against the ground, unconscious.
“It isn’t me that should be afraid.” This time, it’s my turn to smirk. “It’s you.”
Moros’s shadows are held off by mine, but they’re getting closer to my hands with each passing second.
Nightfall hums in my grasp, wildly thrashing against my mind, demanding to be let in as it reacts to my magic pouring out of me.
Finally, I stop resisting.
I gasp as ancient magic rushes through me like a tidal wave. It’s like a roaring fire that consumes everything in its path. My magic grows stronger, fire bursting from my hands at the same time shadows do, both of them winding together in a beautiful dance of darkness and light.
It’s working, exactly as the warning predicted.
But then something changes.
Nightfall keeps consuming, and my magic stutters around me, my fire flickering like it did when I used it the first time.
It’s draining it. Just as the shard began to drain the magic I presented it, the dagger does too. Only it’s faster—more ruthless.
The connection to my Undine side goes first, quickly followed by my Aegis and Woodland pieces. So fast that I don’t have time to blink, let alone try to stop it. It’s a virus that leaves nothing but destruction in its wake, devouring my Essence like it’s its final meal.
My shadows begin to wane as it finally strikes my Nocturna side. Just as my shadows begin to drain, I slam the barrier down between my magic and Nightfall.
Now, only the wisps of shadows remain, quiet—not gone, just…hiding. Curled up against my soul as if sensing that they’re alone now. What’s left of my magic dulls to a whisper, leaving me with an empty ache deep in my chest.
But the dagger keeps pulling, snapping the threads that bind my Nocturna side to me in a sharp, soul-shattering cleave. There’s an emptiness in my soul where the fire used to be—same as my connection to the ocean and earth.
Moros grins, thinking he’s simply stronger than me.
With a heartbreaking finality, I feel the last of my magic give over to the dagger in my palm. Just as quiet as when the shard took it, but this time feels final. Painfully and horribly final.
That’s when I know.
The price of using the shard was giving it pieces of my magic.
Whoever sent that warning about needing to make Nightfall whole was right; it did give me my magic back. But not to keep.
So I could pay the price it needed in order for me to wield it.
In the same breath the realization hits, Moros’s shadows race for me.
Behind him, I hadn’t noticed Adrian move—hadn’t heard him wake from the floor or move behind Moros. Just as Moros’s shadows wrap around me, Adrian snaps the collar around his uncle’s neck.
Moros’s magic dissipates instantly.
The last human king, the kindle that ignited the rebellion in the first war, stumbles away from me. He claws at his neck, yanking at the magic suppressor he once gave to Adrian to use on me.
I glance down at the knife as Nyx’s words float into my mind: “Blood of the gods.”
The knife calls out to me, begging for one final sacrifice, as if it hasn’t already taken almost every piece of my soul.
Blood.
I swipe the blade across my palm, my body numb to the pain as the unsettling feeling of my magic missing fills it.
The blood doesn’t trickle off the edge; instead, it moves. The sticky substance wraps around it like a winding vine, twisting around it and melding into the bone-white blade until it’s stained maroon.
“Now, Lu!” Opal screams behind me, likely so confused that she doesn’t understand what’s happening, but enough to push me into motion.
I hold up the dagger, the silver glint of it reflecting off of the moonlight streaming in from the library. It surges in my hands, a bolt of power jolting through it as my magic brings it to life.
It’s as if it’s fueled by night itself, a blade to wield the moonlight. To harness the very core of pure Essence.
Moros stares back at me, his eyes hard. But he can’t stop the flash of fear that flickers through his gaze.
He spins around, heading for the door, which Adrian instantly blocks. And with the collar suppressing his magic, he’s just an old human man who’s half the size of Adrian.
“You’ll never be able to stop her,” Moros hisses, turning back around to face me. “Vidaris is a goddess. Who are you to defeat that?”
I flex my fingers around the hilt of Nightfall, my Essence intertwined with it. I lift it higher. The blade grazes my cheek as I whisper in a quiet rage, “She may be the Goddess of Vengeance, but I’m the one that’s sending you to the pits of the Vale. Have fun being tortured for eternity.”
And before Moros can breathe another breath, I drive Nightfall through his heart.