Chapter Fifty-Five
FIFTY-FIVE
My feet stumble as a gust of wind snaps at them, intent on latching its invisible tendrils around my ankles. I can hear Achātēs behind me, the quick succession of his footsteps thumping through the tunnel, matching the pace of my heart beating in my chest.
‘Where do you possibly think that you can run to? There is nowhere you can hide; all of this belongs to me!’
A whistle slices the air behind me. A breath later I feel hot, sharp pain stabbing into my shoulder blade. A gasp is ripped out of me as my body jerks forward. I dare to look and find the hilt of the dagger I threw his way protruding out my back, rocking with each frantic stride.
Fuck!
I don’t stop to pull it out; I just keep running.
My breathing turns shallow as the blade saws against my flesh, sending white-hot pain shooting through me.
Warm blood spills beneath my robe, trickling down my back through the dress I’m wearing underneath.
The tunnel ahead narrows to one final passage, the one that will take me to the stairs that lead to the main entrance of the Agate tower.
I’m so desperately close, my heart pumping at a panicked pace.
I slow my steps just enough to claw behind me, fingers searching for the hilt. When they finally close around it, I yank it free from my flesh. The cry that erupts from my chest is loud and guttural. A wet gush of blood streams out of the open wound.
Out of the corner of my eye I see his shadow climb the walls of the tunnel seconds before his body emerges.
I spin and hurl the dagger toward him, crying out when my shoulder throbs in pain.
It arcs wide, the scraping of metal against stone telling me I missed completely.
I bolt. My legs burn, my shoulder screams in agony and my eyes start to blur as I feel that constant stream of blood leaving my body.
But the stairs are just ahead. Just thirty more feet. I’m so close. I count them like a prayer as I near.
Twenty feet.
Ten.
Five.
Two.
I launch myself forward. My boots squeak on the third step, my free hand catching myself on the sixth.
I start to bear crawl up the stairs, clawing at the stone like an animal until the heavy fabric of my robe gets caught beneath my feet, causing me to slip.
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes as frustration mixes with panic.
I push myself up, desperate to keep going but then it happens – a force so brutal it steals the breath from my lungs as it slams violently into my back.
My body pitches forward, colliding with the stone.
My dagger clatters loudly as it drops from my hands.
Blood fills my mouth when my chin slams down against one of the steps and my tongue gets caught beneath my teeth.
Stars burst across my vision. Before I have a chance to recover, I feel his hand clamp around my ankle.
With a savage tug, he yanks me down to him.
‘No!’ I scream. I start to kick out blindly, savagely, like an animal trapped in a net and trying to find its way out. ‘Let me go!’
After several seconds of kicking, I hear him grunt as my foot collides with his thigh. I use that moment to scramble up another step, my hand slapping against stone trying to find my dagger.
Where is it? Fuck, fuck!
‘You Nocthares were always more trouble than you were worth!’ Achātēs bellows before a biting cold air wraps itself around my body and lifts me off the steps, only to propel me forward and slam me back down.
A keening wail rips from my throat. Blinding pain slices through my ribcage, my arms, my thighs. Everywhere.
This is it, I think, as darkness seeps into the edges of my vision.
I can’t fight this anymore. He’s just too strong.
Too powerful. I manage to roll onto my back, just to peer down and find Achātēs stomping up the stairs, closing the distance between us.
‘Maybe I’ll just use you as my next host instead,’ he threatens as he crouches down to grip my jaw in one hand.
‘Just to enjoy watching your body deteriorate. Pathetic little human!’
I lay there, half crumpled against the steps, my head craning back to look up at him. I stare into his liquid milky eyes, at the evil that found root in him long, long ago. And my heart screams at my mind, fighting against the pain and urging me to get the hell up. Fight back. Get up!
He took my brother. He took my friend. He took Sebastian’s grandfather from him, too.
He killed them all. Without remorse. He did it because he could.
And I know down to my marrow that his tyrannical reign will not end here, with me.
I will become another name inside an old book with a black mark to sit upon a shelf.
How long will dust coat the edges of that book until another person like me stumbles upon it?
How many names will be scrawled beneath mine?
Dozens? Hundreds? Enough that mine won’t matter – Lukas’s won’t matter.
The thought of his name fading beneath the weight of all those others is crippling.
Lukas was enigmatic. Unshakable. And then Achātēs snuffed his light out and buried his memory in a book and filled the minds of everyone who knew him with lies. He made them hate him. Fear him …
I feel Achātēs’ power surge up around me.
It licks at my broken and bruised skin, cold slashes of air making me quiver as the odd sensation I often get when near powerful magic rears its head.
His power is stifling, even at a weakened state.
It’s no wonder that the bodies he inhabits cannot bear its burden. Why his is deteriorating.
‘Look at you,’ he snarls. ‘So much weaker than that brother of yours. At least he had the decency to fight back.’ His magic whips out and wraps itself around my throat, cutting off my air supply.
I can practically taste his magic. It’s putrid.
Sour. Like spoiled milk. I want to shy away from him, to curl up and hide until it’s over.
But I don’t. The hold on my throat squeezes tight, making me choke on a gasp that isn’t there.
I force myself not to panic, it’ll only get worse if I do.
Let him think he won. Let him think the fight has left my body.
Meanwhile, something within my chest shifts.
Like a moving piece of a puzzle. A fissure forming along a cliff … it cracks.
If I could breathe, I’d cry. I’d scream. Take it, it seems to say. No. It demands.
Take it. Take it. Take it.
For a long second, I’m confused. Take what? And where is this sudden urge calling from? What is this yawning opening I feel within me? I’m hungry. Ravenous. It isn’t until Achātēs yanks on the back of my head, his fist diving into my hair to tug my head back that I refocus on his magic.
Yes! That calling voice seems to grow louder. Take it! Now!
Something happens to me in that moment. As if my subconscious is shoved backward into the recesses of my mind and that voice surges forward, taking the reins. I watch in fascination and horror as my hands rise and take hold of Achātēs’ shoulders, the only part of him that I can really grab onto.
My nails dig into the fabric of his shirt, and as if the voice within me has its own claws, it latches onto Achātēs’ magic and yanks on it. Pulling it toward me – into me.
I feel that pit in my stomach open wide, yawning to suck the ancient magic into its cavernous void. Achātēs’ eyes flare wide. His face crumples in distress as he realises what is happening.
I’m stealing his magic.
I can feel it, feel myself sucking it out of him and into my body.
Right where I’ve been told our elements are supposed to reside, where I’ve often searched for a flicker of something only to come up empty-handed.
His magic feels wrong inside of me; it doesn’t feel like mine.
My body knows it’s wrong, but it swallows it down just the same.
As if it’s been starved for decades and is finally tasting food for the first time, greedy to inhale anything at this point.
For my entire life I have felt nothing. Emptiness. Magicless. But as Achātēs’ magic swells in me, I no longer feel barren. Instead, I feel powerful.
‘What have you done?’ he bellows and releases me from his hold.
The magic at my throat dissipates as he rears back, shoving off me.
My hands fall to my sides shaking with adrenaline.
The tips of my fingers suddenly find the familiar texture of leather.
My body heaves as I inhale a lungful of air.
I grip the hilt tightly and slide the dagger beneath the fabric of my robe at my side.
My heavy breathing fills the air between us as I speak. ‘You stole from them,’ I cough, tasting copper on my tongue. ‘So, I stole from you.’
He snarls, his milky eyes flaring wide and feverish. ‘You had no right!’
When he lunges, I brace myself for the attack knowing this is my last chance. The second his hands reach for the collar of my robe, I swing my arm wide and thrust my dagger into the fleshy space where his neck meets his shoulder. I stab through skin and muscle with all the might I have.
His pained wail bounces off the walls. He jerks backward, reaching up in surprise at the weapon lodged in his body.
Something strange happens, something I’ve never seen the dagger do before.
The malachite in the blade starts to glow from within, the two inches still on the outside of Achātēs’ body flaring to life like a spark catching air and igniting into a flame. Achātēs roars, his eyes blowing wide.