Chapter 74
Chapter Seventy-Four
Ellowyn
Iscreamed as I channeled, the rushing release of my power borderline painful as it innervated the earth. Solace staggered back a step, confusion writ in her expression, as the dirt slowly began to glow an iridescent green.
Cracks splintered away from my hands, running along the desecrated earth in a spindly pattern that connected the entirety of the Valley.
“More,” the voices seemed to whisper. “Give us more.”
With a shriek of pure determination laced with unbridled pain, I felt for the last of my Creation Magic, desperately pushing it toward the disembodied voices.
“This is all I have,” my efforts seemed to say.
The voices hummed in response. “It is enough.”
With that, I slumped back against the wall, my braids catching against the rough-hewn stone and ripping hairs from my head. The bite of pain was momentary, and nothing compared to the torrent of green fire I’d just released on the land.
Panting, sweaty, and near exhaustion, I watched as the bright light pulsated almost as if the earth was given a heartbeat. Even Solace was frozen, watching.
After a moment, the green faded, leaving only blackened marks where the bright veins once carved across the surface.
Solace slowly pulled her gaze from the ground to focus on me once more. I found I had nothing left to give—my body wrecked and exhausted, pushed beyond its breaking point.
“Fool,” Solace whispered, her mouth stretching into a terrifying smile that seemed to swallow her entire face.
I shivered, causing the spear of wood to lodge itself even further into my side. Luckily, I was past feeling; even the warmth of tacky blood against my side did nothing to dislodge me from my stupor.
Solace took a menacing step forward, and I closed my eyes, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing death come for me.
I tilted my chin higher, exposing my neck, resolved that if this is how and when I would die, I would at least do it with some dignity. I waited for moments, my heart thumping erratically.
But the final blow never came, the feeling of magic crawling against my skin, tearing my body asunder, never began.
I cracked open an eyelid, expecting to see Solace’s face peering into my own, but was shocked to see nothing.
The Valley was gone—the desiccated buildings blanketed completely in a nearly opaque white film. Diaphanous strands of varying shades of white and grey shifted in the heavy smoke, and I reached out a hand to touch one. It was surprisingly warm, even as the air around me cooled considerably.
It was strange—sitting in this thick white fog, separated completely from the scene that was sure to hold my death.
Unless . . . this was death.
That disturbing reality had me scrambling from my position, only to immediately sink back against the wall with a cry of pain.
My muscles were cramped and spasming from the battle and the expulsion of power; the wood stuck deep within my side, and the wounds on my legs were still there, causing hot blood to run in rivulets down my side with every breath.
Still alive, then, I thought.
“Where am I? What is this?” I muttered, my voice muffled by the strange fog.
“The better question is ‘who are they’?” The voices from earlier seemed to speak from every direction at once. The effect was completely disorienting, and I closed my eyes and cupped my hands against my ears in an effort to battle the rising nausea.
When the voices didn’t reappear, and I’d swallowed back the bile in my throat, I peeled my hands away and tentatively peeked through my eyelids only to gasp out a scream.
A figure made entirely of the white mist that overtook the Valley stood directly in front of me, her head cocked to the side as I desperately tried to scramble away.
The flesh of my palms bit into exposed rock and splintered wood, and I hissed in pain as my back made contact with the wall once more.
In a rising panic, I flitted my head from side to side, looking for a way out. But it was as if the fog was sentient, sensing my anxiety and need to flee, because in one moment the mist was simply floating strands, and in the next, full figures had formed, each taking a distinctive shape.
There was nowhere for me to go, nowhere for me to run.
I flung my gaze back to the woman, cataloguing her tall frame and thin features, hair that was matted to her head and hung to her waist in stringy clumps.
Her dress was strange, not a style I’d seen before, and hung loose on her frail figure.
There were darker spots that dotted her collar, and I gasped as my gaze trailed up to her face.
The mist couldn’t create depth in colors or articulate features like pupils and irises, so the woman’s eyes were one singular shade.
But it was clear that the darker strands of fog were blood.
A quick glance at the other semi-formed figures around me confirmed my conjecture.
Some sported dark spots near their hearts or heads.
Others were made completely of the darker mists, and I cringed to think what that signified.
The woman’s mouth was stretched wide, the sides of her smile cut. Dark mist formed on her chin and trailed down her neck as if her mouth had been brutalized.
“Who are you?” I whispered shakily.
That gaping maw stretched wider, the sides flapping apart with the motion.
“It’s about time you asked,” she said, her voice hissing from nowhere and everywhere at once, yet she never gave me a definitive answer. Simply stared at me with those monochromatic, soulless eyes that sent shivers down my spine.
“Who are you?” I repeated, my voice stronger the second time, despite the cold sweat that covered my back.
“The protectors of the Valley, only able to be called and created by whoever holds the power of Creation.”
I frowned.
“That could be me or Solace,” I mumbled even as the multitude of ghosts hissed at her name. The sound was disconcerting, and I threw my hands over my ears once more. Once the sound died down, the woman spoke again.
“We do not respond to her,” she spat, venom lacing every word.
“Then you answered to me?”
“You innervated the ground, yes? Answered our pleas. Forced Creation Magic deep within this cursed soil to rouse us from our restless sleep,” a different voice sounded from somewhere behind the first woman. This voice was also female, but decidedly older and laced with unending wisdom.
The mists coalesced together, creating a second body next to the first, both near enough to touch now.
As I expected, she was much older than the first woman, the mists folding on top of one another to create deep wrinkles in her face and hands.
I looked harder than necessary to find the telltale black smoke—there was none.
“We are an extension of the ether now, dear. Not fully here yet not fully gone. Cursed to guard this place by our ancestors’ own hand, unable to join the remainder of our people fully in the ether.”
“So where am I?” I asked, flicking my attention to the older woman. She leaned heavily against a cane even in this ethereal form, and I found myself wondering how old the woman was in life.
“In the Valley, yes. But the in-between, for now,” she said. The ghosts danced and writhed behind her as she spoke, some fading from sight completely before reappearing seconds later. The mists constantly ate and reformed their bodies.
“For now?” I prodded; her insinuation that Solace wasn’t here with us gave me a momentary reprieve, but not one I knew would last long.
The old woman nodded her head. “You’ve called us. Only you can dismiss us.”
I chewed my lip as I fingered the crystal that was still trapped in my fist.
“Permanently?” I asked.
The specter raised a ghostly eyebrow even as the mist became eerily silent.
“No. Only our creator may do that. And only through releasing the curse—”
“Or her death.” The woman with the slashes across her mouth smiled savagely.
I shuddered involuntarily.
“She can’t die. Not truly. Not while this still exists,” I said, attempting to hold the crystal up for their inspection, but my arm drooped with exhaustion.
The two female ghosts shared an indecipherable look before fixing me once more with their blank stares. I shivered again from the combination of the intensity of their gazes and the massive blood loss.
“Destroy it,” the older one said like it were the simplest thing in the world.
It would be easy. I have the power of a god at my fingertips . . .
The call to my Destruction Magic was headier than ever; a constant beat in my blood and mind begging me to release it, to give in to it.
Constantly denying its advances was pushing at the boundaries of my control.
Sooner or later, I would have to give in to the all-consuming need, the fire burning within my veins.
I had little doubt that releasing that magnitude of power would incapacitate me for some time afterward.
I’d only just managed to pull myself upright and out of the catacombs beneath the Valley after killing Kaos; it was a godsdamned miracle I’d survived this long in a battle with a psychotic goddess.
“I can’t,” I sighed with a shake of my head. “It’s not that I don’t want to”—I had to practically shout over the hisses that emanated from the chaotically swirling mists—“believe me, no one wants that bitch banished more than me, but I can’t. If I tap into that power . . . it will consume me.”
The older woman fixed me with an unblinking stare.
“If you don’t, then Solace consumes us all,” she said gravely.
My heart thumped at the enormity of her admittance, at the reality of the situation.
Either I die, or everyone else dies.
“Okay,” I said, my words instantly silencing the steadily escalating buzzing noise that lived within the mists. “Okay,” I repeated softer.
The old woman smiled at me.
“Release your hold on us. We will linger for moments before we are forced to return to our in-between state. Use that time wisely, Goddess.”