Chapter 60 Raven’s Sight #2
“You manifested your own instincts—your own power—the only way you knew how.” Sinevia’s voice caught her off guard.
She leapt to her feet, wiping the tears away in a frenzy as the queen continued, walking toward her, talking to her, fully present, though Asterious still stood steps away, frozen in her snare.
“That’s how it happens. You don’t realize the extent of your power until one day you do something you don’t understand and there’s no other explanation.
And you realize, it’s been there all along, bubbling up inside you like a pot boiling over…
Until it spills out, and you realize you were never powerless at all.
You just didn’t know how to use it,” Sinevia said.
“You see, some of us are granted great power, and choose to waste it. And some of us are destined to take it, so that we can put it to proper use.”
Caramyn, chilled by her words, flicked a desperate glance over at Asterious, his mind locked away somewhere she could not reach, while his body remained cemented in place. Then she whirled back to face the queen, who was tracing some pattern with her fingers, as if drawing runes in the air.
“Nothing in these Woods belongs to you,” Caramyn growled. “Including Asterious. Let him go.” The demand seethed out through her teeth. “You showed him what he asked to see…and he’s shown you he cannot be controlled any longer! Release him!”
“Release him? And interrupt our lovely conversation here.” Sinevia trilled, stepping closer. “We were just getting to the good part.”
Suddenly cold, skeletal hands gripped Caramyn from behind.
She glanced over her shoulder all too late to see a single resurrected Shadow soldier looming over her.
The smell of rotting flesh and decay attacked her senses as much as it attacked her body, yanking each arm behind her so that she could not wriggle free from the grip of death that held her.
And as she struggled, Sinevia closed the gap between them.
She stood inches before Caramyn now, the Veil groaning and rippling behind her, the Shadow wraiths wailing in protest around the border of the glade, where it seemed they could not enter. And even if they could, they’d be useless against an enemy already dead.
Sinevia lifted Caramyn’s chin. She pinched the sides of Caramyn’s face between her thumb and finger, digging the nails in as she stared straight into her eyes. “The last time I saw violets like those, I crushed them.”
Caramyn ripped her face away with a snap of her teeth. “Your brother would prefer to save you,” she said, “but I won’t hesitate to kill you if you leave me no choice.”
Sinevia seemed to ignore the threat. “Your power—your very life—is tethered to the Veil, to the last great source of Shadow magic. I don’t even know how it’s possible, but all that raw power is funneling straight to you.
” Sinevia reached forward, reaching a scarred finger towards her chest where she dragged it over Caramyn’s heart.
Her pulse thrummed so loudly in her ears it drowned out the hissing Shadows surrounding them.
The queen purred, tapping her lips in thought until a devilish smile formed.
“That fascinating truth has placed you in my way. And for that, you must be removed.”
And that’s when it struck Caramyn—the faintest glimmer of a falter in Sinevia’s illusion.
She’d flickered, off and on, as she spoke, almost unnoticeable.
But just enough to let Caramyn know it was a drain on her power to maintain so many illusions at once—to summon a Shadow soldier long enough to restrain her, to hold Asterious in a trance from a distance, subjecting him to whatever horrible visions she was conjuring. And to still be here, talking to her.
She closed her eyes, reaching for her deepest instincts, for trust in her own power, drawing something through that Shadow link threaded through her blood.
And she became, for a moment, Nocthar. Only this time, she saw through the raven’s eyes as though they were her own.
Her awareness tore loose from her body, rising into an omniscient vantage that showed her the scene with inhuman clarity, as if she were watching herself from across the veil of reality—herself restrained by a battle worn corpse, Sinevia standing before her, animating the creature, and Asterious, frozen in place with vacant eyes, the Shadowblood’s Blade still clenched in his hand.
The sword in his grip did not belong to this world, but the realm of the Veil.
It existed outside of Sinevia’s design, bound to no single reality she could manipulate.
Its edge could cleave through illusion as easily as it could through bone.
Asterious believed it might save Sinevia, but Caramyn’s Raven Sight revealed it could kill her—even here.
It was not bound to curse or blessing, Light or Shadow—it commanded them.
The vision narrowed. Not on visible details, but on forces unseen with the mortal eye.
She saw the forbidden magic animating the corpse soldier, how it moved not with muscle or any will, but like a puppet on a string pulled by Shadows stitched through sinew.
And every so often, like the way Sinevia had flickered as she talked, the soldier’s strength wavered for just a breath.
And she counted the seconds until it would happen again, like a steady rhythm as certain as a drum beat.
One…two…three…falter. Sinevia would waver, and her soldier would falter.
And the sword’s power responded to her presence, as if reaching for her, tugging incessantly on something within her as a glowing essence of Light and Shadow intertwined around its gleaming blade.
Caramyn snapped back into herself and let the unforgiving seconds pass before the brief fracture in Sinevia’s power flickered again.
One…two…three…
The death soldier’s grip weakened, for less than a pulse. Caramyn drove her head backward, the crack of skull against rotting bone rattling in her ears and the pain of the impact turning her stomach. She twisted from its grasp as the thing staggered, and she did not give it time to recover.
As she ran toward Asterious, something snapped into place within her, like a soul finding its body.
Her Sight caught glimpse of some string of essence, ethereal and sacred, that did not feel like magic, but more like a bond made manifest. A force that bound their fates.
And she followed it, her heart beating out of her chest as Sinevia tailed her, cursing her name.
Six strides carried her to Asterious. He did not move when she reached him. He did not seem to hear her or see her.
But he would feel her.
Hope flared in her, that if she could just touch him, if she could just awaken him with the presence of that bond, he’d come back to her.
His fingers were locked around the hilt of the Blade, knuckles bloodless, the weapon humming with restrained power.
Caramyn grabbed his wrists and pried, her last hope literally locked within his hand.
She whispered, “Please, break free. I know you’re strong enough.”
Then Asterious looked up for the first time since Sinevia had taken his mind hostage. His eyes, one thunder grey, one silver, swept across the Veil and Sinevia charging toward them, something raging and lethal in her movements—and something sharp and glinting in her hand.
He released the sword to Caramyn just as Sinevia reached them. She raised the Blade above her head and swung, just as some piercing pain cut through her core, and when the edge came down on Sinevia, it shattered in a blinding explosion of light.