Chapter 40
It was an enormous amphitheater inside, lined with carved stone seats. And darksouls so numerous, she couldn’t count their number. Ezer and Kinlear were simply swept up in the current as the line descended the stairs. Every few seconds, they paused, as someone at the very bottom reached the dais.
It sat in the middle of an enormous pool of pure dark water, connected by a single runway of stone. It was lined with darksoul guards in shimmering black armor, helmets concealing their faces.
And at the very end, guarding the enormous black throne …
Ezer’s stomach lurched.
Two shadow wolves. The largest she’d ever seen, chained by manacles large enough to hold Six. As if, even beside their creator, their wild nature could not be trusted or tamed.
Turn back, Ezer’s mind whispered, but that was her own fear speaking, not the wind. Turn back now or you die.
Kinlear’s hand squeezed hers as the crowd shifted.
And they caught a glimpse of the Acolyte for the very first time.
He sat upon the onyx throne and was clad in all black robes.
Shadows – living shadows – swam around him, concealing his face from view, but she could see his body was that of a man.
And his hands … they were not claws, as the stories had said.
No, they were fully human, covered in fat rings as he rested them on the arms of his throne.
Each arm ended in a carving of a raphon’s head.
Four figures sat with him. Two to his right, two to his left.
His Darksoul Sentinels.
They had the claws shared in stories, so long and dark they curled at their tips. They made the shadow wolves’ claws look small.
And as Ezer and Kinlear drew closer … the world came down to only that dais.
Ezer could feel every beat of her heart, could hear the roar in her ears as she clung to Kinlear’s hand. She couldn’t stop this.
But every part of her wanted to now.
The line paused as the Acolyte lifted his hands, as if gathering his energy.
And then shadows shot from his fingertips.
Two colossal beams of darkness, cast out from his bare hands.
They spiraled up into the ceiling, where the cave stretched so high she could see that it was open at its top.
She could see the belly of the shadowstorm far above it.
The Acolyte was the source of its power.
Suddenly their plan felt foolish.
Would a blade even kill him? Did he even have a heart any longer, or blood in his veins, a life source to drain?
Closer, closer, they marched down the steps. They were over halfway there now, each step filling her with more terror than the last.
She watched as another darksoul – a woman – made the march across that runway of stone. The wolves snarled but did not move to attack as she bowed before the throne. The Acolyte’s Sentinel held out a black blade.
The darksoul ran it across her palm.
She stood, squeezed her fist … and let droplets of dark blood spill into the shimmering black waters.
Blood, Ezer realized. It was darksoul blood that filled the lake.
A sob of terror rose in the back of her throat.
‘Kinlear,’ she breathed, gripping his hand like a vice. ‘We can’t do this.’
She could have sworn he shook his head, no.
Ten steps.
‘Kinlear.’ She dug her fingernails into his skin. ‘Please.’
But it was too late.
They were on the runway now, passing the first set of helmeted guards.
She could feel the heat coming from the lake. The blood.
They were three darksouls away now. She caught sight of one of their faces as a darksoul man shouldered past her, his hand freshly cut.
His eyes.
His eyes were no longer human. They were pure darkness incarnate. Even the veins around them swam with darkness, like shadows swimming beneath his skin.
She could feel the ground rumbling beneath her and hear the snick of the blade running across the next darksoul’s hand.
She couldn’t tear her eyes from the wolves guarding the Acolyte’s feet.
Kinlear was two away now.
Oh gods, Ezer thought. If you were ever real at all, stop this madness now.
Once Kinlear cut his hand … he would be revealed.
Because he would bleed red instead of black.
‘Ezer,’ he whispered, turning sideways to lock eyes with her from the shadows of his hood. His words were so hushed and so fast, she could hardly decipher them. ‘I tried to tell you before in the cave, but … you kissed me before I could say the rest.’
The wolves snarled again.
‘When I said I’m falling,’ Kinlear whispered and smiled … but it wasn’t quite his smile. ‘I meant, I’m falling out of love with the gods.’
And then his hand slid from hers, and something strange raced through her. A cold, unsteady sort of feeling, like the world had just turned sideways.
She watched in horror as he knelt. And instead of driving the blade into the Acolyte’s chest … instead of doing what he’d promised …
Kinlear Laroux bowed.
‘My Lord,’ he said.
‘Ah, the young princeling,’ said the Acolyte, ‘Child of Draybor Laroux. Your eyes have been opened at long last.’
His voice was human. It was young and accented like Arawn’s, heavily northern, and …
And she recognized it.
‘I wish to join you, my Lord,’ Kinlear said. ‘I wish to lay down my allegiance to the Five.’ He was crying as he added, ‘I wish to live forever … belonging to you.’
The Acolyte inclined his shadowed head.
‘A final test,’ he said, ‘and you will be welcomed here, my child. You will be free.’
There was nothing Ezer could do, nothing she could say, as Kinlear took the Sentinel’s blade and split his skin wide open.
For a second, Ezer felt like she was floating. Like she was outside her own body as she watched him bleed.
And it was not red.
It was a deep, soulless black.
He was gone.
Kinlear Laroux, child of the king, a loyal servant of the Five …
He had defected right there before her and joined the other side.
Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t even gasp his name as the Acolyte lifted a hand and sent a bolt of shadow into Kinlear’s chest.
It melted into him, and before her very eyes, he shifted.
He changed.
His hands, long and beautiful, morphed into darksoul claws. He screamed through the pain of it, and she watched in horror as his eyes. His beautiful, moonlit silver eyes, shifted to a darksoul black.
He did not look at her as he walked away. He followed after the other darksouls, a part of them now. She noticed, with a pang in her chest, that he had no limp. No cough. And he stood so tall, so proud … that she knew, somehow, he’d been healed of his ailment. Just as Soraya said.
But at what cost?
He was gone.
His very soul might have just died before her.
And now it was up to her to finish the job.
She didn’t have time to think about how utterly wrong she’d been about him.
He’d lied.
Oh gods, he’d lied to her, and she’d taken it all for truth. And she’d carried him here, brought him right to the Acolyte’s feet. She’d kissed him. She’d betrayed Arawn for him.
She was horrified, furious, her body so frozen in shock that she thought she might not be able to take a step. But then she was next, and she stumbled forwards, her hood low over her eyes.
The wolves snarled. She could feel their hot breath on her face as she knelt, trembling.
‘You wish to join us, child,’ said the Acolyte. ‘You made the journey to the Door, called to the dark as others have been called before. You made it past the defenses and proved yourself deserving.’
That voice.
She knew that voice, and perhaps it was why the wind suddenly whipped around her, as if it recognized it too.
The Sentinel handed her the blade.
With trembling hands, she took it. And held out her palm as if she were about to slide it across her skin.
Do it, she told herself. Do it afraid.
She thought of thousands of names on bloodstained scrolls. The countless deaths and disappearances. The way her mother had looked, flayed open on the snow while she died.
She thought of Arawn, still waiting for her on the cliffside.
She thought of Izill.
She thought of Six.
You’re going to die someday, Ezer told herself. You might as well die for this.
And at the last second, she lunged forward, thrusting that blade up into the Acolyte’s chest.
Right into his cold, black heart.