Chapter 43
She awoke to the sound of her cell door opening.
Ezer sat up, blinking wearily, the Shadow Tome inches from her fingertips. She’d fallen asleep before she could read any further.
Kinlear stood in the doorway, a torch in his hands.
Her breath hitched, and her eyes welled with tears, because he looked nothing at all like the Kinlear she’d pressed her lips to, just hours before.
‘Ezer,’ he said, almost reverently. ‘My heart.’
‘I am not your heart,’ she hissed. ‘What have you done, Kinlear?’
He was no longer weak and waning. He stood tall and strong in his dark cloak, and though it was still his face, his freckles, his curly dark hair … he was already changing before her.
His silver eyes were black as the night. His teeth elongated when he smiled, and she took a step back, her heart racing.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Into the dark.’
And then he held out a hand, like he wanted her to take it.
But it was not his hand.
It was not his long, ring-covered fingers that he had so willingly turned bare, bit by bit, to help her train Six. His palms stretched out, and where his fingertips once were … he had darksoul claws.
‘Why?’ Ezer asked him. She was crying again – traitorous tears, because how dare she cry over him, after all he’d done? ‘Why did you do it?’
He turned his head sideways, as if he were confused by the question.
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ His voice was more like a purr, a sound that sent shivers up and down her spine. ‘I was tired of dying. Tired of fighting for a Five that would never save me.’
‘Was it worth it?’ Ezer asked, shivering as he held her in his cold, dark gaze. ‘To trade your soul?’
He huffed out a laugh, and she realized with an ache that the vial on his neck was gone.
He no longer needed it, nor his cane.
‘My soul is free,’ he said. ‘And soon enough, yours will be, too.’ He stepped closer, reaching out with those long, dark talons. She inhaled, frozen before him, as he slid them across her scars. ‘We can be together, Ezer. Forever.’
‘I will never be with you,’ she whispered.
He sighed. And then he smiled, his claws pausing on her neck. ‘You won’t be with him, either.’
She didn’t dare move until his hand fell away.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Your father awaits.’
He turned away, leaving the cell door ajar.
And she had no choice but to follow.
They passed countless other rooms, the doors open to reveal that everyone was back inside. Some were sleeping, some were training. Others knelt and prayed or pored over copies of the Shadow Tome, and it was all so normal. So calm.
So utterly different than what she’d ever expected it to be.
He led her back to the throne room that had been filled with thousands of darksouls before.
Now it was empty. Save for the shrouded figure that sat upon the black throne.
And – Ezer’s breath hitched – the raphon that lay at his feet.
Six.
She looked up at the sound of Ezer’s footsteps and twitched her tail once.
Yes.
No, Ezer wanted to tell her. No, Six, it isn’t good.
Because though Six did not look harmed, though her fur and feathers were clean and every part of her wings and paws intact … she was not safe.
Kinlear dropped to a knee before the throne, bowing his head. ‘My lord.’
Her heart twinged.
A prince did not bow.
A prince did not bend to the ruler of another kingdom. And that struck Ezer the most about how much he had changed. How utterly gone he was.
This was another creature entirely.
‘The One has been fed well,’ the Acolyte said. ‘Another night of feasting and praise has brought its freedom closer,’ he added, looking at Kinlear. ‘You are dismissed. But do not go far. I may have need of you.’
He held out a hand to where the pool of darksoul blood had been.
But now it was fully dry, like the banks of a river that had been washed away. All the blood that had been fed into it, from thousands of darksouls was gone. And in its place …
A crevasse, so deep, she knew if she fell into it, she would fall forever. It seemed to sigh as she peered into it. To breathe of power, like it harbored a sleeping giant within.
‘Ezer,’ the Acolyte said. ‘Blood of my blood. The daughter I never knew, and yet it seems the One did.’
His voice was a smooth, poisonous thing. It rolled over her and sent shivers down her spine.
‘Are you going to kill me?’ she asked.
He chuckled. ‘Have you so little trust in your own family, Ezer?’
‘You are not my family,’ she growled.
Six’s tail twitched twice, agreeing.
The Acolyte shifted. Shadows swam between his fingertips in warning. ‘Look at the darkness, daughter. What do you see?’
There was a path of rock that circled the enormous crevasse. Darkness moved inside, swirling as if alive.
‘Shadows,’ Ezer said. ‘Your little pets.’
He laughed at that. ‘Your ire. Your rage. I can taste it. It comes from me.’ He sat back in his throne.
And though time had aged him elegantly, hardened the lines of his face …
when he smiled, it was exactly as he had in Styerra’s memories.
‘And they aren’t just shadows. They are an extension of the One.
And this—’ he glanced at the crevasse, ‘is our connection to him. Our pathway that will someday become a door. We need only win this war.’
She watched the deep shadows sigh and roll. Like … the crevasse was breathing.
‘You read the Tome,’ he said. ‘I can see it in your eyes. I can sense it in the questions you aren’t asking.’
‘I have questions,’ Ezer said. ‘But I’m not certain you’d tell me the truth if I asked.’
He sat back, crossing one leg over another, and the movement was so human, so casual, it gave her pause.
‘Try me,’ he said. And then he sighed. ‘You look just like Styerra. I never knew about you, and that is the truth. If I had … perhaps this all would have gone differently. I wouldn’t have left the Citadel.
I wouldn’t have left her behind.’ He frowned, and his shadows crawled up an arm, settling around his shoulders in a comforting embrace.
‘But if I hadn’t … I wouldn’t be here now.
And the One would still be starved, locked deeper in its cage, and you …
you would be alone in this realm, Ezer.’
‘That isn’t true,’ she said.
Her eyes slid to Six.
He caught her glance and smiled knowingly. ‘Raphons bond deeply to their riders. We have Wrenwyn to thank for that. It was one of her first acts as Acolyte.’
Wrenwyn.
Her ancestor.
Wrenwyn, the story Ezer had always loved … was once the Acolyte on this very throne.
Erath looked down at Six, who sat still as a statue, looking only at Ezer. ‘You can keep her for yourself, if you come to our side. Stay with her here, forever. Ride her into battle if you please.’
‘I won’t battle for you,’ Ezer said. ‘Set her free. Isn’t that what you speak of so much? Freedom for all?’
He chuckled, and Six’s tail twitched twice, like she hated the idea of it.
Run, Ezer thought towards her. Fly away from here.
But she knew Six would never leave her.
Even if it led to the raphon’s death.
‘I would have torn apart the entire realm to bring you home to me. When someone becomes the Acolyte … they are given great power. Beauty. Riches that run soul deep. I was granted the gift of shadows. A glorious display of unpillared power, for light cannot survive in true darkness.’
A pillar of shadow erupted from his hands, spiraling up into the sky, where the hole in the mountaintop lead to the shadowstorm.
Their protection from Lordach’s advances.
‘Now that you are here …’ He smiled at her, and she fought the urge to flinch. ‘All is right again. You are home, Ezer. Where you were always meant to be.’
There was something behind his words that she couldn’t quite place. A danger. A promise.
‘You told Styerra you’d come for her that night in the Citadel. And instead, like a coward, you sent a godsdamned letter to break her heart. You were a coward, Erath. And you left her behind to die, with a baby in her womb.’
His shadows lunged towards her.
But a lifting of his hand, and they recoiled, settling upon his lap like a cat.
He ran his fingertips across them as he spoke, ever the soothing master.
‘The truth tells so much more than speculation can. Stefon, an old friend of ours, was truly clever. I’ll give him that.
But he took advantage of our trust. Mine and Styerra’s combined. ’
‘What does that mean?’ Ezer asked.
He shrugged and looked into the crevasse. She could sense the power inside it.
She could sense, if she dared listen … a voice upon the wind.
Not her mother’s, for this voice was far away.
So far, she almost imagined she was hearing it sigh her name. And with it, a request.
A promise.
‘The past is unimportant. It is but a blink, a flash in the grand scheme of time now,’ the Acolyte said.
‘But to you, weak and human, I can sense the true story is still important. So, I’ll tell you this: Stefon visited me first in our dorms, before he visited Styerra that night.
I can see so much more now, than I did back then.
But you … for some reason, Ezer, I never sensed you.
’ He sighed. ‘He came in a frenzy, a man shattered by grief. I held him while he wept at my feet, while he gathered the strength to tell me Styerra was gone. He told me the Masters had captured her, ripped her from his grasp in the kitchens. He told me they killed her – the ultimate penance for her wrongs – and they were coming for me, too. So I fled. I went to the Aviary and took my eagle … and soared away from the Citadel, never to look back.’
A disgusting lie, her uncle had crafted. He’d ripped a family apart. He’d taken everything from them. Ezer, Styerra, even Erath, long ago.
Before he was this … this dark monster on a throne, caressed by shadows.
‘After that, I assume he fled with Styerra. He used her fear, her love for you, to take her away from me.’
The shadows began to swirl at his feet, angry as the storm far overhead.
‘I made it here. I discovered the Acolyte before me. And now …’