Chapter 45
The moment she chose, the world shifted. The darkness lightened until she could see the surface again, and Ezer directed Six towards it.
They landed on the dais with a whoosh of air from Six’s wings.
There was no pain as Ezer dismounted.
There was only cold, coming from the hole in her cloak where Kinlear’s knife had once been.
She looked down and frowned.
‘Ezer,’ said a voice.
She glanced up to lock eyes with the man on the throne.
She couldn’t remember why she’d been so afraid of him before. Because he was just a man. And she …
She knew now, how to kill the Acolyte.
Her footsteps were silent as she walked to him, feeling weightless.
Feeling … powerful. She cocked her head to the side and closed her eyes as she breathed deep, her body whole once more. Whole and different.
She could have done without the dark claws that now tipped her once-human hands.
‘My child,’ Erath said. ‘Look at you. Magnificent.’
‘I wish to do as the rest of the darksouls did,’ Ezer said. ‘I wish … to give of my blood to the One who remade me. As my first act on this side.’
‘You will learn fast,’ he said, and smiled as he reached for the ceremonial knife. The one that had cut through countless darksoul hands earlier.
The one that was impeccably, perfectly sharp.
‘Would you join me?’ Ezer asked. ‘It feels as if all of this was set in stone, long ago. The Acolyte … and the daughter spared just for him.’
Erath obliged, his depthless eyes soft as he got down on his knees beside her. As he bowed, his hand outstretched for the blade to cut across. He bled shadows, tendrils that pooled beneath his hand and then regathered again. Just like the wolves when Arawn cut them in the woods.
And as Erath handed her the blade, and she held out her own hand, as if she would slice it …
Erath’s words from earlier came back to her.
I swung the blade.
He did not stab his predecessor. Which meant … he hadn’t gone for the heart.
It was just as Arawn said, when he’d tossed her a dagger in the woods. A lifeline against the shadow wolves.
Go for the throat.
So she did exactly that.
She was faster, stronger, than she’d ever been before. And perhaps it was because she’d been touched by the One, given a tendril of new power when she made her choice. Perhaps it was because, deep down, her soul knew this was her last chance.
But when she sliced that blade clean across her father’s throat …
Her magic unfurled within her.
She had only a second before his shadows recoiled enough to heal him.
She lashed out with a fury she’d never known. A power she’d never felt before now … but it had always been there, writhing within her.
Magic to match his own.
His shadows tried to heal him, but her own stood in their way.
He was older, wiser … but she had been reborn.
She put all of her fury, all of her past, into her power. They had grown wings like birds, and they soared against his as she screamed, her body filling with newfound magic.
His life faded just like the wolves in the woods.
‘Styerra,’ Erath said, as he lay there on the dais floor. A sad, struggling thing. ‘Let me … be with her now.’
She knew what he meant.
And it was with a smile on her face that she knelt as his side and whispered, ‘You will never see Styerra again. Not in life, and not in death.’
She reached out to the ring he kept on his hand, the one that matched her own. And she did what Ervos had done. And pried the ring of finding from her father’s hand.
He was too weak to fight her now.
And with a sigh, a rattling breath …
Erath died.
The shadows slithered away from his body.
And curled up at her feet, instead. She swore she could feel them purr against her as she looked at what was left of her father.
A pile of dark clothing, and an empty throne.
Ezer sat down upon it, surprised that it fit her shape perfectly. Like it was made for only her. And at her side, Six sat proudly.
A soft growl revealed her distaste as Kinlear approached the throne. Six was not pleased, after what he’d done.
‘Ezer,’ he said. ‘My hand is yours. My heart, too, if you will have it.’
She glanced up at him. His eyes were dark as night. His lips had curved in a fine, fanged smile, and a part of her relished it.
She remembered how he’d kissed her, and she shivered as he bowed before her, took her clawed hand in his own, and pressed it to his lips.
He was stronger than he’d ever been. He was alive, without fear of the future.
It would be so easy to accept him.
So easy to forget the fear he’d placed in her heart, when he drove his blade in.
So easy to forget who she once was.
But as Kinlear backed away …
She remembered it all.
Every godsdamned moment.
‘You killed me,’ Ezer said. ‘And now … you will spend forever serving me until you prove your allegiance.’
A breath, and the shadows left her. She could feel them like an extension of her own body as they locked around his wrists.
And she relished it as she forced those shadows to haul him away. She ignored him as he cried her name, trying to fight his way out of her power.
But she was stronger than him.
Stronger than anyone now.
Her Sentinels arrived with a breath, a thought, and bowed before her, acknowledging that she was the Next.
‘The storm, Acolyte,’ one of them said, dark eyes wide in wonder. ‘You no longer need to control it?’
‘A gift,’ Ezer said, ‘A blessing this Realmbreak.’ She looked down at the second ring she wore, a new one, to match her mother’s. ‘I traded Erath’s soul to sustain it.’
It meant that he would have no future in the Ehver.
He would cease to exist.
It was the darkest act she’d ever done, to steal a man’s eternity.
But it was a small price to pay for freedom.
She would not be anchored to Erath’s shadowstorm, forced to live her life in this darkness.
No, she would ride into battle with her army.
She would feel the moonlight on her face, let the wind dance against her, as she
led them all to victory. She would break through the wards into the Citadel.
She would find the hidden key.
‘Bring Zey to me,’ Ezer said aloud. The Sentinel – the one who’d thrown her in a prison cell– came back with Zey and with a breath, a single thought … her shadows choked the life from him.
And then Ezer elevated Zey in the man’s place.
‘Acolyte,’ Zey said with a grin, as she bowed at Ezer’s throne. ‘The darkness looks good on you.’
Ezer smiled at her.
‘The Long Day ends within the hour,’ said another of her Sentinels. ‘Should I prepare your raphon?’
‘No,’ Ezer said. ‘Prepare the army instead. Come, Six.’
She climbed on and smiled in relief.
The shadows had not stolen their connection away. If anything, the connection had brightened, had become a blazing fire that no one could put out.
Six lifted them into the sky.
They soared upwards, climbing with the wind, out of the mountaintop and into the storm of shadows …
Ezer turned her eyes south, to the land that had oppressed her all her days.
She squeezed a fist over her mother’s ring.
I will avenge you, Ezer thought.
She thought of Izill, still trapped behind the wards … unable to see the truth, for how bright the Five’s false light.
She thought of Arawn, now a King, who she prayed would be ready to embrace her. To take one look at her and be willing to See.
I will avenge them all.
She burst through the mountaintop just as Realmbreak ended. As the full moon rose in the sky, she soared through the shadowstorm, and into the Expanse.
Fly, Six.
On two dark wings, the Acolyte soared.
And the battle began.