59. Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Isoria
I held Archer through the awful quiet until I was sure it was over.
Princess remained at my side, hovering protectively and growling low in her throat as she faced the revenants.
Though they couldn’t cross the vast split in the earth Archer had formed, it was clear at least some of them had magic they could hurl across it.
Our time was running short before we’d be back in the thick of battle again, but I couldn’t force Archer away, not yet. He needed this moment.
After, unless we had enormous fortune and encountered a healer only a street away, we’d have to find cover. A building or home we could hide within long enough for me to replenish my strength and heal him.
Archer’s emotions flooded me like they were my own. Grief and guilt that seared me to the core along with a painful resignation that this was how it had to be.
It took a moment of processing those feelings for the realization to strike. King Wystan was dead, the throne passed to Archer.
But I hadn’t been the one to slay the king.
My mind flashed back to that long-ago time in Maris’ cottage when I’d been but a child, before my family and others had retreated to the safety of Cinderwood and built the sanctuary of Everhaven.
So often the focus had been on my fate being intertwined with Archer or me being his ruin, his assassin.
Maybe an assassin of the whole royal family.
Vithenna had insisted we were fated enemies, and in some ways, our prophecies had made us just that, outlawing phoenixes and igniting Archer’s hatred.
But Maris hadn’t used words like kill or assassinate. No, I remembered her croaking voice saying something else. She’ll be the dismantling of the royal family.
Chills erupted along my skin. Hadn’t I accomplished that?
Archer had said I’d ruined and remade him, changing his entire perspective on phoenixes and how he should rule.
His sister had spared my life for his sake, offering the mercy her father could not.
And I’d driven King Wystan to such bloodlust he’d threatened his own son, pushing Archer to unleash the land’s magic at last and leave his father to die at the hands of the revenants.
I pulled back from Archer to gaze at the sky—or the last shred of it I could see with the shadows creeping nearer.
“Vithenna,” I called, “my prophecy is fulfilled. The royal family is dismantled. I did not kill Archer, but King Wystan is dead and both Archer and his sister have changed. The usurper and the cause of so much bloodshed is gone. Let that satisfy your need for justice. Stop your army. Let the souls move on in peace.” As if in response to my words, I could feel the chill of Mortius’ shadows inside me.
Archer watched me in undisguised awe as the same realization clicked into place for him.
Likely, he’d never heard the exact wording of my prophecy and didn’t know exactly what I’d been meant to do.
Just as so many phoenixes around me had imagined, his family had also assumed I’d destroy the royal line with death.
Bloodshed was the only language King Wystan had known.
To my surprise, the shadows responded and receded, curling backward and slowly dispersing.
The night sky was suddenly open and vast, countless stars gleaming like gemstones.
As a lover of the sunlight and the power it gave me, I hadn’t hated the night, but I’d never fully appreciated its beauty the way I did now.
Turning, I watched the revenants across the crevice freeze and slowly collapse, crumpling into the corpses they were supposed to be. Magicless. Motionless. No longer Vithenna’s puppets.
Something eased in my chest as I felt the souls become untethered from those bodies, no longer trapped in rotting prisons but free to move on and find rest in the afterlife.
My body released Mortius’ shadows, but this time, they rose off my skin for good.
They whirled and joined more until they formed a grey figure standing near us.
“It’s done,” Mortius rasped. “You no longer need to carry my power. I’ll take it from here. ”
Tears pricked my eyes, relief I didn’t have to do the work and joy for the poor souls who had been so wronged by the goddess of life.
“It’s over,” I breathed. The release of Mortius’ power in me opened more room for my own, and I turned to Archer, relieved to find I had enough magic again to push into his wound, knitting the skin back together. “We’ve done it.”
“You did it,” Archer said, awe still in his voice. Some color had returned to his cheeks, and his eyes weren’t so glazed over. Though it would take time for him to fully recover his strength, I was grateful to know he’d be all right.
We’d made it.
There was a horrible sound as the earth quaked again, rocking the buildings around us. Shouts in the distance alerted us that our soldiers had felt it too. Archer seized my waist, holding me upright before I lost my footing like I had for him only moments before.
Dread filled my veins and my gaze shot again to the sky, but Vithenna didn’t descend from it.
She stepped out of the night’s shadows, materializing like a spirit who’d been watching and waiting all this time.
Her eyes blazed with fury and her hands sparked with lightning.
Each step she took shook the earth until more crevices formed, like pottery breaking into countless pieces.
Screams erupted throughout the streets as buildings shuddered and more cracks spiderwebbed through the cobblestones, shifting and crumbling structures entirely.
The noises were deafening. Splintering wood and falling stone.
Weeping and shouts and scampering footsteps as citizens sought shelter.
Rumbling earth as it continued to move, to shake, and the zapping sound of the electricity dancing in Vithenna’s hands.
Vithenna clapped her hands and lightning flashed. It struck a nearby home, the sharp scent of smoke filling the air as flames burst to life, snapping and devouring. I threw myself between Archer and the home instinctively, turning toward Vithenna and trying to draw on my own magic. Solea, please.
As if the goddess had heard my plea, I felt a spark of my flame swelling in my chest, growing and growing until it was a roaring fire in its own right. I shifted effortlessly, summoning my own phoenix fire as I leapt into the air, letting the air seize my wings.
Storm clouds roiled overhead, consuming the bejeweled night sky.
Rain started as a trickle and then fell in a torrent, weighing down my feathers.
I focused on the fire burning within me, conjuring more that flared along my wings, growing until my entire body was consumed in the warmth of red-gold flames.
I dove for the goddess, determined to stop her destruction and havoc before she harmed more of the people I loved.
You won’t have him, I thought viciously, slashing at her small figure below me with my claws.
I tried to catch her in my grip, but at the last moment, she vanished and reappeared several feet away, laughing.
She lifted a sparking fist full of white-hot electricity, and a lightning bolt from the sky answered her, flashing from the clouds.
I dodged and swept low again, letting my trail of fire leap toward the ground to consume her.
Vithenna laughed, easily moving like she had before by disappearing as the flames were about to kiss her skin.
Meanwhile, the rain continued to battle my phoenix fire.
Smoke singed the air and clouded the sky as I circled the goddess, determined to end her and protect Emberglade once and for all.
I conjured more fire, letting it burst to life along my feathers, drying and warming them, making the rain steam and hiss as it struck.
More lightning slammed around us, striking soldiers and leaving charred remains in the streets alongside the motionless revenants.
If I’d been in fae form, I would have vomited, horrified and disgusted by each gruesome, terrible end. But in phoenix form, I only knew my indignation and fierce desire to protect, to heal, to save. So I dove again for Vithenna, lashing out with beak and claws.
She shot up a wall of electricity that clashed with my flames.
There was a horrendous popping sound, like all the oxygen was sucked out of the air as our two powers collided.
The force of the collision shoved me backward, sending me flying, fluttering my wings wildly in an attempt to regain control.
This time, I circled her without trying to attack, merely watching. She responded in the same manner, letting her storm rage around us while she studied me, as if wanting me to make the next move. Taunting me. Silently reminding me that I was nothing compared to a goddess.
The usurper king is dead, I thought, knowing in my bones that Vithenna could hear me as clearly as any other phoenix could when I used my ability to speak into their minds.
For her power flowed through me, after all, like Mortius had said.
As much as I hated it, hated her, I was connected to the goddess of life.
The land has chosen Archer. Now that your revenants are moving on to the afterlife, it’s time to let go.
Release Emberglade from your curses. The innocents deserve life.
Vithenna merely laughed. “Emberglade has never respected my power. Never feared me. The other deities agreed that our work here was done and we should exist only on that dull immortal plane to rest for eternity, but I was meant for more. I knew there would come a time when I would be needed. I never did ascend. My power here is at its full height.”
You lied to the other gods?
“It’s not as if they noticed or cared, not until I began to defy them, to punish Emberglade.
Mortius was quick to complain that I wasn’t letting souls fill the afterlife as they had been before.
And Emberglade? No one in this kingdom ever thought to fear me.
Even when the gods walked more freely among you, the phoenixes revered Solea.
The other fae looked to Umbryon to feed their power through the nighttime.
Sanvo was called upon when anyone was wounded or ill.
But I was the goddess looked upon as the giver of children, the one who made flowers blossom and food grow.
Tame. Uninteresting. If someone was dying, no one begged me for life. They begged Mortius for more time.”
You’re insane, I thought, hoping she saw the fire and disgust in my eyes. You want to be respected? Feared? All you have done is make yourself hated.
But Vithenna sneered. “The other gods will respect me now. They’re weak on earth because of their choice to ascend, but I am not. After I finish purging this kingdom, I will choose the next fae to rule and live here, and they will know to revere me.”
You’re not going to take a single more soul that I love.
The goddess grinned, her colorful hair whipping around her too-beautiful face in the storm, her eyes ablaze with manic delight.
Lightning sparked from the sky, a blinding blaze that I couldn’t dodge quickly enough.
It jolted through me, sparking through flesh and bone.
I heard my scream as my phoenix form shifted back to fae, as the scents of scorched flesh and smoke and ash collided, mingling with agony.
The world turned bright white, and I was falling.