7. Asha
Asha
“Obviously.”
Hale’s grin widens, and warmth spreads through my blood before I crush it. I don’t need a hellhound’s approval. I certainly don’t need three powerful creatures sitting around me and listening to my history with disturbing interest.
Still, I don’t tell them to leave.
Tobin stares at me from the end of the bed. “You woke with no memories, yet you knew language, combat, and command.”
“Yes.”
“You knew the crown carried power?”
“I knew I wanted it.”
Leith’s attention drops to the faint marks under my skin. “Because Yseld’s magic called to you.”
The pudding loses some of its appeal.
I set the plate aside. “Don’t ruin my origin with that bitch.”
“It explains why you took the crown,” Tobin says. “It doesn’t explain who you were before the battlefield.”
“I wasn’t anyone before.”
“You don’t know that.”
I point towards the door. “Keep irritating me, and you can sleep outside it.”
Hale takes the plate from beside me and stacks it on the others. “You nearly drowned, got attacked by a dead goddess, broke into a restricted archive and fucked all three of us. You’re sleeping now and so are we. Here.”
“I’m pleased you’ve appointed yourself keeper of my schedule.”
“Someone has to.”
“I ruled a realm for five centuries without you.”
“And look where that got you.”
Fire flashes over his hands before I can launch myself at him. He knows exactly what he said. His grin proves it.
I snatch a pillow and strike him in the face.
Hale catches it, laughing. “Violence means you’ve got energy left.”
“I always have energy for violence.”
“Good. You can use it to get under the covers.”
“You’re extremely commanding for someone currently holding a pillow.”
“I’m a prince.”
“So you keep saying.”
“We should sleep. Her new sight may worsen with exhaustion,” Tobin interrupts.
“My sight is fine.” I yawn then, ruining any chance I had of not sleeping.
Truth is, I need to sleep. I’m exhausted. This day has been… challenging.
“Fine,” I say and snuggle under the covers, closing my eyes and hoping I fall asleep quickly. The guys settle around me as SilverGate drops into the dead of night.
Sleep takes me fast.
One moment, Hale’s heat burns against my back, Tobin’s magic hums near my feet, and Leith’s death magic brushes the edge of my awareness.
The next, I stand on a battlefield.
Black earth stretches beneath a violet sky. Bodies surround me, stacked high enough to block the horizon. Dead warriors lie beneath my bare feet. Blood covers my hands.
I know this place.
My first memory.
Except this time, I’m not waking beneath the dead.
I’m watching myself.
A woman lies under three warriors several feet away. Long blonde hair spills through the blood. Her eyes remain closed, her body motionless.
My body.
Not the weak SilverGate version. The one waiting behind the gate. The one I ruled in.
Someone stands over her.
The figure wears silver armour marked with black symbols.
“Who the fuck are you?” I demand.
The stranger looks directly at me. Her eyes are purple, bright with divine magic.
“You took your time.”
“I was asleep.”
“You’ve been asleep for centuries.”
“Rude.”
The battlefield shakes. Power rips through the bodies around us, tearing magic from the dead and driving it into the stranger’s armour.
The corpses collapse around her. Skin draws tight over bone, while armour rusts. Wings disintegrate, and the power enters the black symbols, turning them gold one by one.
I step back. “You’re a syphon.”
“No.”
“I’m watching you drain a battlefield.”
“You’re watching me gather what was stolen.”
“Sounds like syphon bullshit.”
The woman’s expression hardens. “Yseld stole from thousands. Every life she consumed remained bound to her magic. When she died, that magic passed into the crown.”
My attention cuts to the woman beneath the bodies.
To me.
“What does that have to do with her?”
“Everything.”
A violent pulse moves through the battlefield. The stranger lifts both hands, directing the gathered magic towards my motionless body.
Purple power enters my chest.
My back arches beneath the dead. The three warriors covering me roll away, their armour striking the ground. Gold marks flare over my skin. They spread from my heart to my throat, then race down both arms.
I remember this.
Not watching it. Feeling it.
I remember pain consuming every part of me. I remember waking furious. I remember the god laughing at the top of the corpse mound.
I don’t remember her.
“You created me,” I say slowly.
“I woke you,” she corrects. “You already existed.”
“Where?”
Her attention shifts to my body. “All around.”
A laugh tears out of me. “Vague.”
The battlefield trembles again. The dead shift around my feet as trapped magic pulls free. Hundreds of colours enter the woman’s armour before she directs them towards me.
My sleeping body absorbs every tendril.
“What are you?” I ask.
“The last priestess who remembered what Yseld did.”
“Name?”
“Eirwen.”
The name enters the air with power. It doesn’t choke her. SilverGate doesn’t rip it away.
“Why were you on that battlefield?”
“To end the succession.”
“What succession?”
“Yseld couldn’t return to StormGate after her execution, but her magic survived.”
“Boring. What did you mean I was all around?”
“Chaos.”
I recognise it with absolute certainty. “I’m chaos?”
“Quite.”
“You gave me a body? A form?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” I mutter, wondering why I never really knew this. I suppose it didn’t matter. I ruled, end of story.
“Why end the succession?” I ask.
“Because every ruler who claimed the crown strengthened Yseld. Each death returned more power to what remained of her.”
“And you decided creating me would solve that?”
“I decided chaos couldn’t be inherited, contained, or consumed.”
I smile. “Finally, someone with intelligence.”
Eirwen’s expression doesn’t soften. “I was wrong.”
I scowl.
She steps towards my body. Gold marks continue spreading over my skin, joining the purple magic lodged in my chest. The battlefield shifts under another violent pulse.
“What did you get wrong?”
“Chaos can’t be consumed, but it can consume.”
“Still sounds excellent.”
“It consumed Yseld’s current. Her power became yours. Her crown answered you because you carried everything she couldn’t control.”
I watch my old body draw its first breath beneath the violet sky.
“So I didn’t become divine when I took the crown.”
“You were already divine, Anaxandra. You were born divine. That crown was always going to be yours. These lesser gods who exiled you… they are born of Yseld.”
“Lesser,” I murmur. “But not me?”
“They carry fragments of her stolen magic,” Eirwen says. “Each one inherited a portion through the rulers who came after Yseld.”
“Then Z-man… Zether and the others murdered me to return that power to her.”
“They believed your death would divide your magic among them.”
I laugh. “Idiots.”
“They don’t understand what you are.”
“No one ever does.”
Eirwen turns towards me. Purple light burns through her eyes, but her face has started to fade. The battlefield shows through her skin in broken patches.
“And Yseld would swoop back in after taking my magic and rule again. What a bitch.”
Eirwen doesn’t answer. She can’t. She has dissolved, leaving me staring down at myself.
I wake up with a jolt, drenched in sweat, and push Hale’s arm off me. He is an inferno.
The guys are sleeping, so I creep out of bed and slip into the en-suite. I close the door quietly and turn on the cold tap. Water hits the basin. I splash my face, then brace both palms against the edge and stare at my reflection.
My eyes burn purple before it dies again. I’m back to being Asha, low-level witch instead of a god born from pure chaos.
No fucking wonder I’m such a menace. It makes me smile.
The smile dies when black writing appears across the mirror.
Not all of them
I stare at the words.
Water keeps running into the basin. The letters remain on the glass, dark enough to block my reflection.
“Eirwen?” I whisper.
The black marks distort.
Trust death
“Helpful,” I mutter. “Which death? Yseld’s? Mine? The irritating reaper stealing my bedding?”
A third message cuts across the glass.
He remembers
My pulse jumps.
“Who? Who remembers?”
StormGate
“StormGate is a he?”
The words disappear. My reflection returns.
I glare at it. “That cleared up absolutely nothing.”
The water shuts off without me touching it.
SilverGate has opinions again.
I dry my face, open the door, and nearly walk into Leith. He stands on the other side, fully awake, black tendrils moving over his bare chest.
I glance towards the bed. Hale and Tobin haven’t stirred.
“You move quietly,” I whisper.
“I’m a reaper.”
“Is that the official explanation for all your unsettling habits?”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes drop to my damp face, then shift to the en-suite. “Liar.”
“Rude.”
Leith steps past me and enters the bathroom. The mirror shows nothing except us. I’m tiny beside him. He studies the glass for several seconds.
“What did it say?”
I close the door so the other guys can’t hear. “Not all of them. Trust death. He remembers. StormGate.”
The black magic stills across Leith’s skin.
That answers one question.
“You know what it means.”
“No.”
“Your entire body just reacted.”
“My magic reacted to spooky words written in a mirror.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try again.”
Leith puts one hand against the mirror. Black magic spreads beneath the surface, consuming our reflections. Symbols emerge through the darkness. I recognise them from the tunnels, though I couldn’t read them before.
Now I can.
Sovereign death preserves the path.
I read it aloud.
Leith jerks his hand away. The darkness remains.
“You can read that?” he asks.
“I can now.”
“What does it say?”
I repeat the words.
His expression closes off.
“It decorated the walls under it. Why can I suddenly read it?”
“Your sight has changed.”
“My sight lets me see magic, not translate ancient warnings.”
The symbols rearrange.
The first death remembers.
Leith’s magic strikes the mirror and erases the message.
“Temper,” I murmur.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Read anything else it gives you.”
I stare at him. “You know that’s not going to happen.”
“This could be Yseld.”
“Her magic is purple and gold. This is yours.”
“Black magic belongs to death. I don’t own all of it.”
“But it owns part of you.”
His blue eyes turn cold. “Careful.”
That confirms more than he intended.
I step closer. “What do you remember?”
“Nothing.”
“You expect me to accept that after my mirror told me to trust you?”
“I expect you to question why an unknown entity wants you to.”
“I question everything. I can question it while forcing answers out of you.”
“Force them, then.”
His calm challenge sends a thrill through me that has no place in a serious interrogation.
I place my hand on his chest and wait.