8. Tobin
Tobin
Iwake to death magic scraping through the wards.
Silver magic gathers in my palm before I open my eyes.
Asha and Leith are gone.
I sit up.
The en-suite door is closed. Black magic bleeds through the gap beneath it, winding into the room before withdrawing again.
“Hale.”
He wakes instantly. Fire ignites over his hands as he rolls off the bed and lands on his feet. “What happened?”
I point towards the bathroom.
His attention fixes on the door. “Why are they in there?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t need to investigate.”
“You’re investigating by sitting there doing nothing?”
“I’m assessing.” I pull on my pants and approach the en-suite. Hale follows without bothering to dress. The black magic thickens before we reach the door, then Asha speaks from inside.
“Show me.”
Leith answers too quietly for me to catch the words.
A sharp pulse strikes the door.
I open it.
Asha stands naked in front of Leith with one hand pressed to his chest. Black tendrils cover the mirror and run along her arm. Her eyes burn purple, while gold marks flare beneath her skin.
Leith’s eyes have turned entirely black again.
“Take your hand off him,” I say.
She doesn’t look at me. “No.”
Hale enters behind me. Fire fills the small room, reflecting through Leith’s magic. “What the fuck is this?”
“Information,” Asha replies.
Leith seizes her wrist, but instead of removing her hand, he presses it harder against his chest.
Black magic surges up her arm.
Asha’s head snaps back.
I drive silver power between them. The strike breaks their contact and throws Asha into Hale. He catches her against his chest while I grab Leith and force him against the wall.
His black eyes fix on me.
Several voices leave him at once. “He remembers.”
“Who?” I demand.
Leith’s hand closes around my throat.
Death-magic punches through my mental barriers. A battlefield opens inside my head. Bodies cover black earth beneath a violet sky. A crowned figure stands over Asha’s real body with blood running down his armour.
Then Leith releases me.
The vision ends. I stagger back and reinforce every barrier in my mind.
Hale holds Asha around the waist while she fights to reach Leith again. “Stop fucking moving.”
“Let me go.”
“Not while you’re trying to climb inside the reaper.”
“I was looking at his magic.”
“You were being consumed by it.”
“I had it under control.”
“You always say that when you absolutely fucking don’t,” Hale growls.
I study Leith. His eyes remain black, but blue breaks through around the edges. “What did you show me?”
“I didn’t.”
“Your magic did.”
Asha stops fighting Hale. “What did you see?”
“A battlefield. Your first one, I assume.”
“StormGate,” she murmurs. “He remembers.”
“Who is ‘he’?”
She gives me an annoyed stare. “StormGate.”
“StormGate’s a he?” Hale asks, looking confused, which isn’t fucking hard.
“Who knew?” Asha replies. “That is not the point. ‘He remembers’ is the point.” She glares at Leith. “Who are you, really?”
Leith’s eyes clear another fraction. “I’m a reaper.”
Asha’s expression turns murderous. “I know that part. Try the part you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
The mirror cracks behind him.
Black lines cut through the glass, forming ancient script before any of us can stop it.
The first death serves the first realm.
Leith strikes the mirror with his elbow. Glass breaks across the basin and floor. The darkness remains suspended over the ruined surface, the message untouched.
“Well,” I say. “That seems bad.”
“No, shit,” Hale mutters.
I send silver magic into the black message. Death closes around it and strips my power apart. I try again with a narrower thread, testing the construction instead of attacking it.
The words aren’t a spell.
They’re a memory.
“Leith,” I say. “Touch it.”
“No.”
Asha snorts. “That sounded almost frightened.”
Leith scowls at her. His eyes return to blue, but death-magic continues moving under his skin. “You don’t know what’s in there.”
“That is why we need you to touch it,” I reply.
His stare shifts to me. “You saw the battlefield.”
“I saw one moment. A crowned male standing over Asha’s body.”
Asha goes still. “Which crowned male?”
“Silver armour. Blood across the front. I couldn’t see his face.”
“The god I killed.”
“Did he have black marks across his throat?” Leith asks.
Asha’s focus cuts to him. “I remember his head coming off. I wasn’t studying his skin.”
Leith looks at the suspended message. Death magic gathers around his fingers, drawn towards it despite his refusal.
I catch his wrist before he touches the words. “What marks?”
His pulse remains steady beneath my fingers. “The mark of sovereign death.”
“And that means?”
“The god was first death.”
Silence drops through the bathroom.
Hale looks between them. “She removed the head of the first death?”
“Not the, just first death.”
“What exactly does that mean?” I ask, struggling to keep up, and that insults my pride.
Leith pulls his wrist from my grip. “The first creature to hold death as a sovereign power. Not an aspect or a calling. He became its god.”
“And Asha killed him within seconds of waking,” Hale says.
Asha lifts her chin. “I was efficient.”
“You inherited his crown,” Leith continues. “You also inherited whatever authority remained in it.”
“Death?” she asks.
“Part of it.”
Her attention narrows on him. “And the rest went where?”
Leith looks at the black words suspended over the broken mirror. “Into the realm.”
StormGate remembers.
The message changes.
Black script burns in the air, clearer than before. Death magic rushes from Leith and strikes it. The words break apart, then rebuild.
The realm chose chaos.
Asha goes silent.
That concerns me more than any threat. “You.”
I examine the magic running between her and the message. Gold and purple marks glow beneath her skin, but another power moves between them now. Black threads rise from her chest and vanish into the writing.
“Hale, release her.”
He gives me a suspicious look. “Why?”
“Because the message has attached itself to her.”
His grip drops at once.
Asha steps away from him, apparently unconcerned by the black power leaving her body. “Does it plan to explain itself?”
The words change.
Death remembers the sovereign.
Asha reaches for them.
I catch her hand before her fingers enter the memory.
“Don’t touch unknown Death magic.”
“You just ordered Leith to touch it.”
I give her an incredulous look. “He’s a reaper.”
“I carry sovereign death.”
“Wow, you jumped on that without a second thought and accepted it just because.”
Asha pulls against my grip. “That still makes me more qualified than you.”
The black threads tighten between her chest and the writing. She gasps. I release her hand and cut through the connection with silver magic.
Pain drives into my palm.
The bathroom vanishes.
I stand on black earth beneath a violet sky. Asha’s real body lies among the dead, her golden marks burning beneath blood-covered skin. A figure kneels beside her with both hands pressed over Asha’s heart.
The crowned god stands several feet away with his head still attached.
“You can’t bind it,” the god says.
The figure doesn’t look at him. “I’m not binding it.”
“You gave chaos a body.”
“I gave the realm a choice.”
“It already chose.”
The battlefield moves beneath my bare feet. Not the ground. Power. Black magic travels through the earth and enters the dead. Every corpse opens its eyes.
I don’t get to hear what they say as the bathroom comes rushing back. I hit the wall hard enough to crack a tile.
Asha catches my upper arm before I drop onto the broken glass. Silver magic jerks through my hands, disordered by the memory.
“What did you see?” she demands.
I reinforce my mental barriers and straighten. “A female kneeling beside your body. The crowned god still had his head attached. She told him she gave the realm a choice.”
Asha’s fingers tighten on me. “What choice?”
“You.”
The black writing changes.
Chaos accepted.
Death magic explodes through the bathroom.
Hale drags Asha into the bedroom while I throw a barrier across the doorway. The black power strikes it and spreads over the silver surface. Hundreds of voices drive into my mind, too tangled to separate.
Leith catches my arm. “Drop the barrier.”
“It’s containing the memory.”
“No, it’s feeding on your power.”
The silver surface turns black.
I release it before the corruption reaches my core. Death rushes past us and fills the bedroom, covering the walls with fragments of the battlefield. Dead warriors open their eyes across every surface. A violet sky burns over the ceiling.
Hale ignites. “Tell me what to burn.”
“Nothing,” Leith says. “This isn’t an attack.”
“It’s covering the fucking room.”
“It’s a record,” I say as the voices separate into distinct layers. “The room stored it.”
“Rooms don’t store memories,” Hale growls.
“This one does,” Asha says. She stands inside Hale’s reach, black threads pouring from her chest. “Or StormGate does.”
The battlefield covers every surface now. SilverGate’s walls remain beneath it, visible only when the memory flickers. Hundreds of dead warriors stare towards Asha’s real body.
The female kneels beside her.
Asha steps closer. “That’s the priestess from my dream. Eirwen.”
The crowned god moves through the memory on the wall to my right. Blood coats his silver armour, but he isn’t injured. His crown carries seven points, and black marks spread from his throat beneath his collar.
Leith approaches him.
Death magic pulls from his body and enters the dead warriors. Their eyes follow him as he passes.
“Leith,” I warn.
“They know me.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
He stops in front of the crowned god. The memory moves around him, untouched by his presence, until the god turns his head.
His face becomes visible.
Leith’s face.
Asha goes rigid. “You.”
“Not me,” Leith says.
“Looks a damn sight like you,” I mutter, “but you aren’t ancient. I’d know it.”
Leith gives me a look, and then the fragments vanish, and we are back to standing in the bedroom at SilverGate Academy.
“Well,” Asha says. “That was fun.”
“Not really,” Hale growls.
“I agree with the hellhound—” I say.
“This was bad, really bad. SilverGate doesn’t allow shit like this. It blocks it. That’s what the fucking wards are for. So why? Why did it happen?” Hale interrupts me.
Leith looks at Asha. “Because it recognises her.”
“SilverGate recognises me by trying to drown me, imprison me and erase my identity,” she says. “Its affection needs work.”
“Not SilverGate,” I reply. “StormGate.” I examine the bedroom.
No trace of the memory remains, but death magic has lodged in every ward.
Black threads run through the silver barriers around the door and windows.
They don’t corrupt them. They exist beside them.
“That record crossed realms through Asha,” I say.
“SilverGate couldn’t block it without blocking her. ”
Hale’s fire lowers. “It trapped her in that body. It can block her.”
“It contained her soul when she arrived. This connection predates her arrival.”
Asha glances down at her chest. The black threads have vanished beneath her skin. “StormGate chose me before I woke.”
“That’s what the memory implied.”
“Then why show us now?”
Leith touches the centre of his chest. “Because the archive woke sovereign death.”
I focus on him. “The cabinet attached stolen memories to you.”
“It did more than that. It forced my magic open.”
Asha walks towards him. Hale moves with her, close enough to grab her if death magic erupts again. “What has any of this got to do with Yseld?” She turns to me for an explanation.
“Yseld created him. Or rather, he was born from her essence with her inherited power. Her son, or grandson maybe. Magically speaking, of course,” I say with a frown as I think out loud.
“Yseld was the first god, she spawned more gods. They are lesser gods to you, a true god with true power. It’s why it took six of them to remove you from that power.
They essentially ripped your power—chaos—out of you and left you to rot.
SilverGate, Yseld, caught you so you could re-enter StormGate, probably with Yseld piggybacking.
She would then reclaim her power, one assumes by killing her spawn, syphoning their power and thus being able to kill you herself and syphon off your power. Chaos.”
“Fucking hell on fire,” Hale murmurs. “You just figured all that shit out?”
I smirk. “Prodigy, remember. Besides, I might not be right. It’s a theory.”
“A working one,” Asha mutters. “And pretty solid, nerd-boy.”
“Good thing you like nerds,” I retort.
“Good thing I like hot nerds,” she says and turns away and walks to the window, still naked. “Anything else?”
I shake my head. “Nothing for now. I need time to marinate this information. Study it. I’ll be in the library.” I magically dress myself and move out before any of them can stop me.