Chapter Fifty Three
EINAR
Aspear of light embraced Einar, originating from an unknown place.
It yanked him out of the Hall of the Sea, and he went willingly to escape the overwhelming scent of defeat.
Moments later, a rare and quiet solitude wrapped him. He dropped to his feet, landing lightly. What once ached, now restored. Blood flaked free from his neck, his ears repaired. The wounds knitted together, and sensation returned as if the pain never existed.
A wide, pale room awaited. Reliquaries lined walls. Something in the air, the smell, also altered. Hints of life buzzed. Whispers occupied his headspace so distantly it might have been his imagination, but the vibrating thread dancing across his skin told him he didn’t imagine it.
He’d never felt so . . . alive.
Shifting colors drew his gaze down, revealing a gauzy, colorful artery that swirled in his chest. This was the smell. The buzz. The life.
Mila appeared with a bright smile. Her aura brought a radiance he almost couldn’t bear. He couldn’t shy away, because she drew him in. Not overwhelming but . . . curious. Familiar, too.
Mila asked, “Einar?”
“What—”
His question was cut off. Light glimmered from within her, infusing her throughout. Beams cut around her profile and waterfalled to him. When it touched his skin, a gentle warmth flooded his blood. He held up an arm. Tingles slid through his veins, increasing each moment.
“What’s happening?”
“Transference.”
“Of the arcane?”
“Yes.”
He pressed his hands to his chest, barely comprehending a knitting, a changing. It swept through him, altering him comprehensively.
Beaming, Mila said, “I was meant to hold the arcane, allow a new start, but it isn’t mine to keep. The arcane has chosen you as the next Arcanist of Souls.”
“Impossible,” he breathed. “I’m human. I thought the Arcanist of Souls?—”
Mila laughed, an airy thing. “That is a lie Onskar told everyone for centuries to protect himself, so that Arcanists thought he had all control and power. It wasn’t true. The Arcanist of Souls doesn’t have to be a child of the arcane, and he doesn’t choose any Arcanist. The arcane chooses.”
Einar comprehended this with an understanding that deepened beyond mortal ability.
Mila continued. “I am the vessel all the arcane resides in until it changes your soul into an Arcanist . . . if you should accept.”
The word hit him with a physical force.
Accept. The words accept and the Arcanist of Souls churned in his mind. He wanted no part of this, because he couldn’t unwind the horrible associations. Onskar. Death. Agnes.
Agnes.
In a flash, his entire comprehension changed. Agnes. This was the path to Agnes. Really, the only one that would work. As Arcanist of Souls, surely he stood the best chance to restore her to life.
If possible.
Doubts flooded him as quickly, laced with insecurity. The arcane offered a life that didn’t end. If he could pull Agnes into it, this position proffered his dream . . . at the cost of him accepting all that arcane, and all that power.
The decision would be irreversible. He could not reverse it.
What would it mean if he couldn’t bring Agnes’s soul to life again?
Did the arcane work like that? It seemed too simple.
Besides, he might have lost her soul in the Hall of the Sky.
If he couldn’t retrieve Agnes, accepting this role would lock him into eternities of arcane power and obligation and darkness without her.
His biggest question, amongst the dozens that swarmed him, peeped out in a rasp.
“Am I strong enough?”
Mila smiled.
“You must be or it wouldn’t have chosen you. From what I could tell, it’s been waiting for you to be ready all this time.”
Though misgivings existed, he ignored them. Nothing else mattered. Only Agnes, and he now stood the best chance of saving her.
He’d do anything.
“I would do anything to have her back,” he whispered. “I accept.”
The moment the last syllable left his tongue, the arcane swept him like fire. It sought and discovered every portion of him in mere moments. Every aspect was irreparably altered.
Pain crushed him, a mighty and terrible compression. He screamed. The sound wrenched from deep within as the arcane’s umbilical cord flowed from Mila in a steady, depleting chug. Her exuberance faded. Her luster turned to a glow and then nothing.
Einar twisted, writhing as the arcane crawled through each fiber and limb. The etchings of a new soul indoctrinated him with excruciating slowness. Nothing remained untouched. He became a new and entirely different creature.
The arcane twirled his chest in a circle. It glided close, tightening into a thread, until it consumed his final connection to humanity like a pouncing cat. The arcane drove inside his heart, shattered it.
It beat one last thud.
Einar’s eyes rolled back in his head. He gave in. Suspension overcame the rigid pain and the agony stopped. He floated, allowed the arcane entry, and kept the only thing that mattered at the topmost of his mind, fixated like a guiding star.
Agnes.
There was no struggle to remember her expressions, the fiery lines of crimson hair, the light eyes, brilliant smile.
He didn’t have to drudge through memories.
They came quickly, wholly. For a second time, he relived every recollection.
The lines of heat her trailing touch left.
The intensity of her stare. She had loved him so completely he hadn’t been able to breathe.
Her affection resurrected through his mind, fresh as a summer’s wind.
Reliving Agnes removed the pressure bearing down on his being. The re-weaving of his soul. The arcane infusion into every element that once made him human. Weakness drained away. He drifted, eyes closed, with Mila’s fading whisper in the background.
You are not alone, Einar.
Mortality funneled into nothingness. The dizzying whirls calmed. His body solidified. He felt impenetrable, like hard granite. He felt glorious in purpose and ready to conquer. As the agony ended and the arcane took its place, humming through his body and soul, Einar prepared himself.
“Agnes,” he breathed.
His change slammed to a halt.
The Arcanist of Souls opened his eyes.