Chapter 64
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Darkness.
Absolute darkness.
Helaina turned back the way she came, but the door she had entered through was gone. There was nothing she could see, nothing she could touch. Yet this place had a familiar feel.
She brought her hands toward the smoothness of a wall and began feeling her way to the side. She collided with another wall and then another. Four corners—she was in a room. She felt for a doorknob, a latch, a window. Her fingertips perceived nothing but flat cold.
This place, she had been here time and time again. The dark room she had subconsciously retreated to in her dreams.
This room used to haunt her—the solitude a frightening nightmare.
Her grief had warped it into a welcome place where she could run and hide, where she didn’t have to move forward.
This was no trial of the gods. This was a gift from Ures; he was letting her rest. She was no chosen warrior; she could stay here and never be a danger to anyone.
Before her eyes, one of the walls began to lighten. She saw her reflection there. The wall had changed into a mirror.
What stared back was Helaina . . . but there was something wrong.
The mirror image wasn’t her current body.
It was the starved, weak version she had folded into after losing her siblings.
Her likeness wore a sinister grin as it stared back at her.
Helaina waved her hand above her head to ensure it truly was a reflection.
The image copied her, then opened its mouth to speak.
“Alone. Burden. Selfish. Foolish. Murderer. That is what we are.” It hissed the words.
We killed her. We let him die.
“That’s not true.” She fought the anger brewing at the accusations, trying hard to believe none of this was her fault.
The mirror version snickered in answer. “It’s always been true.” Then her own abused and frail body stepped through the glass and met her face-to-face. Shadow danced at its back as it spoke again. “Stay here, stay with me. We can’t hurt anyone if we stay.”
Helaina looked at the familiar version of herself staring back at her. She had punished herself so thoroughly for the crimes she committed, but they were never her crimes to atone for.
“No,” Helaina replied.
Her likeness contorted its face into menacing rage. “Then you will die here!” It flung its flurry of shadow onto her, pushing her against the opposite wall.
She felt the vise around her neck as it lifted her into the air.
“You are weak. You are nothing.” The words rasped in her ear as she struggled to fight the hold on her throat.
Life or death. Rise up now, or it ended here.
“it should have been you! not krysta! not adriel! you!”
The shadows squeezed tighter.
All the things she used to believe, all the thoughts of suffering that infected her mind.
She couldn’t change the past. She could go back and change what was coming.
Helaina closed her eyes as her breaths grew shallow.
She reached deep into the pit of her soul, drawing on that burning in her chest. She let the memories flash behind her eyes.
Her time with her siblings as children, their fights, their embraces.
Siblings were supposed to grow old together.
Dolion, Drayella, even Valhoor, they’d stolen from her, and they would steal from other innocents if she didn’t survive this.
She pressed her shaking hands to the icy wall behind her.
Her own shadows materialized, pushing back against the others, peeling the constricting strand from her throat.
Her likeness balked but recovered, throwing its hands in the air, forcing its magic to attack again.
Helaina met it with a ferocious boom of power, sending her horrid likeness back toward the mirror.
It hissed and fought, trying to claw its way back to Helaina. “murderer! weak! coward!”
These shadows represented the worst parts of her. They were every bit of murk and self-loathing, every ounce of pain and regret she had tried to bury. They were every agonizing memory she had begged to erase.
This darkness could not swallow her. Instead, she would invite it in. She would run from them no more—she would embrace them.
“You’re right,” she admitted to the malicious image. “I’ve been all those things . . .”
She closed her eyes as her hands bled into the blackness. She felt shadows crawl through her fingers, seeping through every crack and crevice of her skin, responding to her so effortlessly. They had never done that before. These shadows weren’t dim; they possessed fractals of glimmering moonlight.
“. . . but I’m not you anymore. You can stay here, hiding in the dark, alone and forgotten. I’m going back.”
She opened her eyes, and those glittering shadows erupted in erratic streams, stretching to all corners of the room.
Her demonic likeness raised its hands to protect itself, but it was too late.
Her shadows forced it back where it came from, until its body rippled into the mirror.
It banged on the glass, trapped somehow, clawing at the wall until bloody streaks appeared in vertical tracks.
“You want to give me power, Valhoor? I’ll take it.
” The shadows danced and twirled above as she challenged the Death God, wherever he might be.
“I’ll make you regret this curse. I’ll make you regret me.
” Power surged from her fingertips as she made her vow.
If Valhoor was listening, he would know he had made a terrible mistake.
Let him come for me, his nightmare queen, too.
Shadows swirled and intertwined with one another. Dancing victoriously like they had been waiting so patiently for this—for her. They buried themselves in all the walls, all the edges of that dark and desolate box.
“Murderer! Selfish! You will stay! You are a broken burden!” The voice grew erratic, flinging its poison from every direction as it banged on its glass prison, blocked by Helaina’s shadows.
Helaina’s silver irises faded into vacant blackness. “I can’t hear you.”
She raised her arms up, willing the shadows to push and escape, forcing them outward.
“Let me out.” Helaina strained against the immovable walls. Her shadows billowed and thrashed against the room as she flexed every muscle, beckoning them to push and fight, willing them to break free.
“let me out!” Helaina roared.
The sparkling shadows gave a final push to all four corners of the cell. Sweat dripped from her brow as her teeth clenched so hard she thought they might crack.
“You will die if you leave! You will burn!” the voice snarled as the mirror began to crack from the force of Helaina’s power. The cracks deepened, and Helaina’s likeness developed a look of defeat . . . a look of dread as its shouting finally turned silent.
“Death comes for us all,” Helaina replied.
It was true. Death could come for her tomorrow. She refused to waste another breath hating the life she was given.
In a deafening boom, the walls fell, the mirror shattering into fragments. The weight lifted. The hateful voices fell silent. Her likeness was gone.
The shadows spread across the now-visible night sky, rippling in the open air, then wrapped around her like a warm embrace. The only emotion that burned within her now was a righteous rage her body was yearning to unleash.
She had passed. She was made anew; her mortal life was over. She felt it in her bones and in her veins. She was a demigod—a Divine.
She collapsed to the grass, letting her breath catch up with her.
Now, how was she supposed to get home?
She tilted her head up to find the light of a solitary white candle glowing in the dark of night. She reached out and wrapped her hand around the smooth wax, wondering who had left it here.
Before she could make another move, a hand outstretched and wrapped around hers. The hand was feminine and smooth. The touch was so gentle, a touch she recognized even in the dark.
Helaina’s breath caught in her throat.
An angelic silhouette came forward, allowing the glow of the candle to reveal golden-blond locks and full red lips. She was still beautiful.
Krysta kneeled before Helaina, completely whole. As if nothing had harmed her. The eldest Kelesian princess smiled. Helaina tried to open her mouth to speak. As she did, a second hand reached for the candle, engulfing both their grips, a man’s hand.
It can’t be.
She looked to her right as the candlelight revealed her brother’s face.
Adriel.
They were here, they were both here.
“Hey, kid.”
That stupid nickname, he used it every day no matter how tall she grew. It used to annoy her to no end.
Hearing it now . . . seeing his face, she missed it—she missed him.
The wrenched sob she let out was a combination of agony and elation.
“What are you doing here?” Her words were strained as she choked out the question. Tears began to well in her eyes.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Laina, waiting for you to get out, to leave that place behind,” her sister’s elegant voice said. “We’ve always been right here, leaving this light out for you, hoping you’d follow it out.”
In all the times she dreamed of that dark room, she had never heard their voices. Never seen a light.
“You were never here.” Helaina squeezed her eyes tight as a single tear traveled down her cheek. She had just felt unmeasurable power; now she felt so small as the faces she had so horribly wronged stared back at her. Thin streams fell from her eyes.
She was finally crying.
“You left.” She tried not to sound angry, but she was so sick of them not being where they should be.
They didn’t belong in the ether, not now.
They belonged with her. “I can’t even remember what it feels like to be who I was before.
To be who I was when you were with me.” She hung her head, wiping her eyes as another strangled sob left her mouth. “You should be here.”
“Oh, Laina,” Krysta’s gentle voice sang.“We never left you. We reached for you every night, leaving our light to guide your way out.” Krysta’s other hand reached out to wipe the tears from her sister’s cheek. “You were just stuck in a place so dark that you couldn’t see.”
Helaina’s shoulders shook uncontrollably as she tried to fight the urge to come undone.
Adriel took the hand that hung limp at her side.
The flickering flame became stronger.
“You’ll never get back to that place, kid, to the person you were before all this. That person is gone; let her go. Something greater has always been inside you, begging to come out.” He squeezed her hand again in earnest. “We should have never made you hide it.”
He smiled that one-of-a-kind smile.
Adriel let go of her hand, then pressed a piece of parchment to her palm. His smile retreated a bit as his eyes grew somber.
His note, she had left it in the pages of a book, but somehow it was here.
She kept one hand on the candle, afraid that letting go would end the hallucination. She jumbled the piece of old, tattered paper apart. The handwriting was jagged and rough, not his own. Like he was struggling with himself to write these final words.
In the light she read:
This is the one fight I cannot win.
But I know you can.
Helaina’s anger rekindled for that undead bastard. For all the death he had played a role in. He had held her brother’s mind hostage for years before finally taking him from her.
“I knew who it was. His voice was so clear, commanding my body. I promise I fought him every day, until the end.” Adriel let a single tear fall. “I wasn’t strong enough. But you are.”
Krysta sat back, allowing some of the dark to overtake her features once more. Adriel did the same. All three of the Ironblood children grasped that candle, their connection burning bright for one last time—one last breath.
“I’m sorry for everything, I’m so sorry,” Helaina whispered.
As the light began to flicker, their faces blended into the darkness. They were fading.
Adriel spoke, his voice distant now. “You never owed us those words a day in your life. We’re gone, kid. Nothing can undo it.” His reassuring smile returned in full. “Go, fight for something you can save.”
Krysta nodded as the wetness on her own cheeks grew.
Their faces blurred into obscurity as that single flickering candle finally went out.
“I love you,” Helaina whispered in the night.
She wiped the tears from her eyes as a figure appeared in the distance.
Ures, dressed in the golden armor she had seen him wear in countless paintings.
“I see you found what you were looking for.” He let his almighty axe rest on his shoulder as he spoke.
Helaina stood, holding her fingertips before her face, letting glittering shadows spark to the surface. They twirled playfully in her palm as she regarded them with fondness.
“I did . . . but I thought you said there were rules between the dead and the living. How did my brother and sister get here?”
Ures sauntered forward, a kind of arrogance there she hadn’t witnessed when they first met.
“My dear Helaina, you stabbed an ancient knife through your beating heart. You did not arrive here alive. The dead can always visit the dead, if they are willing.”
Helaina swallowed her remaining tears, remembering her purpose, remembering who was waiting for her back in Lynor.
“You better get back.” He placed a hand upon her heart. “Your power is restored. I can’t take his curse, your shadow, but I did give it a small bit of light, a gift my bonded used to treasure.” Helaina started to glow and tingle as she had when she’d come to this realm.
“Wait.” She reached out a hand. “My mortal scars . . . Can I have them back?” A question she’d thought she would never ask.
“Do you not wish them gone? Do they not bring you great pain?” He narrowed his thick brows in question as she continued to shimmer and fade.
She never wanted to forget. Never wanted to bury a single part of herself ever again.
“Not anymore,” she said. “I earned them.”
The god smiled upon her. The skin above her heart grew warmer where his hand remained. “There are many types of soldiers, warriors. I have always valued bravery and rewarded courage.”
Her skin was nearly translucent now.
“My pride is greater, knowing I share blood with such a champion.”
And then she was gone.