Chapter 44 #2
She’d never come alone, that much I knew, and taking them both on at once would never work.
I looked back to Envy, studied his many trinkets, and the image of him clawing across the floor after a single gem reflected in my memory.
Sure, he served his queen. But first and foremost, he served his possessions.
If I could separate him from even a single one, I had no doubt his loyalty would follow.
Bethesda’s hand was the next to collide with my face. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
“Look at what?” I snapped. “You’re too much of a coward to show your face!”
Unbeknownst to her, I continued to twirl my wrist, noticing the nice gap I’d managed to create over the past however-many-days. Almost free.
“Coward?” Bethesda slipped into maniacal laughter, hand clasping her side.
“You are the coward! The Shroud has fallen into disarray under your care, because you’ve always been afraid to embrace your true nature!
You think I’m dark? Tell me then, Alchemist, why does the bloodstone continually find its way into your clutches?
Why do the Lores stalk your dreams, but never seem to bother with anyone else?
Because your soul is destined for Baneful magic!
Only you’re too weak to embrace it. Pathetic. ”
If it hadn’t been for the breakthroughs I’d made, the loved ones I was fighting for, I’d have taken her declaration to heart.
Agreed with her. But I knew myself now, and I wasn’t evil or dark or damned.
I was the opposite. Evil always seeks to destroy good, and I turned that darkness into light.
As I watched Envy step closer, I felt my first glimpse of hope return.
Light, it seemed, still had a fighting chance.
“You’re wrong,” I said, and smiled through the pain. “I’m nothing like you. I’m strong. Capable. I have people who love me, not subjects who fear me! You aren’t wanted, Bethesda. You aren’t loved!”
She grew eerily still, Envy now directly over me. This was it. My chance.
In a rush, I tore my wrist free from its binding, grabbed a fist full of loose flesh on Envy’s chest, and ripped. The sound the creature released was far less terrifying as it was pathetic. He fell to the floor, grasping at his chest madly. My talisman sang to me in my palm.
Before Bethesda had the chance to respond, my magic reacted, sending her reeling through the air in a violent blast of light.
My magic sank into my skin, hugged me from within as flames erupted, annihilated the bindings I had left, just in time for me to roll to the floor in a heap, narrowly missing Envy’s lunge.
I raised a trinket in the air, waited for him to take notice, before tossing it across the room … straight into Bethesda’s lap.
She looked up just in time for Envy to descend on her.
He clawed and grasped and thrashed, knocking her head not once but twice into the metal bars, her skull hitting loud enough it echoed down the hall.
When he reclaimed his missing gem, I whistled once, like one would for a dog, not some ancient, all-powerful manifestation. “Missing something?”
I tossed a pus-covered gold coin outside the cell and, as expected, he skittered off after it. A wave and the wind came to my aid, latching the cell door behind him.
The odds had officially tipped in my favor.
In two large steps, I was above Bethesda. My fist collided with her jaw—Envy’s last remaining treasure still clutched inside—until finally my fingers laced around her gold chain. One yank, and it was mine. Her talisman. Her magic. Mine.
Without pause, I moved toward the cell door, but a hand cloaked in fog latched around my ankle, sending me to the ground.
“You think I can’t wield magic without that?” she screeched. “You truly are a damn fool! I’m so glad I didn’t take after you.”
She laughed as she climbed over me, locking her fingers around my throat. My lungs heaved, gasped for air as the fog in her hands slid between my lips.
Her hold tightened. “I should have ended you a long time ago! I never needed you then, and I sure as hell don’t need you now! Neither of you!”
In time with the evil grin spreading across her face, I heard it: Cillian’s scream. A sound only the promise of death could make, rattling from the direction Envy had skittered down. My entire body turned to stone, heartbeat in my ear as I choked out, “What did you do to him?”
“You mean besides torture him within an inch of his life?”
The Baneful magic in me hissed, burying my light down deep. “If you laid a hand on him …”
She leaned down, placing her mouth to my ear. “And if I killed him?”
That was all it took for the shadows in my veins to come forth.
A laugh clawed up my throat, the low, wicked noise rising into a frenzy until her hands finally released me.
The grin on my face felt foreign, feral, and my skin somehow too tight.
And the power … I looked down to find the same fog that’d crowded my lungs, only now it lay pooled in my palms, shadows weaving between my fingers. Mine to wield.
Bethesda slid back on her hands, pressing against the bars. “How … how did you—”
A wave of my hand sent the fog straight for her throat, raised her up into the air as she grasped at it.
“Please, don’t do this—”
“Too much of a coward, huh?” I laughed again, relishing this new power in me.
While my other magics were kind, gentle, patient, the fog in my hand was anything but.
Strong and demanding, it made up its own mind, unwilling to listen to anything but its own selfish desires. And in that moment, it wanted revenge.
“Looks like you were wrong. I can embrace my own darkness if the situation presents itself,” I said, twirling her talisman around in my fingers. “And it appears as though it has.”
My hand latched around the metallic stone, squeezed once, and she crumpled to the ground in a heap.
I moved to stand over her; beheld her cast at my feet.
The urge to snap my fingers came over me, and I minded my magic’s call.
Bethesda instantly began to rile and thrash.
Her back arched as a scream ripped through her chest, unable to escape.
Steam began to rise from her cloak, and she reacted, stripping the hood from her head to reveal her face for the first time.
Every muscle in my body seized.
The face of a child.
My child …
Lynn.