Chapter 29
This is everything I don’t want to do.
Risking the well-being of Astin, of all people, just so I can harm Damian and Eira. It’s everything I’ve preached I’d never do. But the smell of roses, inexplicably, grows stronger, sweet and delicious and unwavering. He trusts I can do this.
Maybe I should too.
I’m in control. I don’t need to be afraid.
I can make good things happen.
Damian finally lets Eira go, and my nail gently scratches the surface of Astin’s arm. That tiny contact is all it takes for something akin to liquid daylight to flood my veins, more powerful than the fear from that girl in the maze, or Damian’s rage.
‘What are you doing?’ a sharp voice cuts across the room, but I don’t pay any attention.
The ropes around our wrists snap.
I press harder. I can’t get enough. Sugar. Everything is sugar and honey and roses. In my limited Souleater experience, I can safely say Astin’s the best thing I’ve tasted. Damian might be able to make emeralds, but I’m convinced I can make gold.
The bindings around our ankles come apart next.
The voice comes again. ‘Stop that!’
Footsteps.
A wraith takes form in front of me, but this one doesn’t belong to Eira.
It’s mine. And it’s not made of shadows, but golden, blinding light, its human form solid as a statue, legs thick as tree trunks firmly planted on the floor.
Wings burst from its shoulders, shielding us from view, and for once I don’t shrink back, even when they flap a warning beat.
With a start, I realise it looks like the statue in the maze. The fact that Ozias modelled it on a wraith like this makes me think I must be doing something right.
The shouts get louder, and my wraith shakes as though something’s tried and failed to pummel its middle.
I cling to Astin. More. I need more. My chest heaves as I channel and channel and channel everything I can, and my heart is swelling, like there’s too much love in me now, and I’m panting, and Astin is slumping at my side – no.
I pull back. No, no, no.
‘Do something!’ Damian’s voice rings out. My wraith’s wings swell, increasing the shield before us. ‘Fight her!’
Eira’s response is high-pitched and shrill, but I don’t care about the pair of them right now. Astin’s eyes have fluttered closed, but there’s a smile playing on the corner of his mouth, and there’s no grey tinge to his skin. In fact, he looks positively euphoric.
‘Did you get enough?’ he murmurs.
I sigh in relief that I haven’t withered him into nothing, which is the only respite I get before a familiar shriek fills the room. For fuck’s sake. The other benefit of my golden wraith is that it has the decency to remain quiet.
‘I have enough.’ I press a kiss to the top of his head, and stand, stepping to the side of my wraith to find Eira has conjured three of her own.
They’re smaller than mine, all wispy ink and shadow, like whatever terrible emotions she channelled to power her magic are no match for the unbreakable force of Astin’s gift.
I conjure two more to match hers, while Damian cowers at the side of the room.
I cannot believe we are having this fight because of a man we could both obliterate in a heartbeat. ‘It doesn’t have to be this way, Eira. We don’t have to do this.’
A shadow wraith shoots forward, a blast of black air that stinks of putrid mud, cloaking one of my wraiths in darkness.
It glows from within, and the shadows vibrate, burning from the inside out.
Eira trembles with the effort of holding it in place.
Her gaze darts over to Damian as though she’s standing in that park in Shiverholde once more, waiting for permission to stop.
It never comes. Tears fill her eyes, but she only pushes harder, forcing her shadows to swell, and swell, and swell around my wraith.
I feel those shadows as though they’re trying to absorb my own body, darkness crawling and climbing over me, suffocating me, smothering my mouth, pushing me to the ground, but there’s so much magic inside me now, bursting at the seams, and I allow it to explode.
Light blazes. Shrieks fill the room. Eira’s wraith erupts in a cloud of darkness, one that sends shadows briefly spearing into every corner of the room before they fade to nothing.
When my vision clears, it’s to find us both gasping for air.
Eira’s remaining wraiths waver at her side.
Mine stand firm. Her chin wobbles, and a second wraith glides forward, this one coming straight for me.
With a flick of my wrist, one of mine charges into it, battering it back.
It flies over the collapsed wall and into the open air, where it spirals in the wind like a bird caught in a storm.
One left.
She looks across at Damian again, unsure.
‘Finish her,’ he orders.
‘Why are you talking orders from him?’ I say. ‘You’re the one with the power. You can stop this. He can’t. He can’t do anything without you. Has he ever told you that? Has he ever made you feel special at all?’
‘I’m not special,’ she says instantly. ‘I keep failing the experiments. Once I get them right, he can finally love me.’
‘If you ever get it right, he’s going to take that knowledge for himself. You’re an experiment, Eira. That’s all you were to him. If I wasn’t a Souleater, he would’ve forced you to finish the potion instead, without caring for the consequences. You have to believe me.’
Her final wraith splits apart, and a black arrow shoots straight for me. I twist, and it smacks into the wall.
Eira clutches her head. ‘Stop talking. Stop it.’
‘No.’ I approach her carefully, a golden wraith guarding my side. ‘No, I won’t stop it. You shouldn’t have to get things right for him to love you. He should do it anyway.’
For a moment, there’s silence. Just heavy breathing and loaded tension, along with a prickle of irritation from Damian’s corner of the room. Eira’s shoulders rise and fall to the rhythm of the wingbeats at my side.
‘You know it, don’t you?’ I say softly. ‘You know I’m not the one you should be hurting.’
Her eyes snap to meet mine. They’re clouded in darkness; her pupils huge and dilated. ‘You’re wrong. He’s all I have. He’s all I ever had. I have to keep him forever.’
‘Eira –’
Her final wraith swells before I can finish my sentence, growing taller, and taller, and taller.
My heart tumbles. It stretches upwards, barely able to be contained by the room, bathing us in near black.
Any trace of human form has vanished, the shadows now wolf-shaped if anything, with a triangular snout that snaps and snarls as its claws scrape the floor.
Lightning crackles within it. Flashes of white fill the darkness, while a wind lifts the ends of my hair. The emerald above our head groans.
Gritting my teeth, I reach for all the love I channelled from Astin and let it burst. My wraiths combine to form one, blasting upwards like a shooting star, a stream of gold hurtling towards the gaping hole that thing calls a mouth.
Mine might be smaller, but its fast, and powerful, punching straight into the shadow-wolf’s jaw, eliciting a howl that makes the floor tremble.
Its head crunches against the ceiling, and emerald dust rains down on us.
My wraith morphs into its own animal shape – a golden bird, complete with a blazing tail of flames and talons wider than my head.
Its talons slice though the wolf’s middle, and wisps of rotten shadow spill from its insides, dripping bloody black splatters across the floor.
The wolf shrieks and writhes, but refuses to give in, its mouth widening to reveal freshly formed teeth.
Eira claps her hands together and it sinks those fangs into my bird’s throat.
The impact is as though it were on mine.
I cry out, slapping my hand to my neck, and the light in the room fades ever so slightly.
No. I’m running out of magic, but I refuse to give in, pushing everything I have into my wraith.
It wrenches free before they clash again, tumbling over and over, light and dark, black and gold, energy spitting out from between them.
‘Eira,’ I try again, shouting to be overheard over the snapping of jaws and enraged yelps of pain.
‘Listen to me. I used to think love was something you could force. That I could tell two people they belonged together and that would be enough for magic to happen. But love doesn’t work that way. Love is –’
My stomach flips as I catch movement in the corner of my eye: Astin, moving at last, rising to his feet, reunited with his knife.
‘It’s . . . going along with some hare-brained plan to make your guests so cold they have to snuggle, although you think it’s ridiculous.
It’s holding your hand when you cry in the dark.
It’s giving up something they want in order to help you, even if it means going against everything they believe, or nearly getting themselves killed on a mountain.
It’s accepting them as they are. Choosing them despite the ways they drive you nuts.
Damian might say he’ll love you once you’ve pleased him in some way, but when has he proven that might be true?
What actions has he taken to show that? When he lied to you about what his party was for?
When he sent us out in search of a potion, knowing it might kill you? Don’t you think you deserve better?’
My bird plunges its talons straight into the space where the wolf’s heart should be.
Darkness streams from above, staining Eira’s cheeks black like corrupted tears.
The wolf shrinks in size, lightning sparking out, shadows turning from black to grey, and the room floods with light once more.
My bird glows brighter as Astin finds my side, lacing his hand through mine.
Eira’s chin wobbles.
‘Don’t listen to her,’ Damian says.
‘There has to be a part of you that knows I’m right. You’ve been fighting for him this whole time, but when has he ever fought for you?’