Chapter 65
Emmerick
“How could he get here?” I asked with a cough. Lark had Shadowed us to a volcanic island off the shores of Sahlmkar.
Cloying, foul-smelling steam greeted us, burning my nostrils. Glimpses of red lava flowed through cracks in the dark rock below our feet.
“My Shadows,” she answered, with a wince. She walked ahead of me, toward a steep incline, casting her gaze upward. “This way!”
The Princess scrambled up the cliff with a groan of exertion. “He’s here. I can feel it,” she added.
Pulse quickening, I imagined what it meant for us to fail—Caym held Dritan in his horrid clutches. The Corridors fell city by city. Isolde’s power restored to Death through killing my son.
Elsedora turned to dust…
Panic made my movements stiff as I climbed the scalding boulders behind Larkspur.
We were ill-prepared, and entering any battle with so little forethought spelled disaster.
The leather soles of my boots grew pliant as the heat emanated from the rock. Below, the tide steamed and beat the cliffs with relentless violence.
My height made it easier to climb, and I outpaced the Princess and offered her a hand to hoist her up onto a plateau. The smoke cleared enough to give us visibility across the volcanic mountaintop.
Yards away, Dritan stood, hands covered with blood, next to a hole dug in the hard ground. He wore wool socks that had burned through, a light tunic, and loose breeches, as though he’d just woken.
Lark’s gasp echoed against the gurgling waters. She screamed, “Dritan!”
“Son, it’s alright—we’re here,” I soothed out.
My old sword’s ruby pommel shone on the ground by his foot. A metal safe sat broken open next to it.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he clenched the carcanet in a reeled back fist as he held the black mirror in his other hand, intent to strike.
My hand flung out—he was still out of reach. “Don’t!” I yelled.
He paused, but his irises were onyx. His choices were no longer his own. Caym was leading him down a path of no return. I knew. I’d been there.
Lark grew rigid, and I grabbed her arm before she could Shadow to him.
“Dritan, please,” I called. The mirror trembled in his white-knuckled grasp. “Put it down, son. You can fight this.”
His eyes met mine; a flash of blue told me he was trying.
Lark broke free of my hold, and when she started for him, he barked out, “Stay away! Please...”
He gasped, and his grip on himself loosened, back stiffening with horrid determination.
Before either of us could make another move, he punched through the pane. Shards dug into his fist, and blood ran through his fingers.
Amber smoke erupted from the glass and surrounded him, tearing at his clothes and forcing him to his knees.
“Dritan!” Lark screamed again. I wrapped my arms around her midsection to pull her away from Death’s wrathful reach.
The smoke filled my son’s nostrils, encasing his whole body, before it dissipated abruptly. Dritan’s torso buckled, and when he gaped up at us, he did so with horrid, murky green irises and a vengeful scowl.
No…
His shoulders stiffened as he rose, with fingers blackened as though he’d handled a coal grate in a hearth. With a crack of his neck, he narrowed his eyes on me.
“I told you I would destroy everything that you love,” Caym growled through my son’s lips—a vicious, grating tone that punched the air from my lungs.
“Let go of me!” Lark shouted, but I held her tight; I would not fail Elsedora too. I couldn’t let Lark near him—not like this.
Sources. We were too late.
Again.
“Larkspur, compel him to the ground,” I hissed through my teeth. “Now!”
No softness laced my words; my mistakes had mounted beyond repair, so now all I could do was react in a manner that got her out of here alive.
She hesitated. I’d asked her to wield her Reverist power against her Source Match, against my son.
It felt wicked and wrenched my gut.
The monster who stood before us would ruin him. We needed more time…
Caym—in Dritan’s body—stalked closer.
“Now!” I repeated as Lark’s shoulders shook.
Vines of amber shot from his fingertips toward the Princess. Before the claws of death could reach her, Lark’s palm lifted on a sob, and Caym’s knees hit the hot rock with a thud. His attempted Death-wielding ceased.
“What do we do?” she shouted over the roar of waves breaking against the cliffs.
There was only one option.
And I fucking hated it.
We had no magic-binding cuffs with us—poorly planned. But we could not let Caym off this damned island uncontained. Caym could use Dritan’s bound ability to Shadow, meaning he was a liability awake. He would be a snake in the reeds; we would never find him until he struck.
“The Sethe curse,” I growled out, disgusted with my own conclusion.
Caym panted, writhing against Lark’s mental hold on him, and his bloodied fingers dug into the rock.
I’d get them both off this island. I’d buy us more time…
“I can’t,” she whimpered.
“I will do it. You will use the stone to wake him—but we need to contain Caym first. I will find a way to defeat him,” I said. A foolhardy promise, but I’d die trying.
“Alright,” Lark sobbed out, her hand trembling. “I’m so sorry, Dritan. If you can hear me, I’m so, so sorry. I will wake you. Soon. I swear it.”
She compelled Caym to remain on his knees and sank to hers before him. Their nearness caused my nerves to spike.
I crouched beside the snarling monster and looked him in the eyes as I repeated the verses. Recalling the curse came easily; it lived within my last memories awake. The words dug a knife into my chest as I heaved them out.
The final verse required a timeline to be set—a horrific responsibility.
“He shall remain asleep for a century, and if the curse goes unbroken, forever may he rest,” I concluded.
In that time, should the Morai attacks continue, there might not be a realm left for us to save.
Dritan’s body slackened. The hard lines of his scowl melted into a soft, drowsy expression before he slumped forward and fell to the hot stone ground.
Lark threw herself over him with a hearty cry. The mirror lay shattered beside him.
“We’ll find a way,” I reassured her, unable to breathe, unable to believe myself.
I’d cursed my son.
Every minute he remained locked away in that abominable existence with Caym was a minute I’d need to repent for.
Lark’s hands frantically moved to his neck and wrist, seeking a pulse, and her head met his chest. “He is breathing, but his heart isn’t beating,” she blubbered out. Her words made my blood run icy. “What does that mean?”
“It isn’t?” I lifted Dritan from under his shoulders and knees to keep him from the burning ground. “I don’t know…”
When I was under the Sethe curse, my heart had beat. I could hear it sometimes if I listened closely enough—a steady rhythm to anchor myself to.
My arm hairs pricked up as molten rock rose in the cracks of the cliffs and the island rumbled. “We need to get him out of here,” I shouted. “Get the carcanet.”
I retrieved the Sword of Isolde, glaring down at it before sheathing it at my hip. I found no comfort in having the relics back in our possession; little good they did us when the third, my son, lay vulnerable to whatever ends Caym planned for him.
Clutching my forearm, Lark asked, “Where should we go?”
We needed a miracle from the Sources themselves. There was only one woman I knew capable of summoning them.
“To the South Tower.” Without question, Lark Shadowed the three of us away from the crumbling island.
I didn’t have time to appreciate the expansive views from the ocean cliffs out the dining hall windows of Amara’s home.
I’d always loved this room when council meetings met here.
That felt like centuries ago—a time when Caym’s hate had weighed on my decisions and I’d aligned myself with all the wrong allies.
My birth mother’s residence was a seafarer’s dreamscape. Surrounding us were romantic views, sunset-soaked seashell chandeliers, and tapestries. Too cheerful for the occasion.
Silence greeted us. She wasn’t home. Shit.
“Set him here,” Lark said. She swiped her arm across a birch wood table, pushing away books and a vase of roses, which crashed to the ground.
I set Dritan gently down, scanning his too-pale face.
“Why did we come to Eros?” Lark asked, meeting my gaze.
“I once watched my mother summon the Sun Source to save your Aunt Asterie… She may be our last hope.”
“I’ll go find her,” she gasped out. “Stay with him.”
Before I could offer to go, she ran onto the balcony and descended the staircase that spiraled around the limestone spire, shouting for her aunt.
Dritan’s breath grew shallower, and a tremble overtook him, causing the legs of the dining room table to quake.
I clenched my fists, pressing them down on the table beside his head, wanting nothing more than to trade places with him.
If I’d never woken, if I’d kept fighting Caym, would we be here?
Would my son have to suffer the same torture?
I’d never felt so helpless as during those months under Caym’s control and then the years spent with him in my head—until now.
“You can fight him in there,” I whispered. “Stay strong. We haven’t gotten to know one another yet. And that girl—it would destroy her. Fight for her.”
Love made a powerful motivator to live—hazel eyes and a singsong voice had urged me forward every time I’d thought of giving up.
Lark Shadowed in with my mother. Amara’s mouth hung open when she spotted Dritan lying across the table. “I just returned from the docks to prepare ships to aid the West Corridor. Lark explained what happened.”
Amara clutched the beads of sea glass at her neck. Sand clung to her unpressed tunic, and bags had formed beneath her eyes.
Lark didn’t allow me a chance to speak. “We need to unbind Caym again,” she spat out. We can trap him somewhere new.”