Akub walked beside Zykeiah. The snow crunched under her feet as they made their slow march through the dark to face Manola.
Her hands and feet had become numb, and the cold had infiltrated her cloak when a building came into view. Grisly and ghastly, the structure struggled beneath the weight of the snow. Flickers of candlelight shined through grime-crusted windows.
“This grubby little castle once belonged to the descendants of Marvelina.” Octiva walked at a hencken’s stride up to the where the path broadened.
“Miserable pile that is,” Akub whispered. “Decrepit.”
The elder didn’t pause. The ministers went along, and Akub kept her pace. “We’re just going to waltz in there?”
Zykeiah shrugged. “We’re following the elder. This is a magick and lights show. Remember?”
Octiva held up her hand and stopped. They fell silent. With brave face, she approached on her own. The ministers all brandished weapons, ready for whatever came bolting through the wooden door. Nothing moved. Ahead, the seedy castle awaited.
“Where is everyone?” Marion asked, cutting a glance at Zykeiah.
She shrugged again. “There are elemental forces at work. Your eyes cannot be trusted.”
The door opened slowly. Octiva waved them forward. They rushed forward in hushed paces. The salty, putrid air rushed out to greet them. Octiva crossed the threshold with hands ready to cast.
The castle’s arched doorways opened into the foyer. A startled family huddled and others gravitated to the heated fireplace. Just to the right of the fireplace, a stairwell arced upward to the second floor. Light sobbing and some outright blubbering came from the crowd.
“Good evening, trust you made it without harm?” said a friendly, albeit somewhat cold, voice.
As soon as she crossed into the outer room, villagers appeared. Akub searched the downcast faces of those in Manola’s court. Draped in rags and weathered shoes, the former villagers didn’t look joyful to be free. In fact, as the last of the ministers entered, they stared off into an altered state, a trance that caused doll-like, glassy-eyed stares.
Was it their fear of Manola’s power?
Perhaps it was a trick of the light.
“Over here!” Octiva whispered.
Marion, Kalah, and several of the guards had already walked deeper into the castle. They stood at the square entranceway. Marion swept the guards aside.
“You guards stay put. Two out front. The rest here, watching the villagers. Something strange is afoot,” Marion whispered, and then to Akub, “I’ll go first.”
One by one, the ministers and Akub descended into a crypt-like room. The stairs creaked beneath their weight. In the narrow, rectangular-shaped room, a shrine had been erected. Gifts and offerings decorated the area just inside the entranceway. Did Manola offer predictions to these poor, desperate souls? Did this seem like they’d come to hear the voice of a god?
Manola—a god?
Akub shoved the ugly question away as they heard the trickling of water. The walls echoed with running water, too, as if from a spring. They must’ve descended to the lower levels.
“That’s water? It isn’t frozen,” Kalah whispered.
“Probably from the Capolla,” Marion replied.
This deep inside the Earth, the water flowed from the warmth. Akub’s hands tingled with power, anxious for battle. Down here, the space became so narrow they could hear each other breathe. Broad swordplay wouldn’t be an option. Beyond a pool in the center of the courtyard, a raised dais with a throne rested against what appeared to be curtains. One either side, tall, iron candelabras stood with fat, thick candles. The candles flickered from their breath. Soon they reached a tiny courtyard filled with flat stones. There a circle pool bubbled, sending warm air from the ground to the surface. The moisture hung in the air. In front of her, Marion wiped his brow. Beside her, Zykeiah pushed her glasses into her hair. Her unusual eyes glowed.
They made Akub pause, but then Zykeiah smiled. That made it all better.
In the pool, the water sloshed and parted as a dark figure rose from its center. The bubbling water belched strange scents. Manola solidified and spoke in a foreign tongue as her features and extremities sharpened and shaped. Her face came into grim focus. Splashes of dark crimson stained her face. She did enjoy killing, and it only satisfied her selfish emotions. As she reached outward, ragged claws appeared on her hands. Whatever she’d been involved with, it had transformed her.
“This is old magick,” Akub said. It left a bad taste in her mouth. This must be Marvelina’s sacred site, indeed. A passage she read from one of the library’s books spoke of Marvelina’s healing waters. How would those work on someone like Manola, an undead person lacking a soul?
Zykeiah grimaced. “If you say it.”
“Greetings, minister knights. Devourer.” Manola’s voice sounded like birds cawing. It echoed in the small space. Dripping with water, Manola stepped out of the raised bubbling water with a grin a mile wide etched across her face as if they weren’t enemies, but long lost friends.
Akub fell back several paces. Manola’s nude form glowed in the low light. The slice across her neck was a big open mouth, scarlet and jagged. It remained all these days later after Marion had given her that blow. She hadn’t healed it. Strange. Tension boiled as a heavy silence fell across the room.
Her body bore injuries from the battle. What had that sacred spring given Manola if not healing?
“Greetings.” She didn’t have a weapon, but Manola often did not need one. “Life given. Death lifted. I knew you’d come, Akub.”
Marion held his sword at the ready, but in this space, he could only thrust with it. She’d selected a solid place to retreat, and Akub noted they had few options for battle. Overhead, voices filtered in from the floor above. Glass crashed. People shuffled around. Scattered groans rent the silence. Manola plotted to shatter the ministers’ kingdom, and that could not stand.
“Marion!” Zykeiah shouted.
Manola before them. Defected villagers behind them. They could split up, but that would defeat their purpose in coming as a unit. The palace guards, all ten of them, wouldn’t be able to corral an angry mob, and it seems that once Manola arrived down here, the trance on them ceased.
“Kalah, see to the people and the guards,” Marion ordered, not flinching nor turning about to face them. He kept his eyes on the threat ahead, sending the younger minister to the threat behind.
Akub heard Kalah’s boots on the stairs. As he fled upstairs, a rear door opened behind Manola and out stalked Lady Amana. Dressed in an ebony gown trimmed in fur, she seemed to emerge from the gloom, a specter of doom. Her long, tightly coiled hair had been pulled up into a loose ponytail. Marion sending Kalah upstairs spared the young prince from a macabre reunion.
Ahead, standing stark naked in the face of them, Manola spread her arms wide. “Come, Amana. I long to feel the weight of you in my arms.”
Amana grinned, throwing back her hood in the process, and walked into the light. She draped a robe over Manola’s nudity, and the sorceress put her arms through the sleeves and knotted the belt. Manola raked her blood-red nails across Amana’s smooth cheek, but her gaze was all for Akub.
“I made her,” Manola leered, with a fast glance back at them. “Did you know that? I crafted her from clay and into something more.”
“Stop prattling on,” Zykeiah said.
Amana peered at them and searched their faces before laughing. “No Sarah, minister knights? I’m guessing she’s too distraught to make this journey?”
“Enchanter!” Octiva swore.
“I’m glad to see you, Devourer.” Manola grinned, but it was all teeth.
“You know what they say. Two is a company, and three’s a coven.” Akub pushed back her cloak’s sleeves.
Manola chuckled. “Poor Sarah. She always had a delicate constitution. Oh, I do love your humor. So suitable for these tense situations.”
Amana’s face changed a
t this. She was so lovely, but she’d suffered so much. Akub could see the trauma of a harsh life haunting the woman. Amana yearned for acceptance that much showed on her face.
“Manola means everything to me,” Amana wrapped her arm around Manola.
“And Sarah? Does she mean nothing?” Akub asked.
Amana looked at her with cold eyes. “I’ve had a gutful of that perfect princess.”
Marion’s sharp intake of breath preceded his furious roar. He thrust his sword as if he meant to behead her, but he stopped short, the blade a breath from her throat.
“All this time, I waited and watched for a glimmer, just a tiny glimmer of light. Now, I’m resolved that there is none within you.” His mouth was a slash of anger.
“I am Amana no more, but her creature alone.” Amana hugged Manola tighter.
Akub felt angry for Sarah, who at this moment lay in grief back at the castle. Mourning the loss of a sister who now denounced her.
“Didn’t you divine my presence?” Manola asked Akub as she untangled herself from Amana.
“I severed that tether many rotations ago,” Akub eyed Marion, who kept his blade to Amana’s throat.
“So you have. Yet, here you are.” She smiled, but it was all teeth and no warmth.
“I knew you’d be spilling your poison on these people. Doesn’t it exhaust you? All this black terror draining the life out of you?”
“One must be first alive, Devourer. You’ve deprived me of that.” Manola hovered at the edge of the small platform.
“And it’s the living you should worry about!” Zykeiah’s daggers plowed into Manola’s body, zipping through the air in a blink of an eye.
Startled, the sorceress stumbled back a few steps. Then she laughed as she plucked out the daggers as if they were merely thorns. They clattered to the stone floor.
“Did you forget? I’m dead?” Manola shouted.
Marion thrust his sword, sending it deep into Amana’s body as she tried to step aside. “For Sarah! For stealing my soul!”
Amana wheezed as she grabbed the sword with her bare hands, slicing open her palms as she did so. She tried to dislodge the blade as she wheezed. A trickle of blood escaped her mouth, and through clenched teeth, she wailed.
Manola screamed. “I will send you all back to your blasted goddess!”
Akub watched it unfold with her heart in her throat. As if she’d rubbed belladonna on her skin to induce hallucinations, she watched as Manola crafted that green light into a point and threw it into Zykeiah. The tip bore into her love, sending her crashing into the ground.
“No!” Akub shrieked. Her heart froze as she reached out to her.
Grasping for air, Zykeiah clutched at the wound, yet dark, angry blood poured through her splayed fingers.
“Turnabout is fair play, Devourer!”
Fury unfurled inside Akub, burning like fire in her veins. She rounded on Manola. “You! Enough!”
Akub shoved her magick into Amana and found a wall of resistance. She pushed harder, her anger the catalyst. Amana released a blood-curdling scream, but Manola conjured yet another sphere and threw it.
Marion used his sword and bumped it, sending the sphere smashing into the adjacent wall. Octiva followed, sending those shards against Manola, raising them into her flesh and forcing them to pin the pale sorceress to wall, where she struggled and spat her rage.
“I’ll draw her eye. Now!” Marion roared.
Manola had other ideas. She smacked his sword away as if a stick. And with a swing of her hand, her magick sent him sailing back into them. He bowled over them, and Akub’s breath rushed out of her. Octiva had managed to avoid the crash, and she rose. With the low ceiling, she couldn’t ascend too high. Her hands crafted a series of movements. Akub recognized some of them as conjuring hand signs.
“Goddess Ana will end this,” Octiva said with a calm that contrasted greatly with the rage inside Akub.
Yet, the elder didn’t engage Manola, but instead bent down to a now unconscious Zykeiah. At least Akub hoped her love had only lost consciousness. The elder tossed her long, gray braid over her shoulder and bent down beside the minister.
A flash of green light and then daggers zipped by Akub, one landing in her shoulder. The fire erupted at once, sending pain throughout her entire chest. Coughing against the agony, Akub collapsed to her knees.
“You dare! Amana was mine! Mine!” Manola shouted, stumbling forward as her body healed wounds from Marion and Zykeiah’s blades. Sure, Manola didn’t bleed and didn’t die, but those severed muscles didn’t work.
Behind her, Akub heard Marion moaning. “My arm. It’s broken.”
Still, the scrape of the sword against the stone floor spoke to the minister’s dedication to continuing the fight. At that moment, a shout came from behind them, one of blood-curdling savagery. Through the haze of pain, Akub looked over her shoulder in time to see Kalah come crashing down the stairs as if pushed. Roaring and cheers followed from those above. Crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, the young prince lay, unmoving.
No Sarah. Octiva trying to save Zykeiah. Kalah unconscious. Marion broken.
All of this pain, suffering, and agony lay at her feet. If she’d never come to Veloris, if she’d never taken the orb, none of this would’ve happened.
Manola took a step forward toward her. “All I want are the orb and the queen’s soul. I want to feel again. Breathe again. How dare you deny me!”
Anger rekindled once more, and Akub turned back to Manola. With her hands tingling, she forced Amana, screeching in pain, to grab the closest candelabra and swing.
“Stop! Argh! Stop! Manola!” Amana whimpered, as she struggled against Akub’s magic.
“You don’t deserve to live after all the death you’ve caused,” Akub grunted, her shoulder aflame. Whatever strange magick Manola used, Akub would defeat it. The Goddess Ana sent her here to save this kingdom, and she would do it.
As she devoured Amana’s will, Akub shut out the rest of the room. Focus. Clear focus. Amana’s wound looked fatal, so she had to act fast.
Pick up the candelabra.
Manola’s laughter flinted through the tiny space. “Praying won’t save you. Get up! Face me for you cannot kill me, Devourer. I am already dead.”
“I know,” Akub wheezed through the searing pain in her arm. “But corpses do burn.”
Akub devoured the last of Amana’s will and forced her to pick up the candelabra, and with a swift motion, stab the candles into Manola.
“Amana! Wha—what have you done!”
Amana’s head lolled to the side, as the rest of her life drained out from Marion’s stab wound. Manola patted the parts of her that burned, but Akub wasn’t done. She struggled to her feet and hoisted another of the heavy candelabras toward the injured Manola. She took it and pushed it over top of the first, pinning Manola underneath.
The candles spilled their wax, but some managed to retain their flames, and thus set the sorceress’s robe aflame. She struggled to push the heavy pieces of iron off of her, but then, she smiled.
“I am not afraid of fire, Devourer.” Manola closed her eyes and laughed. She put her palms against the wrought iron structure, and the flash of green light burst into the room.
Akub stumbled backward. These little candle flames wouldn’t ignite quick enough to stop Manola from forming the ancient elemental magick. She searched around for something else. She could try to devour Manola, but weakened and injured, she doubted she could do it.
“Here.” Marion touched her shoulder, spooking her. With his left hand, he gave her the hilt of his sword. His right arm hung at an awkward angle. Sweat covered his brow, and his lips trembled. He body bore bruising and welts from Manola’s assault.
Akub’s own shoulder roared in agony, but she pushed through it. Her rage propelled her. She took the sword, so heavy she could only raise it a hair above the ground. With her own strength waning, she went to Manola. She had to finish this, for once. For all. Every ho
rrid act Akub had ever committed had come at the demand of this pale, slithering creature crushed beneath two tall, iron candelabras.
“There is but one way to stop her, Akub,” Octiva called from her position by Zykeiah. The elder had applied leaves to Zykeiah’s wounds, and she had removed the minister’s thigh holster. “Fulfill your destiny and the Goddess Ana’s will.”
Akub could feel her energy waning. She glanced down at Manola, who sobered at hearing Octiva’s words.
“Devourer, it’s me. Manola. Recall our good times…”
“There were no good times.” Akub clenched her teeth, lifted Marion’s great sword, and shrieking in anguish as her fire burned through her arm, her shoulder, and down her spine, Akub plunged it down into Manola’s throat, silencing the vile sorceress. The sword severed her ability to speak, and her body flopped as Akub leaned on the hilt, pushing it deeper. Gurgling noises rose up in the wake of her actions.
“Here. Let me.” Marion reached across her with his left hand and lifted the sword with ease, albeit in awkward position in the tight space just above Manola’s chest.
“I can finish her.” Akub didn’t move.
“Indeed you did,” Marion said, a brief moment before he slumped back against the wall.
Akub’s rage cooled, and she looked down at Manola at last. She had severed the sorceress’s head from her body. Numb, she reached down, grabbed the silky black hair, and lifted the head up to her eye level.
“Bring it here,” Octiva said. She stood and held open her pouch.
Akub stumbled over to the elder, her body feeling as if she had no longer controlled it. She reached Octiva, dropped to her knees beside Zykeiah, and said, “Zy, we got her, love. We got her.”
She leaned down to kiss Zykeiah’s cheek. Tears burned in her eyes as she found it warm. With a prayer of gratitude to the goddess on her lips, she slumped forward, and the world turned black.
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Devourer: A Minister Knight Novel (The Minister Knights Series Book 2) Page 17