Winterskin: A Dark Fantasy (Kindred Souls Book 1)

by C. M. Estopare

  “I understand that—”

  The Keeper flashed a flat palm, fingers splayed. “Seraphina, this world's Night Lady—your creation—has done the ultimate evil and you have failed to stop her. Because of your failure, every man, woman, and child able to practice magic can no longer fuel it using their own natural Power to commune with the Crux, Rosetta Vidonia. Do you understand the ultimate result of this? Do you understand what will happen to this world if the Crux demands souls because of Seraphina's selfishness and your failure? Do you understand?”

  Kat watched Vidonia squirm beneath the black fabric of her dress. She watched the woman's skin turn a sickly gray. “The Crux will simply demand more natural Power, Keeper. It will simply require—,”

  “With every word, you reveal your ignorance. You've lived for several lifetimes—how can you not understand?!” shrieked the sylph as it began to pace, a bubbling trail of blue mist following its floating steps. “Touch the Crux, young magebane. Tell us what you feel, what you see...”

  Kat blinked, meeting the sylph's pupilless eyes as Vidonia slid her a sidelong glare.

  “Go on.” the Keeper commanded, her voice smooth silk. “Call upon your power, young one.”

  What had she done to break those wards Anais had placed? “I'll need my ax.” she told the Keeper, “Or something sharp.”

  “Vidonia.”

  A hand slithered onto Kat's shoulder as Kat turned towards Vidonia. From her bodice, she slipped a thin black stiletto which she slapped into Kat's palm. “Do as she commands.” Vidonia murmured, her eyes a puddle of confusion before she turned away.

  Holding the sharp end of the stiletto against her wrist, Kat made a straight cut. Crimson flowed from the incision, trailing down her arm in fleeting drips. Kat concentrated on it and thought to break the sylph's barrier—or at least send some sort of force towards it to show that she could commune with the Power's crux. But, instead of feeling her own blood boil and her skin prickle, she felt a cold slime slither its way through her veins as her throat constricted. Her blood suddenly dried, the incision weaving its way to a close as Kat's vision blurred.

  For a long moment, all she saw was black.

  “She cannot commune with the Crux,” a wavering feminine voice whispered over her, “no one can—not without giving it a soul as your charge has done. Seraphina has tipped the scales, Vidonia, and unless those scales are righted there is nothing I can do for either of you.”

  Kat felt a palm grace her forehead. “Get up, now. You're intact. You're all right.”

  Opening her eyes, Kat gazed upon Vidonia's disheveled face. The woman looked ten years older with ragged gray skin and sunken eyes framed by drenched locks of rubicund. Vidonia turned her gaze away from Kat's, “But, Keeper! We need the Solomon to stop her—,”

  “I know your heart, Rosetta Vidonia. But know this: there is nothing I can do until the Crux is either satiated with its lust for souls, or the scales are righted and we can call upon the Crux using our natural Power.”

  “Then how must we right the scales?” snapped Vidonia as she pulled Kat to her feet.

  “Kill her.”

  Kat felt her stomach drop at those words as her strength slowly returned.

  “Kill the Night Lady and send her soul to the Crux—”

  “But—the forest, Baate Noir and the people it protected—,” Kat felt her voice die as her eyes suddenly watered, “—she's—she's my mother—,”

  The Keeper shot Kat a piercing glare that stung her like a bolt of white lightning. “The balance between man and beast will settle without your dear mother,” it spoke with a dead voice, with the haunting croak of an undead thing, “Baate Noir was her cage. But now that she has broken it, she must be contained.” the Keeper told her, misty arms crossed. “She must be punished.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  For a time, it was gold.

  Autumn had come, winter had gone.

  Baate Noir, the “Forest of Soot”, became Solace Viale, the “Forest of Life”.

  “But you plan to bring it all back, don't you?”

  Silence, as the green grass faded to gray around her. A pool of death sucking at her bare feet.

  Seraphina felt the Power rage through her stolen body as the gray death sucking at the darkening grass blades around her ventured outwards. The gray pool of death widening into a pond. A sea.

  “Little girl...you cannot stand to give up such power, can you?”

  Seraphina clenched her jaw, bones clicking in her head, as she clenched her fists and crouched. “I will not entertain you, mother. You chose this life for me!”

  A tongue clicked three times, causing birds to flee from their perches as a sharp wind blew hair from Seraphina's face. “In your position...who could truly blame you, hm? If given the opportunity, I believe I would do the same. Who wouldn't want to claim the world for themselves? Who wouldn't want to feel raw power in their hands and know that those around them have no choice but to bend the knee to you? Or risk death in rebellion?”

  The old woman's raspy voice seemed to swallow Seraphina, the woman's words spiraling around her like a funnel of dangerous wind.

  “I have no quarrel with you, mother. Leave me—go back home!”

  “You have a quarrel with the entire world, child. Look at you—stealing life—for what purpose? Do you truly think you can do away with that presence? It killed you once, didn't it?”

  “I wasn't prepared.” Seraphina snapped, eyes darting this way and that as she attempted to identify her mother. “But now I will be. Now, I'll know how to deal with it. So, tell me mother, you know of the presence—obviously...”

  Seraphina listened to the old woman laugh—an old and grating sound. Like a rusty steel trunk squawking closed. Damn—she hated that condescending laugh. Her belittling tone. Even in the afterlife, her mother was able to haunt her. A compromising thought flitted through Seraphina's mind—a thought that made her clench her jaw even harder.

  What if her mother treated her daughter as she had treated her? With spite and chilling love? What if she had treated Katell in such a way?

  Seraphina felt her anger boil over. “Lead me to it, or leave me be!”

  “Very well.” her mother sighed.

  As you wish.

  It emerged from a crooked thicket of sharp bramble, a womanly silhouette engulfed in orange. The color bright enough to mimic the sun. The shine bright enough to burn every bit of wood and foliage littering the now auburn Baate Noir. Seraphina's bottom lip dropped, the feeling of shock foreign to her as the muscles of her stolen face spasmed. Despite Seraphina's rapidly thumping heartbeat, she found a way to chill the air around her as the grass surrounding her died instantly. Trees turning a stygian black as Seraphina continued to suck the life from the forest in exchange for Power.

  The Power's crux had given her a roaring sea of cosmic Power in exchange for Ledora's soul. Sucking more Power from nature meant more strength for Seraphina. It meant she was becoming her old self—the Night Lady. A goddess in her own right.

  But this—this wasn't expected.

  “The presence had been a man—not a woman! Curse you for taunting me—!”

  The presence within the golden orb laughed, its voice mottled into two ebbing wavelengths; one a male voice, the other female. “Have you forgotten your lineage, little girl? Maeva blood is powerful—especially in the veins of its women. We come from a long line of goddesses and high sorceresses—but your short reign in the forest has forced you to forget this,” she breathed, “has it not?”

  Seraphina became a beacon for the forest's Power, her life-force reaching out into the surrounding wood for a taste of more. Gradually, the gold of the forest dimmed as Seraphina sucked the woods dry. Green disappearing only to became black. Brown dying off into gray. Chirping birds dropped to the ground in droves, little feathered carcasses twitching as their meat fell from little bones and white bones hardened into thick dust. Rodents passed away, their life-forces melding into Seraphina's o
wn as the sky above threatened to turn black.

  But the woman engulfed in sun forced the sky to remain cloudless and blue, the orb behind her gleaming a reddish-white.

  “Your time here has come to an end, Night Lady. Either you die here by my hand, or risk meeting your end at the hands of your own child.”

  Midnight locks rippled around Seraphina's head as her skin dropped its tan color for a haunting white. “Come, then.” she roared, challenging her mother. “You defeated me once—but this time, you shall die by my hand.”

  Her mother sighed, dark shoulders dropping. “If that is what you wish.”

  Wreathing tentacles of white emerged from behind the blackened silhouette of Seraphina's mother as the older woman lifted her palms up towards the sky. Ripping her fingers down through the air, she bowed her back as the force of her lunge ripped Seraphina's hair from her face. The tentacles came immediately after, snapping through the air—reaching for Seraphina's form as the pale woman glared with burning eyes.

  “You've tried this trick before.” Seraphina grunted, pulling more life from the wood before an inky black enveloped her pale fingers and a long black staff materialized upon her open palms.

  Bringing the staff before her face, she ripped the weapon through the air; the black staff biting through the tentacles of light with an audible snap that rippled through the silence of the dead woods.

  Still bowed, the silhouette slapped her flat palms to the earth with a scream. Fire danced between her outstretched fingers, the ground beneath her bubbling as the turf beneath Seraphina's feet suddenly burned her.

  Seraphina stood her ground, nostrils flared as she smelt the biting embrace of fire.

  Orange erupted before the silhouette as a white hot geyser that roared to life in a spray of tangerine scarlet. An explosion of red and orange surged towards the sky before chugging towards Seraphina at a breakneck pace.

  Grasping her staff, Seraphina brought the black weapon up before slamming it down. Ice erupting beneath her feet before spreading—before chilling the fire that rocketed towards her.

  Seraphina panted as she clung to the staff—arms lank.

  The silhouette picked herself up, raising her body chest first before standing tall once more. “You're exhausted. The forest cannot feed your Power forever. The Power's crux eludes you, and your human body cannot take much more—give yourself to me, daughter, and I will send you someplace else.”

  Seraphina heaved. Her stolen body wasn't used to this amount of raw Power roaring through its veins. Though Ledora was an astute archmage, she was only human. Drawing raw Power from nature was detrimental to a human—the Power rattling through her body like fireworks. The Power raw and uncontrolled as it shivered through her, meddling with her organs and her bones. She felt something drop within her and immediately lurched forward. Her mouth opened, blood red vomit dribbling from her cracked lips.

  Her mother was right, she couldn't take much more.

  “What will you do?” Seraphina coughed, clutching her staff savagely. “If I die here again—what will you do?”

  “Your soul will go home—to the underworld,” the silhouette told her as it opened its arms, “Isn't that what you want, little girl? Freedom from these cursed plains? You may believe that claiming all—that having godlike power here—is worth everything; but I will tell you—it is not. There is a better place for us. A heavenly place...”

  “And I—,” she shivered as she heaved once more, her vision blurring as raw Power ravaged her from the inside out. She felt her heart hammer in her chest—felt her veins sizzle and burn beneath her skin. “—and I would be welcomed?”

  “Will you consider my offer? Freedom from this place? Will you consider it?”

  Seraphina's knees knocked as they buckled, the woman's hands sliding down the length of her staff as she plummeted to the ground. “Yes, mother,” she hissed between clenched teeth, “I will.”

  All at once, the silhouette covering her mother vanished as the golden orb behind her ceased to exist. The sun itself finding its place in the sky as Seraphina's mother—old Gran—raced to console her little girl. Falling to hands and knees, the wiry white haired woman reached for Seraphina and hugged her with long bony arms. With one hand, she forced Seraphina's dry face into her shoulder as Gran nuzzled her neck with her nose.

  “You will be the first—the first in a long line of Maevas—to willingly go to the underworld—to the afterlife. Finally...the cycle will be broken...I may die knowing that—,” Gran pulled back as her brown eyes scanned Seraphina's face. “—knowing that there will be a better life for me and my own—a new life!”

  Gran hugged her once more, her body stiffening.

  “A new life.” Seraphina repeated, her right hand warm. Wet.

  Blood spurted from Gran's smiling mouth as her eyes flooded with a deep glaze, the dark pupils within her brown eyes disappearing. Giving way to nothing.

  “A better one.” Seraphina murmured, her lips brushing Gran's ear. “'Only a fool believes in a life after this. Only a fool,' your words, no?”

  A watery gasp erupted from Seraphina's side as Gran fought to breathe.

  An unforgiving hand squeezed pumping muscle, the old woman's heart struggling to beat as Seraphina dug the sharp ends of her nails beneath the corded muscle of Gran's seizing heart.

  “You made me.” Seraphina hissed, hot breath raking against the old woman's skin as she struggled to slip away from Seraphina's grasp. “You brought me to this.”

  “Don't do this—”

  Blood curdled around Seraphina's fingers as she ripped Gran's heart from her chest, Seraphina's hand jerking back suddenly. The movement agile and quick. Ceremonious and cold. Calculated.

  At the force of her movement, Gran fell backwards. Her back thumping to the ground.

  Above, the blue sky died with her. Blue falling away to black as the sky churned with angry black clouds.

  Seraphina watched as one patch of clouds peeled away to reveal the sun, the golden orb mocking her. Sending chills up and down her back as Gran's heart throbbed to life within her hand.

  “I have one more trick.”

  And Seraphina howled as scarlet rushed from the center of the thumping heart squelched between her clenched fingers and plunged into the middle of her wrist. The blood acted like a spearhead, ripping through skin and muscle to reveal the white head of her wrist-bone.

  “May you never call upon the Crux again—to use your Power, you must make the ultimate sacrifice—”

  Throwing back her head, Seraphina howled as the blood worked its way into her bone. Cutting off the rush of her own blood to the limb as it sawed at the bone of her arm. The scarlet spiraling up throughout her whole arm, making the limb go limp as tiny pinpricks of pain rushed up and down her arm. It made her fingers spasm—made her heart hammer harder in her chest as her howls reached new highs. As pain threatened to make her see nothing but cold, lonely, darkness.

  All at once, her arm fell from her body like a snake shedding its old skin. All at once, a large hole secured the place her arm once held before the hole closed. Skin replacing it.

  “To claim the absolute power you once held here—,” Gran sputtered upon the ground, her dying eyes staring upon the sun as dark clouds slowly rolled to block it out, “—you must kill Katell. You must take the life of your only daughter.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  The Keeper left them with an order: Kill the Night Lady. Feed her soul to the Crux, only then can I enact the Solomon.

  And they were back on the path to Safrana almost instantly, Vidonia leading Kat farther and farther away from Baate Noir the farther east she trekked.

  Above, the sky churned an ominous black as the sun refused to show its face.

  “Where do we go now?” Kat demanded as they walked, Vidonia a full step ahead of her as they wove their way through the tall grasses towards the glittering city of Safrana. “It told us to kill her—not run the opposite way!”

  Vidonia s
hot Kat a scathing look over her thin shoulder. “What? And you believe you can fulfill the Keeper's wishes in your state? What more can you do than cut yourself and pray your Power works?” Vidonia asked, eyes narrowing as she stopped and faced Kat. “If you did not hear the Keeper correctly—we have been cut off. None and no one can commune with the Power's crux without sacrificing a soul as your mother has apparently done with my archmage. We are powerless—you are powerless! If we approached the Night Lady in our current state, she'd gladly kill us and sacrifice your soul as well. Is that what you want? A mission that would absolutely end in death, hm? Is that what you want?”

  “When was any of this my choice?” Kat murmured, eyes wide. Fixed. “I was stolen—taken from my friend in the snow by Elisedd's Scyllah...” she felt her hands go limp by her sides as her will to fight left her as easily as a breath of passing wind. “...when Elisedd left, Ledora held me hostage...then you...” shaking her head, she sighed deeply as Vidonia met her gaze with hard eyes. “...I swore to myself that I would find my cousin...who is now gone,” Kat hissed in a breath, ignoring the tears that piled behind her eyes like hot coals. She blinked, “and now it is my duty to save the South by destroying my own mother. When was any of this my choice?!” she felt like a child throwing a tantrum—but there it was. Katell had gone from simple shieldmaiden to savior of the south in a matter of months. It was all jarring—it was all too much. “What makes me so damned special?”

  At this, Vidonia smiled. “Do you believe in the Fates?” she replied, opening her palms. “Do you believe in destiny and a world after this one?”

  A sudden gust of wind chilled Kat, the icy gust ripping through her skin to rake at her bones. “Yes.” Kat nodded, crossing her arms against the gust. “I do.”

  “Then, follow me.” Vidonia told her, turning on her heel. “We have one more person to see before we do as the Keeper has commanded. This is your destiny,” Vidonia said, gesturing for Kat to follow with a wave of her pale hand. “this is what the Fates have willed for you.”