But why?
Did she not understand the gravity of this situation? If the entire world needed to exchange souls with the Crux in order to commune with it and draw Power from it—did she not understand what that would turn sorcerers into? People will find out—they'll learn soon enough that giving the Crux a soul will grant them Power, and what will stop them from doing exactly that? Killing each other for a breath of Power? Stealing souls to commune with the Crux?
“She has broken the cycle.” Vidonia hissed, blood rushing to her face. “She has cursed the entire world!”
From her right, Clara whimpered. Her shoulders trembling, as she buried her face in her hands, “I tried—I tried to make her—,”
Vidonia snapped her gaze to her sister. “Where is she?”
Clara froze, her blubbering silenced by Vidonia's cold gaze. “Rosetta...I don't know! She simply...she simply...left!”
“You didn't stop her? You just let her go?!” Vidonia roared, her anger blackening her face as blood surged angrily beneath her skin.
Clara stood, stumbling away. Unsure of how to deal with her older sister's ire. “I—I hadn't thought—,”
“The Keeper of the Crux ordered Seraphina's soul be sent to the Crux, Clara! The cycle is broken and the world will turn to murdering each other in exchange for Power all because of this girl! And you say—you say you simply let her go?!”
Clara swallowed before nodding her head.
Throwing herself from the wood block, Vidonia's knees buckled before she forced herself to stand up straight. She felt her rib cage protest, the bones burning as they remade themselves—the hole in her torso from earlier having closed just hours before at Clara's behest.
Heat roared in her temples—her heart thrumming like a hornet. She felt fear welling up within the back of her throat. Choking her.
“She has no soul to give, so we will bring the Keeper a body.” Vidonia decided, glaring at her sister as she crossed her arms. “How like you to simply let her walk away.” Vidonia hissed, curling her upper lip into a scowl. “How like you.”
Clara wrung her hands as she lowered her head. “I—I apologize...”
“Did you watch her leave?” Vidonia snapped, coming to stand before her sister. “Where would she go, hm? Who would welcome her?”
Clara bit her tongue, snatching her gaze away from her sister. She stared at the floor, thinking. “It wouldn't make sense for her to go home...” Clara began, intertwining her fingers as she thought. “...she would...find a friend close by. A friend...” her eyes brightened as she lifted her head, “...a friend I well know.”
SIXTY-NINE
Kat stood on the edge of a precipice, having backtracked. Pining for home.
It was down below, amidst the crashing waves and spiking rocks, that she met the sylph. The Keeper of the Crux.
She contemplated swimming as white brine hummed, crashing into the spiked rocks below.
Up above, a yellow sun pierced through dark gray clouds.
Because of her, the world would be without magic—unless there were those willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and steal souls to satisfy the Crux. Because of her, magic would slowly dissipate from their world. Because of her, the cycle was broken.
Because of her. All because of her.
Kat felt empty. Done. She felt as though something immensely heavy had been lifted from her shoulders and thrown. Thrown far, far away.
“You remembered.” came a voice.
“Of course.” she murmured back, hugging herself. “I've lost everything. Now,” she swallowed, choking back tears. “all I have is you.”
He had told her to wait for him here after it was all said and done. He'd taken the jewel at her behest, after explaining in explicit detail who and what Dunstan Riche was.
“The Devourer of Souls,” he had told her, all those days ago. “If you're fine with carelessly giving your soul to a devil—no, evil incarnate—then go ahead,” he said, rolling his eyes, “do it. But, let me ask you this: would you want to be stuck in that thing? Dead, your soul looping around forever and ever, trying to get to the underworld, but unable. Forever unable because you're sworn to that jewel—that thing in your hand!” she grasped it tightly, feeling its warmth. Thinking. “Your mother—however crazy she may be—deserves a final resting place. Katty,” he touched her, tapped her shoulder with a slow hand, “she needs to go to the underworld.”
He had convinced her to simply kill the woman and give her soul to nothing and no one. To allow her soul to peacefully go to the underworld.
He had convinced her to break the cycle. He had convinced her to betray the whole world so that another mother-daughter duo wouldn't be stuck between killing each other and restoring the Crux...only for the Crux to become tainted and unsatisfied ten years later. All over again. Again and again and again.
The world would be without magic, but it would finally know peace. No more poor souls would be caught up in an eternal cycle which simply refreshes itself every decade or so.
The world would finally be free.
She bristled as she felt his presence beside her. Opening his palm, he showed her Dunstan's jewel. The triangular thing of scarlet. It winked at her as she placed her palm over it. Hiding it. Taking it in her hand. She clutched it tightly, thinking.
Taking a step towards the cliff face, she felt the cold spray of the ocean's brine wet her face. She closed her eyes, blinking away the salty water, before bringing the jewel up to her face. “What am I supposed to do with it now?” she asked him, admiring her complexion. Unblinking. She looked like a walking corpse—unattractive, undead. Her skin was gray, pallid. Her eyes drooping. Her hair disheveled and wiry.
“That's your decision.” he told her matter-of-factly.
She decided she would throw it.
With the careless flick of her wrist, she tossed it towards the blue below. The ocean—vast and wide—accepted the scarlet jewel. Swallowing it as easily as one swallows a candy. She watched it splash into the blue with unblinking eyes. Tired. As it sunk, she sighed.
Done. Everything was done.
And yet she couldn't go home—not yet.
End of Book 1
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SNEAK PEAK
Kindred Souls Book Two
Chapter One
This was a night devoid of stars. Tonight, there were no mechanisms by which she could slow her breathing by counting...one star, two. Three stars, four. Tonight, the black void of night assailed her. Hugging her close with its icy gossamer arms.
Planting her sweat drenched palms to the thin pearly balustrade before her, Reine held tight as her heart lodged itself into her throat. Choking her as red hot coal piled up behind her eyes. She couldn't breathe—she couldn't pull herself together long enough to even hold back the tears. They came—they came as easily as the tremors did. Her legs and arms shivering as if she were in the midst of a screeching blizzard. Despite her tensing them until they cried out in burning pain, they still shivered as tears rolled down her cheeks. They still shivered and she still cried.
Poor Reine, the poor Odette, Lady Valentine had tittered earlier while Reine had sat and dined with the others in the crypt's hall, as her father huffed beside her at the table, someone should bring her a tissue—a napkin.
You haven't felt true pain yet, Reine remembered her whole body tensing as her father snapped, leave until you can control yourself!
And so she did. With tears trailing down her face and soaking her new velvet gown, she fled the dining hall and escaped to the crypt's moonlit gardens.
Yet, tonight, there was no moon. No stars. Only darkness.
Darkness befitting a funeral.
Clutching the balustrade, Reine pulled herself towa
rds the sea of rose bushes basking in the darkness below her. They were infinite—much like the deceased woman she remembered. They were infinite, the dancing sea of verdant darkened by a starless night.
Something soaked through her slipper as she tapped it upon the ground. A puddle surrounded her, soaking through her the thin silk of her slippers. Warm water.
Reine glanced down.
Crimson—a trail of it crept down the garden path. The blood snaking through the cracks in the stone strewn pathway like bloody fingers prying through stone.
Blood.
Reine snatched her feet away and contemplated running as a voice wafted down the path, high-pitched notes swinging past the hanging green hedges only to latch on to her. A man's voice coupled with a woman's throaty wail.
Picking up her skirts, Reine's legs shivered as her knees knocked together. Bunching the smooth fabric of her dress between her sweaty fingers, she swallowed at a growing lump in her throat and took a single step up the path. Another.
She followed the trail, tiptoeing upon the stones.
Whoever did this—whoever was doing this.
Reine has been warned previously that something...strange...had been going on at the crypt after the duchess's death. Upon bringing the woman's body to her final resting place—the Crypt of Queens—people had been systematically going missing. People who had been close to Duchess Mariett in life. Friends, those privy to her secrets. Old handmaidens.
Rounding a corner, the trail of blood grew thicker as it swung around a towering conical hedge that rose up like a fat lance high into the black sky. Dropping her skirts to the ground, Reine clutched at the vines and branches of the hedge as she peeked around the corner. Slowly, slowly, her eyes following the trail as it became a thick pool.
How much blood could one person have?
In the midst of the high hedges of the garden, she saw two people then. One tall, swallowed by a black cloak and hood. Another tiny, pudgy in the waist and attempting to hide it with an overly tight scarlet bodice hardened and shaped with steel boning.
“Lady Valentine!” Reine called, stepping out from her hiding place.
The figure turned, it's drooping hood following like a listless patch of loose skin.
Reine lifted a finger and jabbed it at the man swathed in black. All fear and trepidation gone as ire surged through her veins like fire. “You!” she screamed, taking a step forward as the man moved to drop Lady Valentine. Her body as limp as a used rag doll, “How dare you do this to us!”
The man tensed. Jerking the corpse from his arms, Reine sprinted forward to catch the old governess. The woman landed into Reine's outstretched arms like a large sack of rocks. Heavier in death than she would have ever been in life. “How dare you!” Reine screeched as Lady Valentine's head lolled to the side, her alabaster skin papery as a dry trail of blood stained her neck in strange circular lines. “Who are you?” Reine demanded, her knees coming together as her legs began to shiver. Turning on her heel, she screeched and ducked as a massive pair of bloodied hedge clippers dove for her neck. The clippers snapping overhead as Lady Valentine's lifeless body slammed into the ground.
Reine followed it, palms slapping to the bloodied stones. Slipping.
As a gush of cold air nipped at her neck—the hairs of her nape rising. Standing. On edge.
“Whoever you are—you'll—you'll pay!--,”
Reine froze as the clippers snapped.
And fluffy blonde locks rippled past her shoulders. Floating to the ground.
Her assailant didn't talk—didn't converse. He groaned. He hissed out a heavy breath.
Reine hefted herself up—panting. Her body ignoring her once again as her arms and legs shivered—more from fear than from sadness now—as she turned on her heel and snatched a loose stone from the ground. Holding it with both hands, she flung it at her assailant. The fist sized stone connected with his chest as she screamed.
He didn't budge. Didn't move. He simply froze.
As she turned on her heel and sprinted down the path.
Behind her, steel hit stone as the hedge clippers clattered to the ground and her assailant sprinted after her. Charging—his breath silent. His every step overtaking two of her's.
She'd have to make it back to the crypt—back to the dining hall and warn the others. Reine had found the murderer—of all people—she had found the man who had been terrorizing Safrana ever since the duchess's death!
Of all people—why me? Why not someone else?
The Crypt of Queens loomed before her like a fortress. The garden's exit called out to her, a steel arch with the crying head of an eagle forcing her forward as footsteps whispered behind her. The hedge clippers were gone—but this man could surely kill her with his bare hands. He had already killed four of the duchess's friends with nothing but his fingers—leaving dark strangulation marks bruising their distended necks. He could surely catch her and kill her if he tried.
But Reine could not die—she was the court's Odette.
She was invincible.
Or, so she thought.
Racing through the archway, she entered the crypt at a breakneck pace. Skittering torches lining the dusty brown hallways met her at every turn as she sprinted for the dining hall—her assailant unforgiving as the hairs of her nape rose again. Her neck and shoulders sweaty as her chest heaved. Her breath surging out as wheezing gasps.
Reine wasn't sure how long she could keep this up—but if she valued her life...
She met the bronze doors of the dining hall—the gateway tall and overbearing as she flattened her sweaty palms against it. A high-pitched whimper escaped her as she threw her shoulder against one door—knocking with her entire body. Praying someone would hear her as her assailant's echoing footsteps slowed.
It wouldn't budge—no one was coming to her aide.
They had locked her out.
“Daddy—daddy, it's Reine! It's Odette!”
Nothing. Nothing as the echoing footsteps came to a halt and a black cloak opened before her.
Nothing. Nothing but silence.
Reine whimpered as she slid to the floor. Tears began to cloud her eyes.
This man had to be...human—if anything—right?
Tears began to trail down her face, breaking through the sweat that stained it.
Appeal to his humanity—no man likes a crying woman.
Did Lady Valentine cry? Cry before he gut her?!
She had no choice—there was no other way. If she valued her life...
Reine began to sob, her shoulders racking, her lips twisting down into the ghost of a frown.
“Please...” she whimpered.
Her assailant simply stood there, face eschewed by a drooping hood. Reine watched his arm move and vanish beneath his long cloak. She watched him lower his head, his hood drooping as he produced a satchel.
Reine stood—whimpering still—as his gaze left her.
I should rush at him, she shivered at the thought of touching him, —no—if that rock couldn't hurt him...
She quieted as she approached him, her gaze flitting to the right—to another passageway. Another hallway she could lose him in.
I could talk my way out of this—I could follow father's advice--
The man's hood shivered. His gaze connected with her's. She saw stars—eyes bright as death.
Reine sprinted.
Zigzagging through the hallways like an erratic cat, she took a sudden right. Orange torchlight shivered as every brown hall seemed to blend together, her vision blurry as she looked for more opportunities to lose him.
Panting, she took a left.
And froze.
Thick bronze doors stood in her way. Flowing script etched into the shiny bronze face cradling her eyes.
Echoing footsteps tore her away from the words and she shoved her shoulder against the door.
It moaned. With another shove, it belched dust as it opened.
Reine entered a dome roofed sepulcher as the foot
steps grew closer, the man's running dying to a shuffle as a painful groan echoed up the hallway.
Reine's mouth fell open.
How far had she gone?
It didn't matter—she thought, nodding as she eyed five raised stone daises cradling iron coffins in their slate gray hands. She picked a coffin and rushed towards it as the shuffling outside the room halted—silence overcoming all. Pressing her fingers to the iron lip of the long rectangular coffin, she fell to all fours and crawled behind it as the doors at the entrance of the room moaned open once more.
He entered with a slow step, every movement careful.
He looked for her—scathing eyes bore into her like a heated brand almost as if he could see her, as she pressed her back up against the cold iron of the coffin. She held her breath.
As the door to the room moaned to a close and he walked. Every step a rebounding echo. Click, click, click...
There wasn't much she could do now—stuck in a sepulcher with a murderer. Angry tears burned her eyes—was this it? Was this how she'd die?
The deep echo of his steps ricocheted around the massive room, the noise bouncing off the rounded dome of the stone ceiling.
Risking a peek over the iron coffin, she watched his dark form skulk away the dark hallway of an attached antechamber.
Reine's heart drummed in her chest as she risked a glance at the bronze doors leading out. Could she make it? Could she sprint for the doors and make it before he heard her steps? Everything echoed loudly within the massive room—could she make it?
Would she make it?
Reine shook her head. She couldn't risk leaving. Not now.
Crawling around the side of the coffin, she froze—listening for footsteps—before undoing the metal clasp holding the coffin's lid down and opening the iron box.
She'd climb inside with the dead if she had to—if only to save her life.
Winterskin: A Dark Fantasy (Kindred Souls Book 1) Page 30