by K. A. Linde
But, now…
Now, there was nothing.
It was as if that blood debt that Avoca had sworn to her so long ago had been repaid. Cyrene had saved Avoca in the forest outside of Eldora and laid down her life for it. A life for a life. Instead, they had been bound. And now, that debt had been paid.
“Avoca,” Cyrene gasped, clutching her side and scrambling toward her. “No, Avoca, please.”
Tears streaked down Cyrene’s face, and she looked over her soul sister through blurry eyes.
And that was when she saw it.
The black that had reached her. The black that had darkened one of her hands, creeping up to her wrist, shriveling the skin as it touched it. An infestation. Something that had…ended her.
She stared down at her friend in horror. Cyrene had been prepared to die. To sacrifice herself if it helped their cause. But she had never been okay with losing her friends. With losing Avoca. It couldn’t be possible.
Yet there was no bond.
Proof enough.
Proof she couldn’t believe.
Cyrene felt the bond from Sarielle. The soothing from her soul sister as she realized what had happened.
I will come to you after I finish off the last of the Voldere. My sincerest apologies. She was kind and true. The best of us.
Avoca was the best of them. And Malysa had ruined it.
Dean came to her side. “Cyrene, we need to move. We have to get out of here.”
She shrugged him off. “I can’t leave her.”
“We need to regroup.”
Cyrene saw nothing but Malysa. “How could you do this?”
Malysa smiled. “Now, you know half the hurt that I felt when my own sister abandoned me.”
“So, that’s it?” Cyrene asked through her tears. “You hold a two-thousand-year-old grudge and take it out on everyone else? You can’t move on from what happened with Benetta?”
“Oh, I think I like this much better,” Malysa said. “I’ll just make you watch as I kill all of your little friends.”
Malysa drew herself up, preparing to fight again. Cyrene couldn’t let her. Enough was enough. She had never thought it would come to this. But, if it did, then this was what she would have to do.
Cyrene rose to her feet, leaving Dean to care for Avoca. She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand and drew Shadowbreaker to her. The ruby glowed from within as she pulled magic from it. She began a slow pace toward Malysa, and the clouds began to darken.
“You may be a god, but I am the Domina.”
Malysa laughed. “The Domina is made up. A silly title my sister gave her daughter to feel important.”
“That is what you were led to believe. But the Domina is so much more than that. It is the line of all the previous Dominas. It is the energy of a hundred. The knowledge of thousands. It was enough to beat you before. It will be enough again.”
Clouds zoomed in on the clear summer day. It covered the sun. Heavy rain clouds full of water. Suddenly, lightning shot down, lighting up the sky.
“And my ancestor gave me this power,” Cyrene said as she held her arms out. “I am sunshine. I am lightning. I am a hurricane.”
Then, she clapped her hands together, and the bolt of lightning shot out of the sky and straight into Malysa. She shuddered as the energy rippled through her. Her hair sparking and hands held out. The power coursed through her. It should have burned her out. Destroyed every last inch of that darkness.
But it didn’t. Malysa pushed it aside. Her hair falling back down, losing the static. Her eyes glowing with the extra energy.
“Is that all?” Malysa asked. “You control the weather? I control the darkness.”
Cyrene drew her hands back as if she were swimming through the water. A technique that Mikel had taught her when fighting off a sea dragon. The clouds shifted, revealing the sun’s hottest rays through a break in the clouds.
“And I control the light,” Cyrene snarled back.
“You are an Heir of the Light,” Malysa said mockingly. “It can work through you, but you control nothing. I am the darkness.”
Then the day slowly started to become night.
Malysa didn’t move clouds to obscure the sun. She just blotted out the sun and turned day into night.
Cyrene fought against it. It was the summer solstice. The longest day of the year. This shouldn’t even be possible. But, with Malysa, Cyrene was learning that anything was possible. Even the impossible.
Then a voice cut through the terrace. “That’s enough, Malysa.”
Malysa’s concentration broke as she stared at the woman standing at the opening to the corridor beyond. “Benny?”
“Hello, sister.”
“You finally showed,” Malysa said with a laugh. “And here I thought, you would hide away forever. You know that I was waiting for you, of course.”
“Of course,” Vera said. She took another slow step forward. “But you don’t have to do this. It’s been so long. Aren’t you tired of fighting?”
“No,” Malysa said. “I was tired of that prison you locked me in, but now, it’s my fortress. The fighting…that I enjoy.”
Vera took another step toward her. “I want us to be sisters again.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You said you would never forgive me,” Malysa reminded her.
But there was a hesitancy that hadn’t been there before. More of a question than a response. She did want what her sister was offering. Another chance to be together. There were so many hurts between them over the years that it hardly seemed possible.
“I can forgive but not forget. We can move on but never get rid of our past,” Vera said. “It’s something you never understood.”
“You don’t mean it,” Malysa said.
“Yes, I do.” She held her hand out. “Come with me. Let’s take the diamond and go.”
“Go where? Where in this world could I go?” Malysa demanded.
“Not this world. Home.”
Malysa flinched. “Never. They would never let us come home.”
“We haven’t tried in so long. Father would welcome us home with open arms. We could be princesses again. We could demand what we were too young to do it at the time. It would be our next adventure.”
“And you would go with me?” Malysa asked uncertainly. The darkness was receding all around her. As if even the possibility of her sister’s love returning was enough to bring back some light in her life.
“Yes. There is nothing left for me in this world either. Our reign is done.”
Malysa took a step forward and then stopped. “No. No, sister. We can rule this land. Together.”
“No, Lysa. These people belong to themselves.”
Malysa sneered, “You always were soft for them. Found the poor humans more important than me.”
Vera sighed. “You never saw the good they were capable of.”
“I am this close,” Malysa said. “Then I will reign here. And you can stay, or you can go, sister. But this is where I belong. Where I shall rule from on high, just as I always deserved to.”
Vera pursed her lips. Her eyes hardened. “I was afraid that you would say that.”
“What, are you going to try to stop me?” Malysa laughed and pointed her finger at Cyrene. “Use your little vessels to influence me? It doesn’t work. She isn’t strong enough, and I watched your magic snap in the spiritual plane. You have nothing left.”
“That is where you are wrong.”
Then Vera threw back her shoulders, releasing the damper that she had held on her magic. Suddenly, she was standing there, glowing as bright as the sun.
She was full-blooded Doma once more.
71
The Doma
“That’s…not possible,” Malysa gasped.
Vera smiled. “It’s very possible.”
“You…you were burned out!”
“No,” Vera said. “My connection to my magic
was severed. But I was still bound to Ameerath. It was actually Cyrene who realized the difference. If I had no magic, then I couldn’t be bound. It’s not possible. Which meant that I must still have magic that I could no longer access.”
“Magic doesn’t just heal itself,” Malysa said, frantically looking back and forth between Vera and Cyrene.
“No, it doesn’t. And Cyrene tried to fix it when she awakened the bloodline, but my magic had already been awakened. There was no hope. I figured out how to do it on my own. And now, I will use it to end this.”
Malysa swore and cleared the distance between her and Cyrene. Cyrene held her hands up, ready to deflect her, but Malysa was too fast. Like her dark magic, it was nearly impossible to escape her.
Cyrene tried to pull up Shadowbreaker to stop her, but it was too late.
Malysa’s fingers closed around the Domina diamond.
“No!” Cyrene shrieked.
Then, Malysa jerked it off of her neck.
She held the diamond in her palm, looking triumphant.
“Now, you’re finished, Benetta. You can’t possibly defeat me when I have this,” Malysa cried.
“Malysa, no!” Vera cried.
“I’ll never stop.”
“Please, I know. I’ve always known. But it doesn’t have to come to this.”
“You’ll have to kill me, Benny,” Malysa said. “And you and I both know that you can’t do that. You never could.”
“You’re right.”
“But I can,” Malysa cried.
She lurched the diamond toward her sister, holding it out before her. Then she reared back and sent a blast of darkness toward her sister. A wave of energy that should collide with Vera and end her forever.
But Vera batted the wave away like it was a fly in her way.
And Malysa stood frozen like a statue.
The diamond still hung, suspended in her hand. Her body held out in midair. Not even her eyes were moving.
“What…” Kael gasped.
But he was the only one who hadn’t known what was coming.
Cyrene smiled and straightened.
“You played your part well,” Vera said.
Then she twisted her wrist and pulled the real Domina diamond out of the in-between. She passed it to Cyrene.
“I believe this belongs to you.”
Cyrene reverently took it from her. “You managed to do it.”
“Yes. I’m sorry that it took so long.”
“What just happened?” Kael demanded. “Why is she frozen?”
Cyrene turned to him. “It’s a fake. I gave the real diamond to Vera so that she could enter the Doma chamber and restore her magic. While I wore a diamond that looked similar enough. It’s Kaliana’s actually. She’s going to want it back.”
“You…tricked an evil goddess?” Kael asked with a laugh.
“She’s a crafty one,” Dean said.
“I taunted her with the diamond. I knew that she wanted it. Even when she acted like she didn’t. I was trying to get her to take it. I knew, the minute she used it, that she’d be subjected to the curse that I put on it.” Cyrene frowned. “I just thought she’d go for it sooner.”
“What do we do with her now?” Dean asked, skeptically eyeing Malysa. “I can’t think that this holds her forever.”
“It doesn’t,” Vera acknowledged. “And I know what needs to be done.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Cyrene said softly. “I can be the one.”
Vera shook her head. “No, it has to be me in the end. It started with us. It has to end with us, too.”
Cyrene nodded and let her pass. She knew how hard this moment was for Vera. Maelia’s betrayal had wrecked Cyrene, and that had been so much smaller. This had to be devastating.
Vera stepped up to Malysa. She still hadn’t moved an inch, but Vera stood face-to-face with her. Not twins, as she had claimed with Matilde. But older and younger sisters. So alike and yet so different.
“I wish there could have been another way,” she whispered to Malysa. “I gave you one more chance. Another choice. But you’ll never change, Lysa. You’ll destroy the world for your pain, and I can’t let you.”
In that moment, she wasn’t Vera. She was Benetta. Little Benny. The dreamer. The lover. The light. The Creator. A legend, a goddess, and just a younger sister who wanted to be there for her older sister. Even when she couldn’t be. Even when she had to do the unthinkable.
“Everyone, step back,” Vera told them.
Cyrene helped Dean lift Avoca and carry her farther from the edge of the balcony. She dashed back for her blades. Even though they were blackened, they still belonged to Avoca. Kael limped toward them. His left arm still bleeding profusely.
“I love you, Lysa,” Cyrene could barely hear Vera whisper.
Then she raised her hands. Iridescent shimmer came from her fingertips to mirror the writing in the book of the Doma. It was mesmerizing and beautiful. Light to combat the darkness. Something more than elemental or spiritual magic in her hands. Something primal. Something otherworldly.
Tears came to Cyrene’s eyes as she stared at it.
It was like seeing the face of a god.
And she wept at the honor.
Then Malysa’s body began to glow to match the iridescence. Until the darkness was obliterated, and only light remained. Suddenly, she broke apart into a million tiny pieces of shimmering light. Those pieces were carried off into the breeze. As Malysa’s body disappeared and was blown off the balcony. Gone as dramatically as she had come.
When the last speck was completely out of sight, Vera fell to her knees on the terrace floor. “It is done.”
Cyrene rushed to her side, skidding to her knees before her. “Are you hurt?”
Vera looked up at her, not a tear in her eyes. Just a deep anguish. For she had not just lost an enemy, but also a friend and sister. Something irreplaceable. And she had been the one to do it. It would haunt her for eternity. And she might have to live that long through it.
“I will live,” Vera said as a matter of fact. “Only time will heal. I tried to instill that in you.”
“You did,” Cyrene whispered. “You were the best teacher.”
Vera laughed humorlessly. “I wasn’t. But you were an excellent student.”
“Cyrene!” Dean cried.
Her head whipped up. But, before she could ask what, she saw Avoca.
Avoca was moving.
Dean gently placed her back on the ground, and Cyrene sprang up and raced for her sister. How was this possible? She’d felt the bond break. She’d known that Avoca was gone.
“Avoca? Avoca, can you hear me?” Cyrene asked.
Avoca coughed twice and then slowly opened her eyes. “I can’t feel you.”
“I know. I know. The bond…it snapped. I thought you were dead.”
Vera appeared at her side. She lifted Avoca’s deadened black hand. It had climbed from her wrist to halfway up her forearm. “She needs a healer.”
“Can’t you do something?” Cyrene asked shrilly.
“Healing doesn’t run in my bloodline, as you’re well aware. I can delay it momentarily, but we need someone skilled in it.”
Cyrene gasped. “Helly. Helly is here. We’ll take her to the Society.”
Vera nodded. “And at once.”
“What…happened?” Avoca asked as Dean lifted her into his arms again.
Cyrene tugged on the bond with Sarielle. “We need you right away. Avoca lives, but she needs a healer.”
I am already on my way. It pleases me greatly that she lives. She will have my wings at her service.
“Sarielle is heading this way.”
“And Halcyon,” Dean said.
“And Ameerath,” Vera said. “She had been locked in battle with Akeera, but…Malysa’s death stopped the dragon’s heart.” Vera choked over the words. “She…she plummeted in the mountains.”
Cyrene clutched her chest. “Oh Creator.”
Vera grimaced. “It was not pleasant.”
Cyrene reached for Avoca’s healthy hand. “Just a few more minutes. We’ll get you to a healer.”
“You…stopped her?”
“We did,” Cyrene told her. “Vera did.”
“Good,” Avoca whispered and then promptly closed her eyes and passed out.
Cyrene worriedly looked down at her. She was alive still but not out of the trenches. She could still die from whatever attack Malysa had launched at her. If they didn’t hurry, she might not make it.
She could see Sarielle closing in, and then she felt something under her feet.
“Is someone doing that?” Cyrene asked.
“No,” they all said.
And then it began to intensify.
A rumbling deep within the castle walls.
“What is that?”
Kael eyes were wide as he answered in dismay and desperation, “The castle is coming down.”
72
The Bombs
Rhea
“Okay, that’s the last one,” Rhea said.
She stood back and observed her handiwork. Ever since she had left with Fenix to return to Byern, she had been working with Caro Barca to replicate her findings. She’d used the black powder to create a series of bombs. They’d slowly been putting them in specific places around the castle over the last couple of weeks. And, after she had found out about Fenix, she had returned to finish the job.
Byern deserved to pay for what they had done.
“All of the fuses link back here,” Rhea told him, “which means someone will need to light the fuse while the other gets out of the castle grounds. It can’t be done from farther away.”
“That’s a suicide mission,” Barca said. He straightened as much as he could. His hair had gone completely silver since Eren died. And he looked almost frail. But he was a genius. A mad scientist. And the best Receiver she could have asked for.
“I’ll do it,” Rhea told him.
He shook his head. “No, girl. I’m old. I’ve lived my life. You’re so young. I understand what has happened to you, but you can move on from that.”