The Complete Chosen Trilogy (The Chosen #0)

by N. M. Santoski

  “Right here,” he said, sliding out from behind Pyrrhus. “Good to see you, Nolan.”

  “And you.”

  “What about us?”

  Alan and Leiani emerged from the shadows of the stairwell.

  “Gods, did you send out invitations?” Nolan growled at Idella, but there was no heat behind it. He accepted Leiani’s hug and whispered his condolences in her ear, then faced his brother.

  “It’s time to put this all behind us, for the good of everyone,” Alan said stiffly, relying on ceremony to get him through a potentially dangerous minefield of emotions and past grievances. He knelt in front of Nolan, bowing his head.

  Nolan took his hand and pulled him to his feet and into a hug. “Let’s end this once and for all.”

  “Lord Artifex has taken several people into the sub-basement with him… and the Sword,” Leiani reported as they moved toward the stairs. “What’s the plan?”

  “We have to get down to the…” Nolan trailed off as they reached the bottom of the staircase.

  Angus Kinnaird and Jonas Keller were standing in front of the door.

  Nolan heard a low snarling behind him and felt the others begin to draw their numina forward.

  “Hold!” he said. Neither Angus nor Jonas had moved a muscle. “What are you two doing here?”

  “Are you here to finish this?” Angus asked.

  “Yes. Are you here to sound the alarm?”

  “Supposed to be.” Angus shrugged, looking a bit lost. “I’m sick of answering to Warrington,” he admitted in a whisper. “I’ve had to do things I never thought I would to protect the people I love, but I think you will protect them better, and won’t ask me to do things I can’t stomach.”

  Nolan masked his surprise as well as he could and turned to Jonas. “And you?”

  “I…” Jonas looked ill. “They killed Claire, and she never did anything to them but support you. If her death is going to mean anything, then you have to win.”

  “You understand that we can’t just leave you out here—both for our sake and yours. If we lose in there, Warrington will realize you helped us. If you’re lying, you’ll sound the alarm once we’re in and there’ll be nothing we can do about it.”

  “We understand. Make it quick,” Angus said, closing his eyes and stretching out his hand.

  Nolan took it, sending his numina in to take Angus down. He lowered him carefully to the floor and turned to look at Jonas, who now looked absolutely terrified. Belatedly, Nolan remembered why he had reason to be.

  “Nolan,” Gia said under her breath, “not you.”

  “How else, then?” he countered. “Anything else runs the risk of really hurting you,” he explained to Jonas gently. “We don’t have time to figure this out. Do you trust me?”

  He looked around at the others, then back at Nolan and sighed. “Just don’t leave it in there this time.”

  “Think about it this way,” he said. “If we win, you’ll be back to normal as soon as we come out. If Warrington kills me, my numina will disappear anyway. Win-win.” With that, he sent Jonas to join Angus on the floor.

  He turned back to look at the rest. “Are you ready?”

  Gia slipped her hand into his. “As ready as we’ll ever be.”

  “Onward, Swordsmith,” Alan said.

  “Let us go first,” Pyrrhus said. “Please. They may think we are still on their side.”

  Nolan nodded and stepped back from the open door.

  Pyrrhus, Bentley, and Idella led the way into the darkness.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  The room was dimly lit, and they were barely steps into the room when several things happened at once. Golden lightning flashed into Bentley, almost immediately knocking him across the room and to the floor. A spear of rock burst from the floor in a shower of dirt, and it was only Pyrrhus’ concerned movement toward Bentley that kept him from being impaled. A second wave of rocks pummeled the group, knocking Alan and Idella to the floor and rapidly growing to pin them down. Idella tried to force herself to change in order to break the stone, but it simply adjusted to accommodate her form either way. Leiani conjured a wave of water, slapping the incoming rocks to the side, and Gia summoned a burst of wind to send those facing them back a pace or two.

  Nolan slammed a ball of plasma into existence and sent it to the ceiling, where it hung, giving them light enough to see. Lady Alixandra was seated in a far corner of the room, her eyes staring off into nothingness. Rebecca was in the center of the room, the Sword of the Nine on a pedestal of rock beside her. Michael, Manas, and Isabella were lined up in front of Rebecca, each controlling a measure of rocks and dirt in a wall in front of them.

  There was a single beat of stillness before everyone burst into motion again. Pyrrhus took a diving leap toward Michael, roaring flame, and was promptly knocked back with a rock the size of a dumpster that quickly morphed into a cage to keep him contained. Cherrie was on her knees next to Alan, slamming her fists into the rocks holding him prisoner and trying to set him free with minimal success. Leiani managed to dodge several smaller barrages and got Isabella by the shoulder of her shirt, yanking her away from Manas and beginning to batter her with water in close quarters.

  Nolan was trying to keep an eye on Rebecca and Michael at the same time, and failing. Michael was almost playfully batting rocks at his head, and Rebecca was laughing as she sent bolts of plasma at him.

  Nolan was diffusing her bolts with his own, cancelling them both out, but it was a stalemate. And they all knew it.

  “Nolan!”

  He flicked his eyes to the side to find Gia vaulting over the top of the rocks to take Manas on hand-to-hand. In a moment, he followed her lead and jumped right at Michael’s throat, charging his fists with Fulmen and knocking him to the floor.

  They wrestled for what felt like hours, but what was clearly only seconds. Nolan had the upper hand and was reaching into his reserves for just enough numina to knock Michael out when it suddenly felt like his nerve endings were on fire.

  Rebecca had her fingers pressed to his spine, pumping electricity into his system and trying to override his own numina.

  Before Nolan could turn to face the new threat, his clothes began to crawl over his skin. He shook himself hard as he realized what was happening, but it was too late. The mud left from his tunnel expedition flowed down to his wrists and up to his neck and pulled him to the floor, spreading him out like a sacrifice. Gia and Cherrie were pulled to the floor by the same trickery, and Isabella took advantage of Leiani’s distraction to pin her down, as well.

  Michael Warrington gestured with three fingers, and Nolan was pulled upright, still trapped. He took a look around the room, surveying the damage. Six trapped numen and one still unconscious where Rebecca felled him… perfect.

  “So dies the Aeron line—with a boy barely worth the energy to kill him. Rebecca, as I promised you, his life is yours.” He gestured, and an otherworldly grinding noise filled the room as all the others were pulled upright as well and turned to face Nolan. “Let’s let his petite Court witness this.”

  Rebecca smiled and stepped forward, laying the Sword almost reverentially at Nolan’s encased feet. She began to rub her hands together, looking for all the world like a lone sorceress summoning up a devil. A sickly yellow glow began to appear between her palms, growing until it was almost the size of a grapefruit.

  She took it in her fist and shoved it into Nolan’s chest just above his heart with all the strength she possessed, forcing it through his ribcage with great effort. He screamed at the top of his lungs as she let the numina go, leaving it in place to disrupt his body’s natural processes. Gia and Leiani screamed, and Pyrrhus made an odd noise somewhere between a hiccup and a sob.

  Michael released Nolan’s bindings, letting him fall to the ground in a heap.

  Rebecca was already scrambling for the Sword. “Finally… it’s finally mine!” Her hands reached for it, and she was inches from closing her hand around the bare
steel when the ragged edge of a rock plunged through her back.

  She coughed up blood, staring blankly at the deep red, almost black liquid now spattered across the gleaming silver of the sword.

  “And thus ends the Fulmen cause forever,” Manas finished, summoning the rock. It created a second exit wound as it took the fastest path back to his hand, and Rebecca Selocrim died on top of the item she’d been coveting her entire life.

  Gia and Pyrrhus were still struggling against their bonds as the others stared in disbelief. Nolan’s body was jittering occasionally against the stone floor in spasms.

  “Your cause is over,” Michael said. “Your leader is dead—you are seeing the last bits of his numina flee. I will spare you the indignity of a public trial and end your lives here and now. Lady Fulmina first, I think. It is only appropriate that you will be the first to die by the Sword of Artifex.”

  Manas laughed and sent Gia sliding along the floor toward Nolan’s body as she struggled. “Let Her Majesty die next to her Lord,” he said.

  Pyrrhus lunged against his bonds, his expression tortured in the half-light. “Manas, don’t do this!”

  “I have no choice,” Manas said, motioning to stop Gia and letting her momentum take her to Nolan’s feet. Michael kicked Rebecca’s body out of the way, stepped over Nolan’s body and looked down at the Sword. “At last,” he breathed. “Sword of the Nine, know your master.” He got down on one knee like a medieval knight waiting for a blessing and moved to place the very tips of his fingers against the flat of the blade.

  “No!” Pyrrhus shouted, but it was too late.

  The moment Michael made contact, blue lightning encased him like a cage. He screamed, his face contorted in a hideous rictus, throwing his head back so far that his body bent almost double.

  Alan finally managed to break free of the stone Cherrie had already damaged and ran to Nolan’s side. Small currents of blue electricity were coursing through his veins, imitating a heartbeat. Taking a quick breath and hoping that it wouldn’t kill him, he bent to press his ear to Nolan’s chest.

  Nolan’s chest suddenly expanded with breath, startling Alan back a pace and onto his knees.

  “Nolan?”

  His eyes opened, pupils eerily bleached in blue-tinted white. He rose to his feet and approached the screaming Michael, still frozen in tableau.

  “Michael Warrington,” he said, and his voice was doubled over with the voices of his grandfather and one much, much older. “You have betrayed the sacred trust of your position, and for that you are condemned to die. Not by myself, but by the Sword for which you spilled so much blood. There is no mercy for a man like you.”

  The storm of electricity intensified, and the room began to fill with the smell of burning flesh. Michael finally stopped screaming—a blessing for those watching in horror.

  Nolan took a step forward, still possessed, and took the Sword in hand. The moment it was back in his possession, the cage collapsed in on itself, leaving the charred remains of what was once Lord Artifex behind. The moment he died, Pyrrhus and Leiani were set free.

  A wordless scream echoed through the sudden silence, and Manas was charging across the room, arms outstretched as though he wanted to pummel Nolan to death with his bare hands. Nolan pivoted on one foot and brought the Sword up with a solid, single stroke, neatly slicing through Manas’ arms between wrist and elbow on the diagonal.

  The dual thud of Manas’ hands striking the floor snapped the rest from their stunned, wide-eyed staring. As Manas’ concentration broke, everyone else was released from his or her restraints. Gia raced to Nolan’s side, careful not to touch him. Pyrrhus veered off to tend to Manas, whose bleeding arms were already threatening to end the Warrington line once and for all.

  “Nolan?” Gia said, trying to make sure she didn’t startle him—or whoever was hitching a ride in his body at the moment—into more violence.

  He blinked once, twice, each time a bit more of his natural eye color bleeding back in under the white.

  “That’s it,” Gia crooned. She heard Manas screaming again as Pyrrhus cauterized the ends of his arms to prevent him from bleeding to death, but her focus was in front of her. “Nolan. Come back to us.”

  He blinked again, finally looking at her instead of through her. “Gia? What happened?”

  She felt her knees buckle in relief, but she caught herself before she could stumble. “All of our planning was for nothing—the Sword sort of stole the show.”

  Nolan looked over her shoulder and stiffened. “Did I do that?”

  “Which that?” Gia asked gently. “Only one… the Sword took its payment from Michael itself. You actually ended it when you touched the Sword. Manas, though… that was you. Will he live?” she called over to Pyrrhus.

  “Yes, he should. No promises on them being able to reattach your hands though, Manas.”

  Manas was making a noise halfway between a sob and a snarl, still kneeling on the floor where he landed. Isabella was at his side, crying over his mutilated hands. Alan and Leiani stepped up to assist Pyrrhus in guarding them.

  “Lord Fulmen.”

  Nolan turned to see Alixandra standing beside the body of her lover. She sank to her knees as he approached.

  “Lady Tempus, your part in this mess is not completely known to us,” he said carefully. She nodded and began to speak. She told him everything, from the beginning, leaving nothing out. The small group was disgusted by much of it, but Gia thought she could see the kernel of good intention that began it. The hell Nolan lived was paved with this woman’s good intentions, she thought, distorting the proverb to fit her own purposes.

  “I ask you for mercy, Swordsmith,” she finished.

  “You ask to be spared?” Cherrie asked, her eyebrows raised. “After all that you have done?”

  “No, I ask for the opposite. Kill me.” She tilted her head up to the ceiling, watching him through narrowed eyes. “I only ask you to spare my son—he has followed his parents’ lead in all things, and we have led him down a path of destruction and selfish greed. Give him the chance to trod his own path.”

  Nolan recoiled. “I can’t kill you in cold blood, Lady. That would be… unconscionable.”

  “Nolan.”

  He turned to look at Gia, whose gaze was locked with Alixandra’s. She finally turned to face him. “It would be a blessing to her, after all this time.”

  “You can’t just cut her head off,” Pyrrhus pointed out. “Her gift from Juno might protect her, even from something that drastic.”

  “So what do we do?” he asked them all. As he looked at them all, he began to get the germ of an idea. “Gia, what about the Ignis that my grandfather… neutralized?”

  “We haven’t tested it,” Gia protested, seeing immediately where he was going with his train of thought.

  “Stripping her of her numina would mean that she would be mortal. Then it would be her choice what to do from there,” Cherrie said. “Or it will kill her, which is what she has asked of you as her Swordsmith. You will get no better chance to test it than this.”

  “Perhaps the Lady has witnessed this in the past,” Alan suggested with a raised eyebrow.

  “Have you?” Pyrrhus asked.

  “Only once.”

  Nolan gestured with the Sword. “What do I need to do?”

  “Invoke the gods and give your reasons to the Sword. It will decide if you are justified.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay. Stand back, everyone,” he ordered. “Pyrrhus, Alan, help Manas and Isabella back.”

  “No!” Manas gasped. “I want to—she’s my mother. I need to witness it.”

  “You can witness it. I just want you further back.” He nodded again at his brother and his best friend, who each took an elbow and moved him away.

  He took the Sword in both hands and held it over Alixandra’s head. “Jupiter, Juno, on your judgment I rely,” he improvised, seeing Gia’s lips quirk out of
the corner of his eye. “Juno, your Lady has broken your commandments and led a life of shame. I, as Lord Fulmen and Swordsmith, declare that she is not worthy of the gift of numina you have given her, namely her immortality. I ask that you judge her and, if you also find her wanting, I ask that you take her numina from her. I bow to your will, but please let your judgment be known.”

  And they waited.

  Slowly, a light began to shine from the Sword hanging over Alix. She tilted her face to the light, closing her eyes.

  “You have broken the conditions of your numina,” a woman’s voice rang out into the room. Later, both Nolan and Manas would say that they saw a woman standing in front of Alix, though no one else did. Juno reached out and lightly placed her hand on Alix’s throat. “I would have made you suffer your fate for your faithlessness, but your Swordsmith is more merciful. I take back what I gave you.”

  Alix began to age right before their eyes. Her body caved in on itself, unable to support its own weight as the bones turned brittle, then to dust. She collapsed into nothingness as they watched. “My gift will manifest again,” the woman said. “Watch for her, Swordsmith.” With that, the light blinked out, and there was silence once more.

  Nolan placed the Sword on his back, relishing the familiar weight once more. “Manas,” he said.

  Manas looked up, and his eyes were suspiciously wet. “What? You’ve won, Swordsmith,” he sneered the last word, but it was clear his heart wasn’t in it. “Going to strip me of my numina, too? Or just murder me outright?”

  “No. I have no interest in ending one of the—in fact, I suppose you and I are now tied for oldest line, aren’t we?”

  “The Warringtons aren’t—“

  “I didn’t mean the Warringtons. You are a Tempus, too, Manas, for lack of a better name. A direct descendant of one of the original Nine. That’s something to be honored.” Nolan knelt in front of him. “Are you willing to serve with me on my Council, as Lord Artifex?”

  There were gasps all around, but Nolan ignored them and tried a half-hearted smile in Manas’ direction. “Come on—I need someone to constantly poke my decisions and tell me when there are flaws in them, no matter how small. That seems like something you’d enjoy doing.”