by Elly Blake
“What do you want?” I demanded, heart punching my ribs, struggling to contain the Minax. “To gloat? You’re celebrating too soon. Or did you come here to surrender?”
A smirk curved his lips. “I told you I’d give you one last chance. If you come with me now, I will call my Servants back, and there will be no more loss of life. No risk to anyone you care about.”
He glanced pointedly at Kai, then at Brother Thistle and Arcus below. The implied threat only raised my ire.
“You think I’d agree to sit on your throne, to help you enslave humanity rather than fight?” I looked at him with disgust. “Why even bother asking?”
“Is it so hard to understand?” He looked amused. “You are my progeny, my greatest creation.”
“You might have tampered with my blood, but I am not your daughter.”
“You’d rather claim your father by blood than a god?” He stared with disbelief, then waved that away. “Your father was a poor sailor, a commoner with no gift. Your mother would never have been allowed to marry him. Their love, which you mortals so revere, was doomed anyway.”
I held my breath, waiting for more. This was no time to indulge my curiosity, but I couldn’t resist. He’d just told me more than I’d ever learned about my father. “What was his name?”
Eurus laughed. “All that mattered to me was that his ship was dashed against rocks and he died while you were but a speck in your mother’s womb.”
“You did that?” His smug expression confirmed it. My hands fisted. “You killed him.”
“An east wind can be so unpredictable,” he said, looking even more amused by my fury. “Your mother’s grief was quite passionate. A strong draw for the Minax.”
“You did it so she would be more easily overtaken.” My eyes widened. “You interfered in the mortal world!”
He put a finger to his lips. “Hush. It was an accident, a bad wind. I didn’t interfere, not directly. And the circumstances provided incentive for the Minax to leave the Fire King and choose Princess Rota as its host.” He showed his palms in a helpless gesture. “Such things were out of my control.”
I scoffed. “You used wind to murder my father, ripped apart two people who loved each other, just to make me into a Nightblood.”
“Your obsession with virtue pains me.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “I grow weary of how obtuse you mortals can be.”
“If not that, then why did you do it?”
“It’s not mysterious, Ruby. As I told you before, I need you to take the Nightblood throne, to rule in my stead. I cannot break Neb’s law, but I have found a way around it. Surely I have made this clear.”
“What is unclear is why you think I’d ever cooperate. My blood doesn’t determine my fate. I won’t agree to your offer. I’d die first.”
“Think carefully about that. If your mortal body dies while connected to the Minax, your spirit will be trapped in the Obscurum forever.”
I swallowed, my stomach turning. Before I could tell him I didn’t care, the wind picked up, lifting battle smoke into swirls in the air.
“Just minutes ago, you reveled in the power of the Minax. I saw the hunger in your eyes, the satisfaction. You wanted more. The raw energy of battle and death. That was but a taste of all you could experience. A grain of salt in an endless feast. Why deny yourself?”
“It’s not mysterious,” I said, throwing his words back at him. “You want to make mortals into your mindless puppets. I fight for freedom, for free will.”
“Platitudes and ethos. I offer you the power of a god, and you respond with moralistic absurdities.” He shook his head, his eyes going cold. “You disgust me.”
“Mutual,” I said clearly.
He waved a hand at the battle below. “Your forces flounder.”
I checked our position. Our troops had fallen back to the last ice barrier before the pass.
“We’re not finished yet.”
“Ah, you are waiting for the other ships,” Eurus said, lips curving up again. “Did you really think I would let them come here?”
Trepidation pierced my confidence. “What do you mean?”
“An east wind is unpredictable, my girl. They could be halfway to the Coral Isles by now.”
“No!” Why hadn’t we considered this? He could just blow the ships off course, make sure they never arrived. We’d assumed he wouldn’t use his powers as a god, but he’d broken Neb’s law before, and no one had caught him.
He’d gotten away with killing my father, and now he would kill us all and open the Gate.
Desperation churned through me. Without the Tempesian and Sudesian fleets, we were lost. We could only hold out so long. Our numbers were dwindling by the hour. By the minute.
Fire filled my heart. Fear turned into heat. The Minax stoked the flames, lost in the luscious brew of aggression, determination, hatred, and resolve.
Closing my eyes, I centered my mind, then reached for the lava under the earth. It ran throughout the island, heating the hot springs where Arcus had taken me the night before. I hadn’t mastered my ability to control lava, but I knew it was there, waiting to be tapped.
And I had the Minax to help me.
In seconds, I felt it. Flowing, bubbling. Lines of red-hot magma waiting to be pulled to the surface.
I directed the heat, commanded the boiling rock the way I commanded fire, and lifted it to the surface in the center of the lava field.
The ground shuddered. Stones quaked. Falling rocks showered the soldiers below, making them scatter. A ridge of black rock buckled in a line bisecting the lava field, rising, breaking, shattering as the lava climbed.
Magma formed a thick channel, a moat that cut off the Servants’ front lines from their archers and fresh troops surging from the beach.
A breathless moment passed before our commanders realized what had happened. When they did, a cheer rose. Arcus looked up at me with a wide grin. His eyes shone with possessive pride.
Too fatigued even to smile, I just stared back, pouring my love into my eyes.
Our troops clashed with the Servants’ with renewed force, pushing them back toward the lava-filled trench, to death.
I turned to Eurus, eyes glowing, heart full of bliss. Triumphant.
“Maybe we don’t need those ships,” I said breathlessly.
He shook his head, nostrils flaring, his eyes desolate of anything but retribution. “You have exhausted my patience, girl. I gave you ample chances to see reason. You chose this outcome. Remember that as you rule the Obscurum. Alone. Forever.”
His body suddenly crumpled as if felled with an unseen blow, landing on the rock where he’d stood with a final jounce of limbs that settled into stillness.
What happened? I scanned the ramparts in confusion. Had someone realized who he really was? Killed him with an unseen arrow? But everyone was occupied with the fight, the arrows and streams of fire and frost flowing back and forth unabated.
For a second, it made no sense.
Then the Minax trembled with glee as its attention shifted from Prince Eiko’s still figure to the battlefield below.
With a sick feeling of dread, I looked down to search for the source of its feverish joy. Amid the commanders, one of the Frostblood generals, a stocky figure with silver in his hair, stared up at me with a look of expectation. The Minax fluttered with eager recognition. The general’s eyes glittered with bloodlust and triumph as his lip curled in a slow smile, and in that moment I knew it was Eurus in his body. Blood splatter covered his face. His sword was outthrust. He had buried the silvery blade in—
My whole body jerked.
No. Not him! No, this isn’t happening!
Screams and shouts erupted from among our commanders. My heart stopped. Time stopped. I floated in a moment of pure numbness, disconnected from my body. Vision blurred, breath caught in my throat.
From that moment on, I watched it as if trapped in a bad dream. Pain shot through my mind and body
, wave after wave of agony, shaking the walls of sanity.
I watched as the other generals seized the killer. Justice was served with a slice across his throat. His body crumpled to the ground. But it wasn’t justice. The general had merely been a shell. Eurus had possessed him, forced his arm to lift the blade and…
Not real not real not real not real
They pulled the sword out, their hands coming to support that strong, invincible form as they laid him on the ground. Even as I stared, frozen, my mind put up walls of denial.
No no no no not real not real not real
They unbuckled his leather armor. Blood soaked his tunic underneath. So much blood. As I stared at his beloved features, the details wouldn’t come together in my mind. His beautiful ice-blue eyes stared at the sky, unseeing.
No no not him not real not him NOT HIM
A horrible sound echoed against the cliffs, a keening cry followed by choking sobs.
I shook and screamed and spoke a litany of broken words I didn’t recognize as my own.
PART THREE
THIRTY-TWO
DESPAIR. THE MINAX NUMBING IT away. Grief. Too much! Too much!
I rocked back and forth, huddled in a ball. I’d fallen where I stood, on the stone rampart, praying for oblivion. The battle raged below, but it wasn’t real. Nothing was real anymore.
“Don’t touch her!” Kai said to the archers, who’d rushed closer when they heard my screams. “Let me see to her.”
Nothing matters nothing matters not real not real not real
“Ruby?” Kai’s voice, soft, barely audible. His hand, reaching out. I wanted to slap it away, but I would have to unwrap my arms from around myself and then I would fly into a million pieces and no one would ever be able to put me back together again.
Not real not real not real
“Ruby? Let me take you to him.”
I shook my head in frantic denial.
“They’re bringing his body somewhere safe…”
His body? No! I shook my head harder. Not real not real not real
“….and we’ve sent someone to get Lucina.”
Lucina! That name broke through the chaos. Lucina was a healer!
I looked up at Kai, meeting his eyes with desperate hope. He looked so devastated, I had to look away.
“Come on,” he said gently, bending to take my arm. I let him pull me to my feet.
“Lucina,” I said hoarsely on a wave of incandescent pain.
“Yes, we’re going to see her,” he reassured me. “Come with me.”
Somehow we made it from the rampart to the area in front of the Gate. They had laid Arcus near the Gate itself, its light shining over him. He was just as beautiful as always, but his eyes were closed and his chest didn’t move.
The people clustered around him moved off as I approached, giving me room. Brother Thistle knelt among them, but he didn’t matter right now. Falling to my knees, I bent over Arcus, taking his face in my hands. His skin was so cold, but it was always cold. Blue blood soaked his tunic. I wouldn’t look there. Not real
“Arcus?” I whispered. “Wake up, love.”
Kai let out a quiet, agonized groan, and I heard him whisper something to someone. Familiar faces stared at me, members of our ship’s crew.
But they didn’t matter. No one else mattered. I fixed my gaze on Arcus’s eyelids and willed them to open. “Wake up wake up wake up.”
Dimly, I heard myself. I ordered and begged him to open his eyes. After a few minutes, a stark and ugly thought came into my mind, settling in like a carrion bird.
He’s dead.
NO!
With unsteady feet, I lurched to Lucina and clutched her arm. “Heal him.”
Her golden eyes dimmed with a look of profound regret.
“Heal him!” My hoarse shout echoed off the cliffs, the words doubling over each other. “The stories say… you can heal… any wound.” My breathing had shattered into gasps. “Heal him.”
“I can heal his body,” she said huskily. “But the spirit leaves soon after death. Even if I mend his wounds, well… your Arcus has gone to the afterworld—”
“He hasn’t!” I grated fiercely. “He would not leave me behind.”
She sucked in a breath, her eyes widening at whatever she saw in my eyes. “I will try.”
She lifted her arms up to the sky. The sunshine filled them, turning her gold once again. Then she tilted her hands down and released the light into Arcus’s wound. I gasped, worried that she was hurting him, unable to comprehend that he couldn’t feel pain.
Everyone was silent as his body glowed with light. Waiting. I was strung up in terrible suspension, either ready to fly or to be dashed to the ground in pieces.
“It’s done,” she finally said, panting. She lifted his tunic to check, wiping away the blood with the hem of his shirt, and nodded. “His wound is healed.” She put her hand to his neck, her ear to his mouth. Slowly, she looked at me. And shook her head.
That’s when I truly understood. He was gone.
I doubled over in agony, falling next to Arcus again, unable to see past tears. I placed my hand on his cheek. He’d always responded to my touch. Even in his sleep, his eyelashes would have fluttered. Or he would have nuzzled my hand, would have tried to get closer.
“Come back to me,” I begged, whispering soft words, trying to lure him to my voice. Minutes passed while I babbled—pleading, enticing, threatening. “I won’t leave you. I won’t give up on you.” I pressed my lips to his cheek, watching as salty tears dripped and slid down his skin, turning to drops of ice as they reached his ear.
My chest heaved with sobs. I shook uncontrollably. Pain pierced my midsection, as if a stiletto were being driven between my ribs. My temperature flashed from hot to cold as if my gift were breaking along with my heart. My hands went to my chest, as if I could claw out the pain.
Unbearable. Reopening the old, festering wound of loss after my mother was killed.
This loss would break me.
Already, black despair swallowed me from within.
“Cirrus, please!” I begged, tilting my head up to the sky. “Sud! Fors! Bring him back.”
Nothing.
I called on Tempus and Neb.
Nothing.
No no no this can’t be real!
But I knew it was. Sometime in the past few minutes, my wall of denial had crumbled. And I had broken with it.
After a few seconds, numbness eased the pain.
The Minax! I’d never been so grateful. Relief spread through me, inch by torturous inch.
I sank into its consciousness. It whispered sweet words of relief. Quietly offering. The Minax would cure me. It would keep me from feeling this terrible ache.
I could choose never to feel anything again.
The creature waited. Alert. Poised to act. It only needed one word from me.
A second of hesitation stretched to two.
A world of unending pain? Or blessed numbness?
The choice was easy.
Yes, I told it. Yes, take it all away.
The barrier between myself and the creature burned into ash. The Minax slammed into place in a way it never had before, filling my mind and heart to the brink.
Grief faded into a misty soup of unfeeling, the pain a distant twinge. Sensations and impulses crowded my mind, then faded as they were replaced with the creature’s wants and needs, stirring the chaos.
I looked up, taking stock of my surroundings for the first time in many minutes. Shouts and clangs rose from the lava field, not so far away. I breathed in the smells of smoke and blood, pain and lost lives. An intoxicating perfume.
Yes, we—the Minax and I as one—would survive this loss.
“Ruby?” Lucina said, concerned.
I rose and turned my back on her. She was inconsequential now.
The Gate pulsed in front of me with an audible hum. Its honey-gold surface bowed out, shivering as if a battering ram slammed on it from the i
nside.
Countless shadows, struggling to escape. Spirits of people murdered by the Minax, clawing to get out. They threw themselves at the crack, desperate, wild, mad for freedom.
It was all clear now. I had killed today, with the Minax possessing my heart. If Lucina’s theory about proximity to the Minax was correct, those deaths had added to the volume of spirits, all bashing at the Gate to get out. I might have played right into Eurus’s hands, helping him unwittingly.
If I’d realized this sooner, I would have been disturbed by the idea.
I waited, half blinded by the pulsing light.
Lucina yelled. She saw the danger too late. She threw a band of light at the Gate and shouted orders for help. For frostfire.
I kept my eyes on the Gate. The surface bowed out over the crack, once, twice, like fabric pushed and pushed by a dull knife. Finally, the knife penetrated. The crack tore open, the slice grew, and shadows streamed out, wraiths dancing on air, pouring free.
Kai and Brother Thistle rushed forward, arms raised, fire and frost meeting and blending into a swift and rudimentary version of frostfire. They directed the sparking column at the opening, trying to contain the damage. The shadows shivered in the blue-white light, but kept up their assault until one slithered through.
The Minax reveled as they burst free. Connected to all of them, I felt their raw elation, heard their untamed thoughts.
No more imprisonment! No more starvation! The world is our banquet, and we are hungry.
The agony of death would be our life.
The long, dark night had begun.
THIRTY-THREE
THE BATTLEFIELD NO LONGER inspired fear or revulsion. It was a feast.
Craning my head, I considered my old spot on the rampart. And turned away. It was too removed up there. Too distant.
I wanted screams of pain to pierce my ears. I wanted to feel blood spatter my face, to breathe the sweat and fear, to taste the smoke. I wanted to soak it in and become the battle.
As I stepped over the corpse of a young man about my size, I bent and swept up his short sword, twirling it with a rotation of my wrist. Perfect for my needs. I wanted to be in my enemies’ faces, watching the life leak from their eyes as they fell. I grabbed his shield, too. It was light and small, as if made for me.