by Elly Blake
I watched him curiously. “From your curse, you mean?”
“From Frostbloods! You can’t sympathize with them after what they did to your mother. To your people. To you.”
Mother.
Unease stirred inside of me. What would she think of my actions, the way I was using the shadows to kill and maim? She’d been a healer. She would be devastated to see me now.
“I wouldn’t sympathize with the ones who raided villages or killed Firebloods,” I said slowly. “But not all of them are like that.”
“Your precious Arcus, for instance? He’s dead.”
A spear of fresh pain cut through the rich vortex of power that had cloaked me. Memories of my past with Arcus rushed in, making me sick with loss. Along with the pain was a jarring sense of disorientation, as if I were wandering through dark tunnels of my dreams. I had taken a wrong turn somewhere. The shadows hid my pain, but they also hid the truth.
It was either numbness or clarity. Painful memories or blank, empty safety.
Given the choice, I would keep the memories, even if they brought me pain. Choosing numbness was easier, but that didn’t make it better.
I opened my hand to check the crystal. The transparent gem had gone dark, with just a tiny speck of light left in its center. I closed my palm over it, and the gentle glow penetrated my dark thoughts.
A question formed, demanding an answer. “If I use my power to kill, how am I any better than those who killed my mother?”
Eurus said with clear disgust, “You are limiting yourself to mortal values. You are greater than that now.” His eyes took on a feverish glint. “Together, we can decide what’s right and wrong. Who lives and dies. In the game of creation, I have won. The other gods will look down and breathe in the ashes of what they’ve lost. And you will share in my triumph.”
I stared at him and felt as if I could see right through him. As if the light pouring into my blood from the crystal had illuminated the truth.
“That’s your shameful secret, isn’t it? You didn’t create the Minax. They aren’t living shadows. They’re lost spirits. You warped them and forced them into the hearts of the living.”
He moved closer, his footsteps shaking the columns. “My siblings added their gifts to the blood of mortals. What I did is no different.”
“It is entirely different!” I felt the pieces of myself reassembling, my heart rushing with anger. “Your siblings gave, but you took. Firebloods and Frostbloods retain their free will. In erasing free will, you made abominations.”
“Is that how you think of yourself?” he asked with a brittle laugh. “An abomination? Then perhaps I should eliminate you right now.”
“But then you wouldn’t be able to use me in your revenge.”
His breath was a rising wind, sweeping around the room. “Now that I know how to create Nightbloods, I can simply create more.”
I held his challenging stare, unwilling to back down even with a blink. I doubted he’d discard me so blithely. Despite his bravado, he had no guarantee his experiment would work a second time. I called his bluff. “If you wanted to destroy me, I don’t have any illusions that I could stop you.”
The tension stretched taut. My chest tightened. The wind stole my breath. I put a hand to my throat, my mouth open, but I didn’t look away.
Finally, he made a furious gesture, and the air returned to my lungs. “Enough! Accept what is. You are bound to the throne. You cannot escape, even in death. You will do my bidding because you have no choice but to obey.”
The gale-force wind howled through the room, extinguishing the torches, whipping my hair over my face, plunging us into a vast, echoing void. The gloom provided one last chance to escape.
My temples throbbed as I struggled to stand. When my limbs cramped and burned, I knew escape was hopeless. I couldn’t leave, couldn’t die, and there was no way I could destroy a god.
All I could do was control the Minax.
I closed my eyes, blocking out the wind, the sounds of battle, the slam of my pulse.
And called all those restless, hungry spirits to me.
The Minax—or rather, the tortured spirits—flew toward me in a rush. I called them from the battlefield, from inside the Gate, from every corner of the Obscurum, feeling each shadow as a presence in my mind.
They flowed through tunnels, through walls, into the throne room, howling and screeching.
Dimly, I heard Eurus shouting. I blocked him out, tuning my thoughts to the spirits. Lucina had said they would have to leave of their own free will, so I would offer instead of command.
“Eurus will never let you go,” I told them. “But I will take your darkness so you can go to the afterworld where you belong!”
I repeated the offer, making sure every last spirit accepted. A ferocious wave of shadows arrowed into my heart. My rib cage ached, too small, full to bursting, the way I used to feel whenever my fire spun out of control. Instead of heat, black despair sliced into me and through me.
Too agonized even to scream, I teetered on the brink of an abyss, the pain and desolation waiting to swallow me whole. Only a slender tether of memory held me back, brief flashes of random moments from my past.
I saw Mother smiling at me, her dark hair escaping its braid as she ground herbs with a mortar and pestle, her smile lines radiating out from her warm brown eyes.
Lucina, when I knew her as Grandmother, lit by firelight, her veined hands moving as she spun a tale of the gods.
Arcus looking down at me with tenderness and love in our practice area outside the abbey, wearing the crooked smile that made me want to kiss him senseless.
Brother Thistle telling me he had faith in me just before I entered the Obscurum, projecting his confidence that I could overcome any odds.
As the spirits tore through me, my Nightblood heart soaked up the shadows, and light emerged on the other side. Luminescent spirits floated away, free. I sensed their relief, felt their elation as they darted back toward the Gate where instinct had been calling them throughout their long imprisonment. Instead of hurling themselves against it, they passed through as creatures of pure, golden radiance. I knew the exact moment each left the Obscurum, my connection with them severed for all time.
It happened in minutes, a terrible wave of bleak darkness morphing into a euphoria of incandescent hope that swelled and filled the room until my vision faded white. Then, emptiness.
Finally, only one spirit remained. The fire Minax in my heart, which had been trapped in the throne of Sud for a thousand years.
“You have to go, too,” I whispered, sensing its vulnerability for the first time. “You can leave your darkness with me and ascend.”
I swallowed, my hands curling into fists. I had grown used to its presence even if I had hated its possession, its hold over me. For a moment, I felt its reluctance to leave me. Then, as it silently accepted my offer, I took a breath and severed the tie between us.
It appeared to me as a golden figure, shining bright, a woman dressed as a Sudesian commoner.
My companion waits for me, she said in my mind.
“The frost Minax was destroyed,” I said gently. I had forced my Minax to destroy its twin when I first took it into my heart in Sudesia.
Did not destroy, the spirit said. I took its darkness. Its light ascended. And now I follow.
I closed my eyes as the woman’s spirit faded, joy bursting through me. There was a sense of completeness, of everything being put back in order, of rightness. It filled me with a hope so strong that I could even bear the nightmare of emotions left inside of me.
In my palm, the crystal glowed bright, the only light in the cavernous room.
I looked up, grinning with triumph.
My eyes met those of a furious god.
THIRTY-SEVEN
BLACK RAGE CONTORTED EURUS’S features into a violent, animalistic mask. I laced my hands together to hide that I was shaking with a bone-deep terror. We stared at each other as the seconds crept
by, the howl of the wind and my sharp breaths the only sounds.
I expected his voice to shake the cavern, but when he spoke, it was in a bloodcurdling whisper. “I could kill you, of course, but no.” His eyes glowed brighter green, a malicious smile crawling across his face. “You will spend your eternity here.”
Between one blink and the next, I found myself on a floor of uneven gray stones grimed with dirt. Dim light fell over a filthy bed of straw, a bucket, and metal bars stretching to the slime-coated ceiling. I inhaled. The smells of mold, sweat, fear, and waste made me gag. I suddenly knew exactly where I was.
My old cell in Blackcreek Prison.
“No!” I screamed, grasping the bars. They felt cold under my hand. They felt real. “No, no! Let me out!”
“Eternity is a very long time, Ruby,” Eurus said, his voice clear, though I couldn’t see him. “You should have thought of that before you defied me.”
“No! Let me out!” I couldn’t bear this, couldn’t keep myself together. Of all the outcomes I’d imagined, this hadn’t been one. “Please!”
His mocking laughter coiled through the prison, making the other inmates groan and shift restlessly in their cells.
“Eternity.” His whisper rolled like thunder before fading into silence.
I fell to my knees. All that despair in my heart. And now this. I sensed my mind fracturing, splitting apart, the threads of reason unraveling. I put my forehead to the bars, near defeat.
“Ruby.”
Disbelief froze my breath. Had I lost my mind already?
“It can’t be,” I whispered.
I turned slowly. A being made of light stood nearby in my cell. A golden spirit, just like the ones I’d released.
Only this was Arcus.
Tears rolled down my face, my breaths coming in gasps. He was wearing the same thing he’d been wearing when he died, though it looked transparent and golden now.
I sobbed out a breath and shoved to my feet, reached out, hesitated. He put a finger out to touch mine. There was a tiny spark, like the crackle of feeling that raises neck hairs during a lightning storm.
“How?” I asked brokenly.
“It took me a while to find you.” His familiar, crooked smile lit his eyes. His hair fell over his forehead as if he were solid, and I wanted so badly to brush it back.
“You were in the Obscurum. Because anyone who is near a Minax when…” My throat closed. I couldn’t say “when they die.” I just couldn’t.
His smile faded, his eyes solemn. “After Eurus…” He grimaced rather than completing the thought. “I found myself floating over my own body, but no one could see me. I watched as Lucina healed my wounds. I heard you crying.” His image dimmed, then flared, as if strong emotions rippled through him. “It tore me up that I couldn’t comfort you. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t return to my body.”
His pain was so clear, I hurt with him. “It’s all right,” I whispered, not wanting him to feel guilty for something he couldn’t help.
“As time passed, my consciousness fractured. It’s hard to describe. I was drawn to the sunlight, and yet I felt as if something anchored me. I have no clear memories until I had a strong feeling that you needed help. I entered the Obscurum through the rift, but I was lost in dark tunnels at first. When you summoned the spirits, I was drawn to you.”
“I’m glad you”—I had to stop and swallow past the thickness in my throat—“found me.”
“I’ll always answer your call, Ruby.”
I closed my eyes, overcome by the tenderness in his voice. “But… but you didn’t leave with the others.” I could hardly bear to say this, but I had to. “You should have gone. You should go now. Go through the Gate and to the afterworld.” I was having trouble speaking, my chest convulsing as I tried to stifle sobs. My voice faded to a whisper. “I’ll follow you when I can.”
If I ever could. Eternity is a long time.…
His lips curved up softly. “It’s not time for that, not for a long while yet. We have work to do.”
“What can I do?” I asked, wiping my cheeks. “Do you know a way out of here?”
“Close your eyes, Ruby. Take a breath.”
I did, though it took a couple of tries before I could inhale fully.
“Where are you right now?” he asked, shaking his head when my eyes popped open. “Keep them closed. What do your other senses tell you?”
I nodded, understanding. It reminded me a bit of the lessons Arcus had given me on sensing the cold of a nearby Frostblood—him—when he’d first trained me at the abbey.
The moans and mutterings of the other prisoners quieted into silence. The air smelled stale, tinged with a hint of torch smoke, but not foul. “Not… not Blackcreek Prison.”
I opened my eyes, but found myself once again in the cell. “No! I’m still here!”
“Ruby.” Arcus stepped closer. “He is the god of tricks and lies. Close your eyes again.”
When my eyes were closed, Arcus said, “See things as they are. See past the darkness.”
I opened my eyes again and saw the cell. I took a calming breath and stared at Arcus, letting my eyes lose focus, allowing his golden shimmer to fill my vision. The edges of the cell vanished.
We were back in the throne room. I sat on the night throne, and Arcus stood on the dais next to me. I exhaled in relief.
“Very good,” he said with a smile. “You’re seeing what’s real.”
“The illusions don’t work on you?” I looked at his hand, so near mine, and wished I could hold it.
“No. And I don’t think he can see or hear me.”
“How? How are you doing this?”
“Later. For now, you have to get away from here.”
I tried again to stand, muscles bunching, but was held back by invisible bands. “I can’t leave the throne.”
“Another one of his lies.”
I struggled, fought, pushed against the cold stone. “I can’t!”
Suddenly, Eurus appeared in front of the throne. “Out already? I thought it would take at least a century before you found your way out.” He regarded me with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps something a little more… immersive.”
I blinked and found myself in a snowy village under a dark sky. Buildings burned, sending up clouds of sparks and acrid smoke. Hoots and hollers echoed through the night as soldiers stamped through the snow.
“Oh no!” I shouted, closing my eyes. But the orange light of torches and burning buildings glowed behind my eyes. I couldn’t escape. “No!”
When I opened my eyes, my mother stood before me, her back to me, body trembling as she tried to protect me from the soldiers. The captain stepped forward, drew his sword.
“No! No!” I screamed, trying to rush forward, my body paralyzed by fear. “You’re dead!” I shouted at Captain Drake. “I killed you!”
The sandy-haired soldier smiled at me and raised his sword over my mother. Despair ate me from within, unraveling my thoughts, pulling me into pieces.
“Take me instead!” I cried.
“Ruby.” Arcus’s voice broke through the chaos. “Look at me.”
I turned to find him next to me.
“Look only at me,” he said.
“But Mother!”
“Is not real. This is not real. It happened long ago.”
The soldiers were closing in. I could smell the smoke, feel the snow against my calves above the too-short boots I’d worn that night. I reached out and touched Mother’s shoulder, tried desperately to pull her to me, to protect her.
“Oh gods, it’s real, it’s real, it’s real,” I chanted. “Mother! Mother!”
“Not. Real,” Arcus said firmly. “Look only at me.”
I forced my eyes to him. He was a haven of peace in the horror around me.
“Deep breaths. Look only at me.”
My vision narrowed to him, cutting out the flames, the shouts. The edges of the village started to dissolve. I took a deep breath. The s
moke and fire vanished.
After another few seconds, I was back in the throne room, Arcus’s spirit at my side.
I sobbed into my hands, taking shuddering, wracking breaths. The memory made everything hurt, ripping open all the half-healed wounds, making me feel small and vulnerable and raw.
I was glad I hadn’t been alone when I had to relive that. And I wasn’t alone now. I felt a crackle of energy move over my hair, my shoulder, my fingers.
“It’s all right, love,” Arcus murmured, adding words of comfort that soothed. “Take your time.”
Finally, I scrubbed my face with my hands and sighed, straightening my shoulders with a nod.
“When you’re ready,” he said softly, “stand up.”
“Right.” I nodded. Tightening every muscle, I tried to surge to my feet. But the throne held me down, no matter how I pulled against it. After a minute of heaving and twitching, I smacked my palms against the seat, groaning in frustration.
Eurus appeared again. One moment he wasn’t there, the next he was, his head tilted to the side, eyes narrowed.
“Let me make this very clear to you, Ruby,” he said impatiently, his voice booming, rebounding from the stone walls. “I am a god. You are a mortal. Your job is to beseech and obey. My job is to deny and to punish. You outlived your usefulness when you released my Minax. You have no purpose now but in suffering, which pleases me, so you will stay in the place where I put you next, or you will die. The moment you leave, I’ll kill you. Is that clear enough?”
“Ruby, listen,” Arcus said, speaking rapidly. I was careful not to look at him. “The moment you shake free of whatever illusion you’re in, you have to stand up from the throne. You have to. You can do this. Believe it.”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly, fear rising up to choke me.
“Be gone,” Eurus said with a flick of his hand.
In a blink, I stood with the Fireblood masters on the ramparts above the lava field on the Isle of Night, the battle spread out below. Prince Eiko’s body was crumpled in a heap on the rock some feet away, as if it had just been discarded, and one of the Frostblood generals below had drawn back his sword arm.