by Eva Brandt
Her wishes were fulfilled... sort of. Bright light filled the room, so blinding I couldn’t see anything anymore, no matter how much I pushed my magic and that of my other self.
My world started to swirl madly, and I knew this was the moment when time had shifted, when the loop had been created. The magic of Chronikos reached into the Axis Mundi itself and a tiny branch cracked.
When the light faded, another Eranthe was standing next to still bound, teenage avatar of spring. It was the past version of me—of Eiar. She stared down at her hands, and then shot her parents a dark look.
“A queen of life and death will come,” she said, “and she will tear the world asunder. Her path is guided by darkness and blood. You cannot stop it. You cannot stop me.”
It was the prophecy—my prophecy, my knowledge of the future and what I was supposed to become. It had already come true, but at the same time, it could still be defied.
As soon as the younger Eiar finished uttering the phrase, the memory froze. Both Eranthe and I knew what came after and there was no point in reliving every single thing. We hadn’t come here for that anyway.
Instead, we made our way to the slab Selene had used to hold down the younger Eranthe. I pressed my hand to the cold cheek of my newly created body, whereas Eranthe did the same for her teenage self.
Both Eranthe and I turned transparent and slowly, we sank into the flesh of our own memories.
Still bound to the slab, Eranthe smiled. “Now, we wait. He’s coming. I can feel it.”
I could feel it too, and I felt something else. For the first time in centuries, I felt hope.
Perhaps I wasn’t doomed. Maybe I could be my own person, after all. I didn’t have to be the separate future of an individual. As the Grand Lich, as Eiar, or simply as a woman who wanted better, I could build my own future, and that was exactly what I intended to do.
Twelve
Confrontation
Cezar
When we’d left Hades, I’d been secretly furious about the fact that we’d never been able to punish Fufluns for his actions. I still didn’t know to what extent Fufluns had been influenced by Eranthe’s mother. I still didn’t understand too many things. But that fury and desire for revenge hadn’t changed. If anything it had grown worse.
“This time, her soul is mine,” the arrogant god declared, and just like that, I lost all sense.
The scent of Eranthe’s blood was thick and cloying in my nostrils. Just yesterday, it had aroused me so much I’d barely been able to function. Now, it hurt, clawing at the back of my mind, burning me more than sunlight ever could.
Eranthe’s blood should have never been spilled like this. The wrongness of it was an insult to everything we were. I wanted to believe in her, like Adrian had said, but my faith in my soulmate did nothing to soothe my pain. Fufluns would serve as good punching bag, a method to exorcise my grief.
I didn’t wait for him to make a move or say anything else. With an infuriated snarl, I lunged forward, pouncing on the god who had dared to take my soulmate away from me.
I didn’t get very far. He batted me away as if I was nothing more than a bothersome fly. Pain erupted through me as his power struck me, but I withstood it, spun mid-air, and landed on my feet. I wasn’t surprised by his strength or by my failure. If this hadn’t worked, I’d just have to try something else.
It was a bad idea for a vampire to fight a god who had power over the underworld, but I couldn’t have cared less. If I died, so be it. If he took my soul instead of Eranthe’s, I’d be happy to accept it. But he would not touch her. He wouldn’t touch either of them.
Adrian and Baltasar had the same idea, and went even further than I did. Adrian’s eyes turned completely black and thin lines of darkness rushed over his skin, as if the blood in his veins had changed color. I tasted bile in my mouth as I realized what he was risking. That kind of change in physical appearance only happened when necromancers pushed their bodies beyond what they were capable of.
It was usually how a lich was created, through serious abuse of dark magic. Eiar seemed an exception to that rule and had managed to preserve her regular looks, but Adrian wasn’t her. At best, this could rob him of his fae body. At worst, it would turn him into a brainless shell of his former self. Neither option appealed to me.
Baltasar had taken a similar approach, one that surprised me even more. His legs came together into a single limb and scales appeared on the lower part of his body. Within seconds, he had a serpentine tail, its crimson glint matching the color of Eranthe’s blood.
I knew for a fact that this transformation was painful for male lamia. Baltasar had only done it once since he and I had met, and even then, it had been under desperate circumstances, when we’d been trying to escape Adrian’s angry family.
But pain didn’t matter, not anymore, not for him and not for us. His lamia form was a weapon, one he didn’t hesitate in using.
My secondary form wasn’t nearly as threatening, but I’d tried a frontal attack and it had not worked. I’d use any skill I had at my disposal to fight Fufluns off.
As I melted into my bat shape, Baltasar and Adrian attacked Fufluns at the same time. “Insects!” Fufluns bellowed. “I’ll squash you all and take what is mine.”
His magic swept over the room like a tidal wave, but Adrian got in the way. His hastily erected shield of dark magic cracked like an egg under the onslaught of the god’s power and he was thrown back, hitting the wall with a nauseating crack. Still, his intervention bought Baltasar and me time and gave us the chance to approach.
Distracted by Adrian, Fufluns didn’t realize the danger. Baltasar pounced on him, burying his fangs into his neck. Fufluns staggered under the bulk of the lamia, but he didn’t fall. “You beast!” he snarled. “I’ll tear off your tail and feed it to you piece by piece.”
Well, that was an interesting idea. In fact, Fufluns’s reaction to our attack was interesting. He was a god who valued happiness, but that rule didn’t seem to apply now. Then again, all gods were like that. They were people too, and no matter what values they followed and what powers they wielded, they were as flawed and guided by visceral emotions as humans.
That was why no undead would ever worship a god, and that was why I didn’t fear the difference of power between us.
I didn’t give him the chance to fulfill his threat. Still in my bat form, I came up at him from behind. I shifted back into my humanoid shape and raked my claws over his back. I didn’t expect to do much damage, since the skin of a deity was very resilient. And yet, Fufluns hissed in pain, his flesh yielding to my attack as easily as that of a mortal.
Maybe Eranthe hadn’t been the only one who’d gotten a boost from our feeding session.
But boost or not, Adrian, Baltasar and I weren’t deities, and we couldn’t stand up to Fufluns on our own. Fortunately, we didn’t have to.
“Get out of my way, you pesky little cretin,” Fufluns shouted, throwing me off him again.
Mere seconds later, a blast of fire struck him straight in the face. “He’s not your biggest problem,” Emmerich growled. “You’re going to have to go through us to harm Eranthe.”
Cassia’s dragons didn’t shift. Had they made the attempt, they would’ve squashed the still wounded Eiar and Eranthe under their bodies. They stood their ground in their humanoid forms. I’d never actually seen them do battle, but I’d heard enough stories about their kind to realize they were a powerful race. I doubted they could actually fight off a god, but they seemed to welcome the chance to try. “Looks like gods aren’t as immune to lamia venom as they claim,” Kerryn said with a grin. “I wonder how you’d react to my poison.”
Cassia stood between her three draconic soulmates, her face a ruthless mask, icy claws forming at her fingertips. “You won’t take my sister. Not again.”
Her words and determination gave Fufluns pause, although he didn’t seem intimidated. He straightened his back and let out an exasperated sigh. “Nothing you do will c
hange the ultimate outcome of today’s events. Your effort is admirable, dearest Cassia, but my powers go beyond elemental magic. It is soul magic I deal with and you have no chance to stop that.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Octavian replied in Cassia’s stead. “I might not be a Grand Lich, but I’m not horrible at soul magic either.”
At one point during the fight, he’d made his way to Eranthe and Eiar’s side. I wasn’t sure if he’d been able to help them in any way, but both my soulmate and her older self seemed to have regained some color. In fact, when I focused a little, I noticed their heartbeats were also stronger.
Fufluns narrowed his eyes at Octavian. “Ah, yes. The undead emperor. Maybe that’s where I should start. You undead have no respect for the gods. It’s high time you paid the price for your defiance.”
Baltasar’s father pulled out his sword, shielding Octavian with his own body. “The emperor of The Voievodat will live forever, through our blood and our deaths. God or not, you won’t change that.”
It was a nice sentiment, but not really something that helped. Fufluns grew tired of the banter. “I don’t need to kill you or shed your blood. You are only as strong as your souls are.”
“Do you expect us to fear you?” Octavian asked, pushing past Pythios. “If so, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.”
“I don’t think I will be.”
Fufluns clapped his hands and all of a sudden, a heavy shroud fell over the room. Being a vampire, I had no problems with gloom, but this wasn’t the type of darkness I reveled in. It was like a poisonous cloud that spread over us, into us, draining us of strength, of hope, of happiness.
I covered my mouth, trying to keep the horrible spell from taking hold of me. It was futile. The vapor wasn’t something physical that I could stop. Nightmarish images started flashing through my mind. The only thing I could see was Eranthe’s limp form, her dead eyes fixed on me accusingly.
There was no hope left, nothing I could do to change what had already happened. My soulmate was gone. I had failed her.
On some distant level, I registered the sound of Cezar and Adrian’s cries as they mourned Eranthe. There were other people present, but I didn’t recognize them anymore. I was too lost in my grief, in the horror of my new existence.
“See?” a wicked, familiar voice taunted me. “I told you there’s nothing you can do.”
I wanted to move. I wanted to do something, anything to stop him. But I didn’t have the energy and I couldn’t remember why that was so important.
“Of course it’s important, you idiot,” a voice shouted at the back of my mind. “Had Eranthe been dead, you’d still need to keep her soul safe. But she’s not gone yet. Think. Focus. You can still feel her heart beating, can’t you?”
I could. Of course I could. But if Fufluns got his way, our good fortune would soon run out.
I shook off the strange enchantment and struggled to get up. I could still hold him back, at least buy Eranthe some time. The undead blood we’d given her, together with her own demigoddess powers, would help her heal, if she just got the chance.
I wasn’t fast enough. Fufluns had already walked past the fallen Cassia and knelt next to Eranthe. He looked between Eranthe and Eiar, and for a few moments, he hesitated. I wondered if he was trying to decide which of the two he’d claim.
In the end, he went for Eranthe. “You’re mine now, dear Eranthe. I’m going to make you so happy, just like I promised. Just like I was promised.”
“N-No,” Cassia stammered, extending a clawed hand toward him. “Leave her—”
A sharp cry cut Cassia off mid-sentence. Surprisingly, it came from Fufluns. The disgusting wretch had just pressed his lips to those of my soulmate. He’d paid a steep price for it.
His skin started to lose color and the oppressive shroud of his magic began to dissipate. Even without having arcane skills of my own, I could tell that Eranthe was somehow attacking Fufluns’s very essence, extracting his powers from him.
In hindsight, I should’ve known that Eranthe had planned for this. I might hate what Fufluns had done to her, but that didn’t mean Eranthe was happy about it. And she’d lured us in once, at a time when we’d deemed her harmless. Today, her strategy was similar, if much more extreme.
Fufluns tried to tear himself away, but he didn’t have a chance. Eiar suddenly opened her eyes and grabbed his wrist. Her eyes glinted with almost demonic satisfaction as she held him in place. “Oh, no, you don’t. You wanted Eranthe? You have her. You don’t get to change your mind.”
Despite her words, the process wasn’t easy. Fufluns was a god, and he wasn’t about to surrender to my soulmate and her older self just like that. His angry, scared magic lashed out against the two women. Sparks of dark power flashed between his skin and Eiar’s, and signs of strain started to appear on her beautiful face.
Eranthe hadn’t woken up and somehow, she and Eiar were still keeping Fufluns locked into the kiss. I wasn’t sure they’d be able to succeed in their plan.
“Eiar, what do we do?” I called out. “Tell us what we can do to help.”
“Keep your distance,” she replied. “Everything will be all right. Just trust me on this and stay out of the way. Eranthe and I will handle him.”
“Trust goes both ways, Eiar,” Baltasar protested. “We’re her soulmates. We might not be as strong as deities, but that doesn’t mean we’re helpless.”
“They’re right, Eiar,” Cassia said softly. “There’s nothing truer and more powerful than the strength of a genuine, soulmate connection. I can personally vouch for that.”
“I’m sure that’s true, sister, but in this, they cannot interfere. We have to finish it ourselves. We’ve already made a mess of a ritual once. If there are any mistakes now, there’s no telling what could happen.”
It grated on me, but I could see her point. Yes, we were Eranthe’s soulmates, but we weren’t Eiar’s, which meant our presence could interrupt or interfere with whatever they were doing.
I hated standing there twiddling my thumbs, but this wasn’t about me. I had to have faith in my soulmate’s plan and abilities. There was no other way.
As it turned out, I shouldn’t have worried about being useless, because Fufluns wasn’t the only problem. Another person flashed into the room, the light that engulfed him so blinding that for a few seconds, I thought I’d lose my sight. I couldn’t distinguish much about him beyond the fact that he was male. “What are you doing, daughter?” the new arrival asked. “Stop it right now.”
“And why should we? Isn’t this ritual exactly how I came into being? Why should we stop something you created?”
The light around the figure faded, revealing a golden-haired, white-clad man. His aura alone told me everything I needed to know about his identity. He could only be a solar deity, Helios, Eranthe’s father.
“You know very well why you must stop. You could bring down the Axis Mundi like this.”
“You know, I believed that for centuries,” Eiar answered. “I know better now. We’ll do no such thing. Stop lying. It’s interference with time that jeopardizes the center of the world, and we’re not the ones who did that.”
“We’re trying to fix that mistake now. All you have to do is go along with it.”
The temperature in the room dropped. This time, I had a feeling the source wasn’t Cassia, but Eiar. “And how convenient it must be for you, to continue living on like nothing ever went wrong, while Eranthe and I paid the price. No. We will fix it ourselves, in our own way, even if we have to kill a god to do it.”
Fufluns jerked in her hold, having obviously heard her. Eiar took a deep breath and pressed her free hand to the floor. Dark specters manifested out of thin air, grabbing Fufluns and keeping him from escaping.
They were only creations of death magic and Fufluns was able to dissipate them. But the specters kept coming, more and more sprouting out of the ground the moment Fufluns eliminated the first ones. With him still trapped in Eranth
e’s hold, he couldn’t fight them all off.
Helios didn’t take the sight well. He extended his hand, presumably intending to keep Eiar from continuing her ritual. Cassia got in the way.
“No, Father. You’ll let Eiar and Eranthe handle this. I honestly don’t understand everything that’s happened, but I trust Eranthe. I won’t let you interfere.”
“You’re the avatar of winter, Cassia. Do you really think anything you do can stop a god of the sun?”
That sounded awfully familiar. Mere minutes ago, Fufluns had said something identical. It was disgusting to see Eranthe’s own father have a reaction so similar to that of her would-be rapist.
Before I knew it, I was standing in front of Cassia, baring my fangs at the sun god who could turn me to ash with a flick of his wrist. “You know, I’ve never liked gods, but I also never realized that all of them are complete dicks. You’re so busy lavishing in your own self-importance and arrogance that you don’t realize you’ve made a mistake until disaster strikes. And even then, even after you’ve fucked things up for everyone, you still refuse to take responsibility for your blunders. That’s disgusting.”
Adrian nodded. “Here I thought fae were bad, but at least they have morals in their own way. Looks like gods don’t bother with stuff like that.”
Baltasar laughed bitterly. “At this point, I’d rather take my chances with a lamia—as a newborn—instead of trusting a god. Let’s face it, we’ve known revenants with more loyalty than we’ve seen in deities.”
“Don’t presume to judge me, serpent.” Helios sneered. “You know nothing about me and my family. You think because Eranthe has allowed you into her bed, you’re suddenly special? You’re not. What you have with her can’t compare to a link that withstands all the trials of life and time.”
I tried not to let his words get to me, but he did have a point. The link between Eranthe and us was still on shaky ground. We were trying and doing better, but we still weren’t where we were supposed to be. The fact that she’d kept her plan from us proved that.