Princess of souls, p.32
Princess of Souls, page 32
A horrible sadness shoots through me.
I know what I have to do.
“Let me go, Mother,” I beg.
Please don’t make me do this, I think. The Red Moon is so close.
Her breath stutters and there’s only a brief glimpse of my mother, a last glance at her shimmering eyes, before the darkness consumes her entirely.
Her voice drifts through the beach. “I’ll let you go, if you let me go,” she says.
Her shadows thrust over to me and I throw my hand up in response, sending every ounce of light and life I have back at it. Her magic dissipates, the power of the goddess alight and alive inside me.
I know I can’t delay any longer.
This is the only way to truly free her.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
My power explodes from me in a ray of light that coats the beach in pure, bright white. It surges toward her and then pierces into her heart.
My magic, Eldara’s magic, Asclepina’s magic.
It shatters inside of her, and my mother’s arms shoot out like wings as she allows it to consume her. In a last breath, my mother smiles and then collapses onto the damp sand.
The sobs overtake me as I realize what I’ve lost. Not just my mother, not just Eldara, but more magic stolen from the world.
I walk toward my mother’s body and kneel beside her, clenching my fists to stone.
This is what she wanted. Better to die than to be bound to Seryth for any longer.
I swallow as I take in my mother’s lifeless body. I reach over and close her eyes, letting her finally find peace.
The light may have gone out inside her, but it only ignites in me.
“I will end this tonight,” I promise her.
I stand.
And I let my fury rise.
If the king wants a soul-eater, then I’ll give him one. Just as Eldara told me to.
Seryth circles Nox like a vulture, attempting to toy with him as Nox slashes his father’s sword through the air.
This is a game to him: Our lives and our deaths. Asden. Eldara. My mother. They were all just dispensable chess pieces that got destroyed in his little game. The invincible king has never known anything of grief or loss.
It is time someone taught him.
“Seryth!” I call out.
The man turns to me, surprised at the use of his name. Just a month ago I’d have never dared to utter it out loud, fearing his reaction.
I’m not scared anymore.
Seryth looks over to me as I approach, then his eyes find my mother’s body slack on the sand.
No more witch and no more ritual to gather his souls.
There is nothing that an immortal fears more than death. He has lived lifetimes, never having to worry about his time being up because my family made that clock eternal.
The moment he realizes it, I see the seed of fear grow in his eyes.
“Nox!” I scream. “Step back!”
Nox whirls around to face me, eyes wide. He jumps back just as I flick my arms out, sending a wave of light toward Seryth.
The tyrant throws himself to the ground, lunging from my magic.
“Do not be a fool, child,” Seryth hisses, rising back to his feet. “I am made immortal.”
“Then I’ll unmake you,” I say fiercely.
In the name of my mother and Eldara and Asden and every soul he has caused to vanish from this world.
My magic pulses at my fingertips as Seryth sprints toward me, his desperation stronger than his fear could ever be.
He is only moments from me when I send my family’s power snapping into the air like a whip. The wind rips through his face, leaving a trail of blood across his cheek.
The king is undeterred.
He grabs a fist of my hair and yanks me toward him. His blood smears against my neck as he leans in to whisper in my ear.
I buck and kick against him, but his hold is firm.
“You could have been great,” he says to me. “You could have ruled beside me.”
“I’ll rule without you just fine,” I say.
I swing my head backward, my skull cracking into his nose. The moment he drops me Nox is there, slicing his father’s blade clean across the king’s neck.
“You’re not worthy to touch her,” he spits.
My breath shakes.
We are unstoppable.
Asden trained us to be fast, to be steady and determined. To be strong. Together, even an immortal does not stand a chance.
This is our destiny, set out by a goddess. Two sides of a coin uniting to destroy a great evil.
Seryth growls, the blood seeping faster and faster from him with every snarl.
I shoot my hands out like darts and my magic sinks into him, propelling him back to the sand before his skin can stitch itself fully back together.
The sky groans up ahead.
I lift my chin to see the moon slink from behind the clouds, radiating a fierce glow.
“Nox!” I call out. “The moon!”
Nox glances up at the brightening night. His eyes glisten with its reflection.
“No!” Seryth yells.
He charges toward Nox and cleaves his fist through the air.
At the last moment, Nox dodges his blow, swiping Seryth’s legs out from under him.
He falls and Nox seizes the opportunity to bring his sword swiftly into the air and then stab it through Seryth’s heart.
He drives the old king to the ground, pinning him in place.
“Now it ends,” Nox growls. “Now you suffer.”
And he’s right: This is the end.
The king’s eyes grow wide as the sky shifts above us. The Red Moon rises up through the clouds, with the sound of cracking thunder, staining the world in deep, dark red.
It reflects into the water below like a pool of blood.
The Endless Sea is no longer black, but awash with all the sins of my family.
Around us the soldiers’ swords grow quiet, their blades falling slack to their sides as the month comes to an end.
“I cannot die,” Seryth says, only it sounds more like a prayer. A wish. “I am your king.”
“Kings can be replaced,” I say. “Nobody is forever.”
He is no longer protected by Isolda’s spell and the Red Moon.
The ritual, the bargain, is void. Undone. The souls inside him are no longer bound.
I can hear the anger and fear in Seryth’s breath. The sharp growl of a scared and bitter man.
His lips twitch and then stretch open in a guttural scream.
From his mouth the first gray shadow slithers.
47
NOX
“No,” he begs in a whimper. “You cannot take them from me.”
The man before us stutters. His face morphs to pleading.
The world, the magic, doesn’t listen.
As the Red Moon grows stronger and Isolda’s magic vanishes, it takes them all, letting the life funnel out of him like corked wine. The souls billow and curl from his parted lips, taking their years unlived with them.
Souls from weeks ago, years ago, a century ago.
Seryth, ancient warrior of Polemistés and self-proclaimed king of the Six Isles, ages before me. He withers like a rose.
I step forward, ripping my father’s sword from his chest.
The old man growls in pain as I raise it into the air, his acid blood sizzling against the blade.
Around us, the armies are silent as they see their king, their enemy, become nothing before their eyes. They are frozen in time at the sight of us.
The chaos has turned to stillness.
I smirk. There is no loyalty to this man. There was only ever fear of what he might do if they didn’t obey, and now, when he is on his knees, not a single person would come willingly to lift him back up.
“This is for my father,” I say as the souls continue to flee from his lips. “This is for Asden Laederic. And for—” I break and swallow down a breath of grief. “And for Micah,” I say. “This is for them all.”
Seryth looks up at me, wrinkled by years of battle and darkness. Eyes no longer black, but a weeping blue.
He isn’t an endless monster, warring against time. He is not a curse on this land or a keeper for Selestra’s blood.
He is just a mortal.
I raise my father’s sword higher.
“You cannot,” the old man manages to choke out.
“I can.”
I bring the sword down hard across his neck, every ounce of grief I have thrusting into the blow. I cleave through skin and bone, severing the once-king in two.
Seryth’s head drops to the dirt and I release my father’s blade, letting the sword fall by my feet. My breath steadies with the clang of the metal dropping from my hands.
The vengeance I have sought for years is done.
My father’s soul can rest now. And so can Micah’s.
I turn to Selestra, ready to breathe out the sigh of relief I have been holding for years, the weight of my father’s death lifted from my shoulders.
She isn’t smiling.
Her face contorts in horror and it’s only a moment before I see why.
The souls that funneled from the king have not gone to a peaceful afterlife. Instead, they swarm, circling his body as if they’re not sure where to go next. Prisoners, with no idea what freedom looks like.
They dart in and out of the king’s open mouth, whipping through his bloody neck and then into the shards of his heart that lie inches from his severed head.
“What are they doing?” I yell out.
The sound of my voice causes them to stiffen. Under the light of the Red Moon, they set their sights on me.
I blanch as the gray wisps of souls shoot from the king’s corpse and over to me. I feel the magic rippling inside them like a great sea.
It pulls me forward, into its current.
Selestra’s magic. Her great-great-grandmother’s magic.
Come, it beckons me. Feed. Immortality awaits.
The souls swirl around me, a whirlwind of death and chaos.
“Nox!” Selestra calls out, just as the whirlwind turns to an arrow.
And shoots straight into my heart.
48
SELESTRA
I watch in horror as Nox’s eyes turn to shadow.
The souls pierce his heart like daggers and with each one Nox gasps out a desperate breath.
No, not desperate, hungry.
The deep brown of his eyes is lost to a merciless black. It is a void that erases anything soft and gentle that came before.
The bargain Isolda made for Seryth has found a new home in him, carving a king from the soldier who came before. An immortal from the boy who stole me from my tower.
Isolda’s magic is corruptive. It is evil and chaos, and so far from Asclepina’s legacy. So far from the magic Eldara gifted me before she slipped into the afterlife.
“Don’t let them,” Nox says to me. “Don’t you let them make me into him.”
I hear the words underneath what he says: Kill me, before the power of these souls corrupts me.
Kill me, before I become like Seryth.
“I won’t!” I scream.
“Selestra,” Nox says.
My name on his lips, the best and worst sound I have ever heard.
“I will not become him,” he says. “Please.”
I grit my teeth at his pleas. Even in death, Seryth and the dark magic that he cloaked himself in still seek to destroy everything I love.
I won’t allow this to happen.
I won’t let my great-great-grandmother’s spell create any more monsters in this world.
Once, she was almighty. But now she is no more.
I am all that is left and I will not let this legacy continue.
I reach out and take Nox’s hand in mine, wrapping myself around him. He frowns, shaking his head, adamant.
“What are you—?”
“We’re in this together. Always,” I say to him. “Remember the skeleton?”
Nox looks confused for a moment, but then a spark of recognition rises in his face. He nods.
I hold on tight to the magic of my goddess as Nox’s knees threaten to buckle. He convulses, the souls shaking through him.
Let us undo it, I say to Asclepina. The wrongs that came before.
Then I pull each and every thread that lives inside of Nox. Threads I once felt in the king. I pull and pull until I feel them snap.
I call you out, I whisper, repeating my mother’s words as I siphon out the souls. Her final lesson to me. In the name of Asclepina, I free you.
The souls shudder and tumble from Nox’s heart as Isolda’s spell finally breaks.
I pay no mind to the two armies, gasping around us as centuries of magic is erased. I don’t regard the headless king by my feet.
I just look at Nox and at the power that swirls inside him as Asclepina’s magic joins with my own.
Good magic, finally back in the Six Isles.
The souls rush from Nox’s heart. Every single life stolen, newly freed and springing back into the world to find their peace. To see their gods and goddesses and find whatever afterlife they’ve so longed for.
I feel the Endless Sea shift around us and it turns from black to crystal blue, its cursed waters brightening under the moon’s watchful glow.
I see it all in my mind too. A glorious vision of freedom as the Six Isles are unlocked to the world. To the kingdoms with the ice mountains and princes of gold Eldara spoke of. To sirens and all manner of mythical creatures as beautiful as the Lamperós bird Seryth held captive.
And the Six Isles, the beauty of them no longer imprisoned by a mad king and his mad dreams.
With every soul that escapes from Nox and back into the ether, I make a wish—a promise—to the Six Isles and all I’ll do to rebuild them. To breathe life and magic back into their spirit.
I call you out.
I call you to freedom.
I squeeze Nox’s hand in mine as the last lost soul funnels from him.
When he finally buckles to his knees, I slip gently beside him and let him fall into my arms, his heartbeat pressed against mine.
49
NOX
Slowly, carefully, Selestra draws closer to me.
The soldiers and the warriors around us are transfixed. There is no sign of battle in their eyes as they regard Selestra and her infinity.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I gather my breath. “Sure,” I say, though my hands are trembling.
It is not just because of the souls that threatened to rip through me, or the magic of Selestra’s grandmother that sought to corrupt me. My hands tremble because they feel so light without the weight of my father’s sword.
I’ve been carrying it for so long, I’m not sure what to do with my hands now.
As if sensing that, Selestra slips her fingers through mine, lacing us together.
My hands instantly stop shaking.
I look at her, remembering how she was bathed in light like some kind of goddess.
“You just set free thousands of souls,” I say. “You saved the Six Isles.”
“We set them free,” she corrects. “We saved the Six Isles.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” I say.
There is a pain in her eyes that nearly splits me in two.
Selestra’s shoulders collapse and small tears break through to her eyes. “As am I,” she says. “But at least she is at peace now. At least she belongs only to herself.”
My father too, I think.
Lucian approaches us with a stained sword at his side.
“Is he dead?” the warrior asks, looking down at the headless body by our feet.
He means Seryth, of course, but the word dead brings only one face to mind.
Micah.
I whisper his name and Selestra goes rigid beside me. I don’t wait for her to speak, because if I wait any longer, then I’ll be drowned in grief.
I steel myself and walk to my friend’s body.
He’s lying on his side, eyes wide open and scared. I reach out to close them, hoping that wherever his soul is now, he was able to get a good look at the battle before he went.
“We did it,” I tell him, just in case. “We saved everyone.”
I lock a hand in his.
My friend. My brother. My family.
Selestra’s jaw shakes as she clutches on to my shoulder, keeping me steady and grounded. Tears threaten to seep from her, but she keeps them hidden.
Perhaps she’ll mourn for him later, but for now I know that she wants to be strong for me.
I sob at Micah’s side, the world feeling out of focus without him there. I’ve never not had Micah with me. Every bad plan, every disastrous trick and scam I came up with on an afterthought, through Last Army training and nights in strange taverns.
“We’ll bury his ashes here,” Selestra says. “And erect a great tree in his honor. As we will do with all who died here today, Last Army and Polemistés soldiers both. They deserve honors for their sacrifices.”
I shake my head and swipe the tears from my swollen eyes. “No,” I say. “Micah would want to go home to his family.”
He wasn’t an orphan like me, or a forsaken child like Selestra. He was loved and cherished, and his family will want to bury him themselves. I won’t steal away their chance to mourn their son and to say a final goodbye to him. But when they do, I’ll let them know that he died to save us all.
“They would be proud,” Lucian says.
His voice is still gruff with battle, and though blood drips from his stomach, he keeps his head high, ignoring the depth of the wound.
It doesn’t matter that around the beach everyone has stilled, most dropping their weapons to the ground as they await their new orders in eerie silence.
Lucian keeps his blade close, not yet trusting that things are over.
“Everyone who died for this war would be proud,” he says. “Including Eldara.”
I tense. “That’s easy for the living to say.”
“Nothing is easy for the living,” Lucian says. “They have to remember.”
His tone softens some. As much as a warrior with a voice as deep as a whale song can.
“We will always remember,” Selestra announces, loudly enough for it to sound like an order to the entire beach and the two armies that still crowd it. “We will remember this day and every person who died here on this beach for eternity.”
