The Midnight Kingdom, page 61
She poured everything she had left into Rian. Immediately she perceived all the injuries, all the hurts—the malnourishment, the arrow wounds, the burn, the stab wound. She brushed against a sense memory and saw a spinous sword sticking out of him, attached to a face that painfully squeezed her heart. Risha leaned over Rian with renewed effort, her magic covering him like new shoots emerging from winter-thawed soil.
For a moment she worried that the damage was beyond her. But her mother had always called her stubborn for a reason. The taste of blood was almost comforting as she focused on stitching up the holes and gashes, forced to ignore the poor state of the rest of him to stop the internal and external bleeding, to knit bones back together, to repair torn muscle and tissue.
His heart had slowed to a dangerous tempo. Eventually, it stopped altogether.
“Come on,” she whispered, shivering with exhaustion even as she pushed herself further. “Come on, Rian…”
Another push, both her hands and Jas’s reaching through and cradling that poor, strained heart, encouraging it to beat.
One second passed. Another. And then—
Rian drew in a sudden breath as his chest kicked back awake. Where the wound had been was now a large, jagged scar.
Risha laughed in relief. Within her, Jas’s energy bloomed with joy.
She had always held power over the dead, but now she also held power over the living. The power to mend, and heal, and save.
She couldn’t go back and right her mistakes, but she had the ability to redeem herself in what ways she could. Starting with the heartbeat of one lost boy.
Nikolas held Rian close while Risha unleashed some inexplicable spell over him. It didn’t feel like her power usually did, cold and discomforting; rather, it gave him assurance. Lux drifted anxiously above them as Rian’s heartbeat quieted under his hand.
Come back, Rian.
Please.
Be brave.
He didn’t understand how they had come to this. Over and over he saw Taesia’s sword landing true, piercing the heart Nikolas had just fought to bring back. She must have known what they were doing, how they were trying to save him.
But she had done it anyway. Had finally removed the mask of that beautifully reckless girl he’d loved and shown her true form underneath.
She was war given human shape, her altar washed with blood. Every offering he had given her now lay destroyed at their feet.
Rian’s heart slowed and then stopped beneath his palm. He thought he had been shattered before, broken against his mother’s wail and his father’s torturous grief, but not like this—not when there had still been hope, when he was holding Rian in his arms and failing him a second time.
It was only Fin’s grip on his shoulder that kept him in place, staring down at his brother when Rian’s eyes snapped open with a gasp.
“Rian!” He cupped the side of his brother’s face. “Rian, can you hear me? Are you—?”
Are you free of him?
Rian’s eyes were the same crystalline shade as his own, as their father’s. But unlike Waren’s, full of ice, Rian’s were the clear water of a lake in summer, open and trusting with no hint of Phos’s malice.
“Nik,” his brother murmured. And then he smiled, brighter than the sun.
Nikolas’s heart had always been a brittle thing, broken too many times to properly find all the pieces. But now it soared like it, too, had wings, beating just as fast as the one under his hand.
Julian watched Risha Vakara heal Rian, watched Nikolas break down weeping and hold his brother close, watched Fin wipe his eyes even as he smiled, watched Brailee rush to her friends and leave him on his own.
He didn’t know what to do. He stared at the place where Taesia had disappeared into the shadows—Nyx’s shadows—her eyes black and spangled with a miniature universe, the darkness oozing around her like it recognized her as its master.
He’d known from the start there was something of a beast in her. But now he had fully laid eyes on it, and still he wanted to go after her, to sketch a doorway that would lead to wherever she had gone.
But he felt strange, hollow. Orsus’s bone was quiet now that Phos was no longer here. He had used the demon’s ability to help Brailee Lastrider get through Rian’s mind, to find the point at which he and Phos had been most entwined. But it hadn’t been enough to separate them until Nikolas had gotten through, and Julian had sensed the severing, heard Phos’s scream of rage when Rian reached for his brother’s hands.
Julian’s own hands were no longer black-veined, but his nails were disconcertingly sharp. Some of his teeth felt sharper, too, and he dreaded what his face might look like.
The maelstrom above dissipated, and the golden barrier fell. Noctan soldiers hesitated beyond the courtyard, but the palace servants wasted no time rushing back to their prince’s side.
“What happened?”
Lilia, Kalen, and Marcellus had climbed down from the roof. Julian nearly hissed through his teeth at the sight of the astralam fangs melded to Lilia’s skin. Her aides supported her on either side, but Marcellus was wounded and Kalen’s expression was haunted. The astrologer kept glancing at the other two as if to reassure himself over and over that they were alive.
“Is Phos… gone?” Lilia asked. Her hair fell over one shoulder in a shock of white.
Julian nodded. “Did you use the fangs to stop the attack?”
Lilia’s eyes were pinched. “In a way. I was going to make the barrier, but Taesia stopped me.”
“Stopped you? Why?”
“She accepted Nyx’s power,” Kalen said. “Together, she and Her Highness absorbed the Solarian light within a black hole of their own making. The same black hole that stopped the other two from colliding. Noctus is safe from both Phos and the Malum Star.”
A bright pain struck his chest.
Taesia… you helped save this world.
Behind him, Brailee was ushering all the Vitaeans toward the Sanctuary, insisting they had to get through the portal.
Lilia glanced at them, then drew herself up with a faint wince. Kalen and Marcellus reluctantly let go of her.
“Go,” she told Julian. “Return home. I…” She put a hand to her chest. “Thank you for all you’ve done. You and Taesia both.” She scanned the courtyard. “Where is she?”
The pain grew to the sharp point of an arrowhead. “Nyx summoned her.”
The three Noctans exchanged concerned looks. “We’ll keep an eye out for her, then,” Marcellus assured him. “We’ll help her however we can.”
Julian could only nod. Part of him wanted to stay behind, but he thought of his mother in Nexus and knew he couldn’t Keep her waiting her any longer.
“Good luck,” he said to Lilia, who offered him a small smile.
“You as well.” She strode forward to address the Noctans who were beginning to crowd the courtyard. She was the last surviving Lunari returned to her seat of power, and these were her people—people she had protected no matter the cost.
Marcellus reached for Kalen’s hand, and Kalen allowed him to hold it. Kalen gave Julian a farewell nod, and Marcellus clasped Julian’s shoulder as they passed, following their princess.
“Julian,” Nikolas called from the open doorway of the Sanctuary. He held Rian in his arms, Fin steadying him around the waist. The Sunbringer Spear shone over his shoulder.
With one last look at the place where Taesia had vanished, Julian turned and followed the others inside, a god’s remains in his pocket and a demon’s blood flowing freer through his veins.
In the dark, all is possible.
He longed for it to be true, to meet her again between worlds or at the end of them, in any universe that could hold her shadow and her starlight.
XX
Angelica, let go!” Eiko cried. “You’re harming yourself!”
Something was wrong.
Deia’s eye was nearly shut, and the magic she had unlocked began to lash out. Fire leapt in bright, fearsome tongues off her body even while ice frosted over the ground where she knelt and the wind blew wildly.
“Not until they’re through the portal!” Dante argued.
Angelica groaned low in her throat. Far under the surface she sensed the magma chamber of Deia’s Heart; if she kept going, she knew she would do whatever it took to unleash it, bathe in it, ruin the world with it. It was worse than her harshest relapse, the way fire and want consumed her until nothing else existed.
You cannot even wield that which you currently have, Deia had mocked within her basilica just before Godsnight, when Angelica had learned the truth. I protected you from your own destruction.
Her god had locked away her powers for this very reason—this lack of control, this desire, this sickness. Yvri pulled away, and she sobbed as the eye upon her forehead finally shut.
Arms wound tight around her. Through the smoke came the smell of mint and burning fabric.
“Angelica!” Cosima cried. “Come back!”
She wanted to.
She needed to.
And there was only one way to do it.
With Deia’s fulcrum so close, she managed to grab hold of the strands of her power, the five elements braided together—or perhaps the braiding of the four elements created aether, surrounding them all like twine around a bouquet. She reined them in, constructing doors within her mind.
One by one, she shut every element inside and locked the doors behind them.
The sudden absence left her boneless. Cosima held her close, preventing her from toppling over.
From a distance, almost a world away, she heard a jeering laugh.
All of that, and for what? Deia whispered on the wind. Back to where you started.
The ground blurred and spun. She could hardly sense her body, her limbs buzzing and weightless. Cosima and Eiko crowded her, Cosima’s sleeves burned away even though the skin under them was untouched.
“Are you all right?” Cosima demanded. “Is it… is it done?”
Angelica reached up to touch her forehead. It was smooth and flat, but she knew Deia’s eye waited there, ready for the doors to open again.
She’d thought that by defeating her god and taking her fulcrum, she would gain full access to her magic. In a sense, she had, but she hadn’t been prepared for how to use it. Or the price.
“I think… so,” she said, carefully tucking away her despair. Eiko deflated in relief, and Cosima’s lips brushed her temple.
It was only then she noticed the raised voices. She turned in Cosima’s hold.
The portal was gone. In its place were far more people than she had expected, haggard and crying with relief, all of them Vitaean. And among them—
“Risha!”
Saya ran forward and tackled her sister to the ground. Angelica had to blink several times to make sure it really was Risha, wondering how she had gotten here and why she was sodden with drying blood. Saya didn’t seem to care as Risha dropped a strange chained weapon and crushed her younger sister to her chest.
Angelica stared at them. Stared at Risha, a girl she had shoved through a portal only to bring her back through another. A knot she’d been carrying in her chest loosened.
Brailee moved past them to hug Dante, her shoulders trembling. He looked around, bewildered.
“Where’s Taesia?” he asked.
Angelica didn’t see her. She did see Nikolas kneeling beside a stranger with bright blue eyes, holding someone in his arms.
Eiko followed her gaze. “Is that… Rian Cyr?”
It was. Nikolas’s younger brother looked like he had been through war, his front soaked with blood and his face and body withered. But his eyes were open wide as he stared at Deia’s Heart.
“You really brought them through,” Cosima whispered in awe.
She had. But even with this new tempest of power, she didn’t know if she could ever properly control it.
She took Cosima’s hand and told herself it didn’t matter—not right now. She had battled against Deia and won. Asami and Akane would be safe. She and Eiko would be reunited with their family.
They had made it home.
Rian Cyr felt the sun on his face for the first time in years and wept.
Nikolas held him as his stupor wore off, and he gave in to the rising tide of his grief, too large and too messy for him to contain it all within himself. It came out in great, heaving sobs, expelling everything black and vile from his heart that Phos had planted there.
“I know,” Nikolas whispered, rocking them back and forth, his hand supporting the back of Rian’s head. He remembered being held like this when he was little, in the times he’d wake his brother in the middle of the night because he feared the dark.
He remembered. He remembered, and there was no god to stop him.
He didn’t know how long he cried. By the time he was left weakly sniffing, he couldn’t help but look up again at the imposing figure of Deia’s Heart.
This was the place where his journey to Phos had begun. He touched his neck, but there were no bites, no scars. Just the jagged, raised line on his chest to show that his nightmare had been real.
Brailee came to kneel beside him, tear tracks cutting through the dirt on her face.
“Brailee,” he whispered.
It was her—it had always been her. In his dreams, his memories, his thoughts. The one connection to an old life Phos could not sever.
“Thank you,” he said. It was not enough.
Brailee shook her head even as she smiled. “I’m just glad it worked.” Her dark eyes fell to his chest, to the scar.
Rian put a hand over it. A tremor remained of the pain done by Taesia’s sword, in how the spinous edges had ripped his flesh and pierced his heart.
The thing was, he understood. He had been a creature of Phos’s design, ready to tear apart an entire realm, an entire universe. In her shoes, he would have done the same.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Gone,” Nikolas said simply, the single word weighted with quiet rage.
Brailee winced. Rian took her hand, the way he had in the maze of his mind.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll…”
But he was far too weary to think of what they could do. At Nikolas’s side, Fin shifted.
“Yeah, uh, what are we going to do now?” he asked. “Where are we, for that matter? Seniza?”
“Yes,” came Dante Lastrider’s voice. He was looking at the place where they’d been pulled through the portal after descending the stepwell in Nyx’s temple. His face was cast in the shadows of anger and fear, and something akin to the grief running along Rian’s every thought. “The first thing we do is return to Nexus.”
“And then what?” Risha said. She was kneeling beside Saya, a vision of horror as blood dried and flaked off her face. “Are we going to try and undo the Sealing again?”
“Yes,” he answered. “But to do that, we’re going to have to work together. Properly, this time. That was all I wanted until my aunt framed me.” At this, he glanced at Fin with an odd expression. “We just managed to open a portal into Noctus. Imagine what we could do with a real plan.”
Angelica snorted and stood. Behind her was a large beast—a wyvern—who regarded them with humanlike intelligence. The palace servants had scuttled away, hardly daring to take their eyes off it, while Julian tilted his head in fascination. Rian recalled his children’s books with their drawings of wyverns, yearning for his own wings so he could fly among them.
“I don’t have to imagine it,” Angelica said. “I know exactly what we can do. What we have to do.”
Risha gave her a wary frown, and Rian felt Nikolas’s arms tighten around him.
“And what’s that?” Risha asked.
Angelica swept a look at all of them, her gaze landing last on the volcano’s peak.
“We’re going to kill the gods,” she said.
Shall We Begin?
Taesia stood in unending darkness. Directionless, but not lost. Like the place beyond Nyx’s dreamscape, both real and fabricated.
The god was affixed to her. Mind, body, power. In her hand weighed his fulcrum, or at least a part of it, the rest grinning under Lilia Lunari’s collarbone. A tool. A key. A weapon.
You did the right thing, Nyx said, his voice like velvet, like midnight. Phos escaped, as he always does, but he has lost his vessel. He will be weak. Vulnerable.
Nikolas’s face flashed in her memory. Brailee. Julian.
Rian.
Do not think of them any longer. Like this, you can no longer burden them.
Taesia shut her eyes. Wondered if goodness was something one was born with or something that was learned, that had to be exercised like a muscle until it became habitual.
Umbra squeezed around her arm. A reminder that she was not alone, even though there was no one left to disappoint.
Yes, Nyx agreed, a smile in his voice. I am glad you understand. They have only ever been chains holding you down. Now you are free to do as you please.
Her spine straightened, and she opened her eyes to find that a small speck of light had appeared in the distance.
There was more she could do. Things that were considered loathsome. Unforgivable. Things that would, inevitably, protect those she had abandoned.
Far away, somewhere in the night, the Salvar Star began to dim. Across from it, the Sceleratus Star burned brighter.
Holding Starfell at her side, she walked through the infinite black and toward the distant light. She did not fear this darkness, or what waited beyond it.
There was nothing in any world more terrifying than her.
The story continues in…
THE DAWN THRONE
Book THREE of THE DARK GODS
Acknowledgments
Every book I write teaches me something. This one taught me about volcanoes (and, to a lesser extent, black holes). It also taught me that writing a multi-realm, multi-POV epic fantasy is one of the most ludicrous things anyone could choose to do.
