Chapter 54

Elanor

My voice echoes against the walls of the room, its sheer force shaking the grounds beneath my feet as a searing pain tears me apart. I pour all my emotions into the scream, all my rage at the world and the endless pit of despair opening inside me.

Acid runs through my veins, burning each cell in my body, Azran’s murder carving itself into my soul. The bond disintegrates before my eyes, its luminary filament going out, like a match running out of flame.

My mind breaks, but I keep staring into my mate’s lifeless eyes, even when his body hits the stone floor with a thud.

Soldiers are still holding me back when my cries die in my raw throat, but I barely feel their hands on me. There’s only pain, earth shattering suffering tearing at every part of me.

I screw my eyes shut, hoping for it all to go away, but it doesn’t. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t save him this time. I’m drowning in an ocean of despair, surrounded by enemies, the body of my mate, and Airdan.

Sensations return to my body when I lay eyes on him. My sore abdomen, the strain in my muscles, the fire in my lungs and throat, and the cold metal around my neck.

Airdan eyes me like prey caught in his trap, a crazed smile plastered on his face. It takes a moment for his expression to register, but when it does, I see red.

“You are dead.”

“No, my dear,” he answers with a victorious chuckle. “But he is.”

Airdan kicks Azran’s body with the tip of his shoe, and a zap of energy courses through me. I snarl in response, daring him to try that again, and he does.

Anger floods my system, turning into fury, an endless rage calling for violence. The more Airdan hits Azran, the strongest it gets, and I let it, embracing my own wrath, letting it fuel my essence.

The emotion I spent my life trying to outrun proves its value in the most dire time. I engrave the sight in my brain, replaying the image over and over in my head as Airdan’s laughter echoes in the hall. Each time I picture his foot coming into contact with Azran’s body, my power flares, again, and again.

He did this. He helped Braern. He caged us like animals. He killed my mate. He is responsible for all the wretched things in my life, and it’s payback time.

Following the thin thread of power lighting me up inside, I search for its core until the veil to the spirit world is within my grasp. In the blink of an eye, the room changes to hues of black and white, and the pain eases for a moment. Fighting against heartbreak, I search for my mate’s soul.

Souls hover over the bodies of the dead soldiers. Nylren’s is here too, lingering between the worlds, waiting.

Azran must be here. He must be.

My eyes dart frantically around the room until my gaze lands at the back of the room. A horned figure stands there, perfectly still, with two massive swords in hand. His features are blurred, but for some reason I know he’s looking at me. No, not at me but through me and into my soul, whispering his name. War.

Fear twists in my gut when he steps forward, towering over me, his power radiating against mine that’s barely more than a whisper.

“Bring her to me.” Airdan’s voice cuts through my connection to the dark world and my breath hitches in my throat. The searing pain returns, fully intent on ripping me apart from the inside.

My head sags heavily to my chest as the two guards bring me before Airdan.

“Come on. We’ve forged a connection of our own in the past months, haven’t we?” His fingers find purchase around my chin, tilting my head up.

“Look at me,” he barks.

A connection? I’ll show this sick fuck what kind of connection we have—a connection born in Death.

A smile stretches my face as I glance up, revealing my darkened irises. He lets go instantly, although too late.

“Like I said, asshole, you’re dead.”

I yank my hands free of the soldiers’ grip and let the embers inside me catch fire. As the collar melts off my neck, I cast ribbons of darkness around my guards’ throats.

“Your artefacts can’t contain me, usurper.”

My captors’ mouths open in silent screams and the black ribbons pierce their throats, burning through them until they drop dead.

Darkness floods my body and I let Death take over, whispering in my ear. There is no need to worry anymore. Life doesn’t matter if Azran is not in it, and no one in this room deserves to take another breath.

My gaze lands on Keryth, and I find in his eyes the same pain tearing at my soul.

“Please,” he mouths from a distance, begging for relief.

Extending an arm, my power reaches towards him, piercing his heart instantly. His body sags.

“Guards!”

As Airdan barks orders, the room catches on fire, starting with the doors and cutting off the exit. The smell of burned flesh fills the space and shrieks resonate all around me, but I don’t turn to look. I’d rather watch the effect of their melody on Airdan.

His widened emerald eyes scan the room until his gaze lands on his son’s corpse, devoured by the dark fire.

Azran’s body is the only one spared, a clean circle delimited around him and leaving him untouched.

“You taught me an important lesson. You may cage my body, but no one could ever imprison my mind.”

Airdan stumbles away before hurrying back to me, the flames lapping at his heels, ready to take him too. No one escapes Death, not even him.

“There it is. Terror,” I intone above the screams, “permeating every fiber of your wretched soul.”

I reach for his throat before he can respond, and tilt my head without breaking eye contact.

“It’s time to pay for what you’ve done.” The words leaving my lips are no longer mine. Death is here and I am her instrument. I don’t belong solely to myself; I never did. We always shared this life.

The last soldier’s cry dies with them as the flames surrounding Airdan and I lick at the walls and reach the arched ceiling.

“Look around,” I command. “I will haunt this earth until your life’s work is destroyed.”

Airdan’s bulging eyes dart around frantically as fire swallows the room. Sweat trickles down his forehead and his neck turns crimson from the pressure of my fingers around his throat. I hold him until smoke fills his lungs and he’s choking and gasping for air. A delightful sight, but not nearly enough to quench my thirst.

The only zone left untouched by the fire forms a perfect circle around me and I still, patiently waiting for him to come to this realization.

I take a step back, and screams tear from his throat as flames lick his boots.

“No!”

He throws himself against me, and my hands go to his torso. Acid pours from my fingers, the dark ribbons trailing down his stomach until black bile pours out of his chest, melting his insides and pooling at his feet.

Gurgles escape his throat as his body is devoured by my power. With a final move, I push him back, letting the fire engulf the King’s torn face.

His scream is swallowed by the flames attacking his flesh, burning his silk shirt, eating at him like a ravenous spirit trying to reach his soul. Only he doesn’t have one. He never did.

I watch until his body burns to a crisp, unrecognizable, but the searing pain in my heart doesn’t retreat. Every fiber of my body radiates with fury, the depth of my loss so vividly real and unbearable.

Refusing to endure it, I dive into the darkness, embracing my power at its fullest, until I’m one with Death. Without Azran, no one remains to pull me back from Death’s grasp and the edge I toppled over. I was never any good at being careful, and my mate’s last breath ripped the final roots binding me to compassion or conscience. To hell with the consequences.

No distant voice or crimson irises disturb the perfect killing calm settling within as I rise to lay waste to this earth.

My eyes roll in their sockets when Death takes over, leaving me vibrating from her sheer strength.

As I reopen my eyes, the world changes. I’m in one of Endya’s towers and everywhere else at the same time. All-seeing, I witness everything happening in the living realm. I see the dead in hundreds, flickering souls hovering over their bodies in the central plaza, in the street, in the entire city.

Airdan’s rotten soul stands before me and I stare right into it. I am all powerful in Death, and he can hear me.

“I made you a promise. You are going to watch me burn everything you represent. Everything you’ve ever touched, I will cleanse. Everything you’ve ever done, I will undo. And everyone you’ve ever killed, I will raise from the dead. Once I’m done, I will dump your wretched soul in the fiery pits of hell, forever a prisoner of my wrath.”

My dark laughter fills the world and his soul shakes with terror.

Extending both hands, I call on my power until my body trembles and obsidian acid pours from my fingers, reaching into every corpse I find. Spreading through the city, the threads of darkness sink their claws into bodies even on streets where battles still rage.

Each dead soldier is a beacon in the night, waiting for me to find them, and I’m ready to answer their call.

When I’ve gathered each soul, I command the dead.

“Stand. Right your wrongs. Feel my wrath and kill all who don’t.”

Like puppets at my fingertips, a thousand souls rise from the dead, reuniting with their emerald-armored bodies, taking arms and turning on their own.

Each Fae that falls stands seconds later, ready to relentlessly attack Airdan’s army. The streets and canals are choked with bodies, each new death filling the ranks of my army.

My chest radiates power, energy running wildly through my body and tingling in my fingertips.

Calen is still fighting among his unit. They’ve made it inside Endya, where he faces a sea of enemies on the plaza’s platforms.

No more.

Confusion and dread spreads through the battlefield as my army grows and joins the fight, and I’m drunk on it. Each soul that lights up Death’s realm is sent back, a thousand fireflies gathering more bodies for me, souls ready for harvest. With each death, my power grows.

Doors and walls are no obstacles to my sight as I contemplate the destruction.

My focus turns to the tower I’m in as a soul steps towards the door, and doubt seeps into me. The figure glows profoundly, its celestial blaze outshining all others.

As my vision adjusts to the dazzling brilliance, its feature reform and I behold Mor’s stoic face as he walks up the narrow street leading to the domed construction, spine straight with fortified resolve.

Opening a path through the dark fire still raging around me, I allow him in.

My mind splits in two when I bring my consciousness back into my body. The pain stays at bay, and I keep a hold on Death’s army. A part of me is in the room, attached to my physical shell, the other in the ether.

Pausing at the double doors outside, Mor undoes his braid with a swift move, before wrapping the silk ribbon around his eyes as a blindfold.

As he does, his souls expands into the brightest light, blinding me, and I let the fiery walls close in on themselves to shut the way.

When the flames take over the entire room once more, my racing heart slows.

The angst settles until an increasing pressure closes in around me. Glancing around, I search for its source, sensing a foreign presence near.

The dark flames part before my eyes, and a figure steps out of the fire.

“Death,” the blindfolded healer greets me by my name and my essence sings in response, recognizing his.

I let the blaze die down, leaving us surrounded in smoke.

“Justice.”

He inclines his head slightly, like he can see through the fabric covering his eyes.

“Sister. Do you know why you were sent here?”

“To avenge.” The words come to me on instinct.

Justice shakes his head before answering.

“You were given a choice, a way to restore the balance of the world, but you chose to tip the scales in favor of darkness.”

“I am darkness.”

“You were also light once.”

His words echo in my mind, forcing their way through my mental shields, and I remember.

I remember life. I remember the joy of biting into a freshly baked peach pie and riding across the plains of Averion. I remember petting Savage’s warm fur, pulling Vesta into an embrace, and laughing with the twins. I remember falling asleep in Azran’s arms.

As each memory spins in my head, I stumble through darkness into a brick wall.

I did have a choice, and I chose wrong. I crossed a line, blurring the boundaries between life and death.

“What have I done?”

No one should yield this much power, not even me.

“Nothing that can’t be undone.”

Looking through Death’s eyes, I gaze upon the central plaza. Airdan’s soldiers are running, dropping their weapons, surrendering, but the dead butcher them nonetheless.

Exhaustion reaches through my power’s veil, letting pain back in, and with it, excruciating grief.

I screw my eyes shut and focus on each link connecting me to the rest of the world, each thread sewn into the living dead, and one by one, I let go.

Sweat trickles down my forehead, my face heating from the effort, and smoke lodges in my throat, but I keep going until the last body is laid to rest, at last.

I fall to my knees, my hands finding purchase on the ground to prevent me from collapsing. My entire body is ridden with suffering and a silent scream freezes on my lips.

Mor removes his blindfold, but I can’t bring myself to look him in the eyes and endure his judgment.

“Ela.”

His soft tone reaches my ears and I find the last sliver of courage in my heart to face him. The empathy I find in his gaze is more heart wrenching than his disappointment.

His forgiveness is all over his face but tears roll down mine. I don’t deserve it. Certainly not from the Fae who’s done nothing but help and guide me.

“He killed him,” is all I manage to say before my voice breaks.

The confession has an unbearable finality, carving the reality of his loss in my bones.

“You have to let him go,” Mor offers gently.

Confusion wars with anger as he suggests releasing Azran, expecting me to relinquish our bond by choice, as if I could snip such an elemental fiber of my being any more than I could stop my own pulse or peel off my skin. Azran’s spirit remains fused to mine, the pain of his loss seared into my flesh.

This anguish is mine, trapping me in my own inferno of punishment for my actions, and I deserve it all. I lost myself in Death’s grasp, learning the cost too late, for this power is too much for a single soul to bear.

“I can’t live without him.”

Water pours from my eyes still, each drop running to my chin before crashing on the ground.

I don’t know how to withstand the grief. I don’t know to make it stop. I don’t know how to survive anymore. In fact, I don’t think I want to.

“I know.”

A kind smile forms on his wrinkled face, though it doesn’t reach his grey eyes. With two simple words, Mor shows me the way out of this hell.

I bow to his blessing as Mor steps back, and seek my power once more.

Letting the energy flood my body, I let it extinguish my pain and mend my wounds. Slowing my breathing, I remove all barriers within me, all shields, and I open myself up entirely, seeking the light within the darkness.

As I pull on the threads, intertwining both energies in an intricate knot, I’m reminded of Azran’s words.

Do you think my love for you so frail that something as elemental as Death could keep me from you?

A smile forms on my tears-dampened face as I make myself a promise.

I won’t let his soul wander between the realms endlessly. Death parted us, but I will find him again.

Mor hasn’t moved and I’m tempted to send him away from this tomb—he deserves better than to witness my last moments.

Perhaps sensing the silent suggestion, Mor meets my gaze, warning me from speaking foolish words as he stands vigil, confirming I don’t have to do this alone, not anymore.

His smile doesn’t falter when I summon the obsidian and ivory flames. Their warmth is at my fingertips and I let it spread to my arms and shoulders.

What is mere death to those already groomed in suffering’s manifold shapes? Let fire take me into the darkness, unashamed at last.

I’m leaving this world, in search of the place where I come from and belong. The ruler of the spirit world and the afterlife is being called back home.

Fire spreads to my entire body and I fuel it with all my power, letting it devour the carnal envelope that’s been my prison for more than two decades.

As I face Death once again, I realize I’ve always been fighting myself, and I’m ready to let her win.

With my last breath, I vow to find Azran.

I will find him, and then I will rest, at last.