Jeremiah’s smile deepened at the shock on Aidan’s face.
“What?” Jeremiah asked. “Did you truly believe she wouldn’t have eyes within the Church? There are many within the heart of the Light that follow her ways. The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow. We are everywhere, Aidan. As she is everywhere.”
“But why?” His thoughts spun. Jeremiah worked for the Dark Lady. Jeremiah was of the Church. How was it possible?
And if Jeremiah were truly working for the Dark Lady...why had he tortured Aidan?
Why had Jeremiah forced him to kill his own comrades?
“Because I do not hear her as clearly as you, Aidan.” Jeremiah took another step forward. Aidan pressed back against the door. “Because I needed to be sure that you were the one to whom she spoke.” His eyes sparkled in the firelight, fervent. Fearsome. “The shard holds great power, my brother. The power to peel back the barrier between life and death, to rewrite all the wrongs of history. But only to the one who can read her words, who can understand the hidden language. Don’t you see? We have been awaiting her return since the Church took her from us. Awaiting the herald of her resurrection. We have been waiting for you, Aidan. The boy who could hear her voice and read her words. The boy who could speak them anew, and complete the work that she herself never finished.
“I had to make sure that you were the one. And you are. You are.”
“But my comrades. The Guild...”
“Mean nothing. Their deaths are the first of many offerings made at your altar.”
“You tortured me. You took my magic,” Aidan said. His thoughts were still slow. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.
“I tortured your body to ensure you were fit for her power. And you have succeeded, my brother. What you know as magic is a candle compared to the sun. When you embrace her teachings, the power you know will be beyond measure. A god, Aidan. You will be a god. And the world will tremble at your feet.”
He pressed his palm to the top of Aidan’s head. As if blessing him.
“When you open to her teachings, the final Sphere will open itself to you. And when Maya is yours to control, the power you’ve known will pale in comparison.”
“Maya?” Aidan breathed. The fifth Sphere. The one that couldn’t be attuned to. The one that chose you. The one that—so far—had never truly been tapped.
Jeremiah nodded. “The Sphere that has eluded mankind’s grasp from the beginning. The power to control the very fabric of Creation.”
He took Aidan’s hand—the one with all its fingers. Gently. As though he hadn’t spent the last forty-eight hours torturing him. As though he cared more deeply for Aidan than anyone ever had. He dropped the shard into Aidan’s palm.
“She summons you. And none can deny that call. Embrace it. Open to it. And you will know power beyond your wildest dreams.” Jeremiah closed Aidan’s fingers around the shard.
A thousand emotions warred within Aidan. A thousand questions. But one thing resonated stronger than ever before.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
Just like with Calum, the moment felt stolen from him.
He hadn’t come back to reason with Jeremiah. He had come to steal the shard and kill those who wronged him. To feel like he was on the winning side. To feel power. To feel vengeance. To feel he was taking his place in history.
Not to feel like greatness was handed to him.
His fingers tightened around the shard. It burned under his touch, and now that it was here, in his palm, he felt it whispering to him. He felt the tug in his chest and a sensation he had thought he would never feel again.
Rage.
It burned within him, seeming to emanate from the shard itself. As if it contained more than power. As if it contained every ounce of hatred locked within this accursed place. He shook.
“Fuck you,” he whispered. The words ripped from his lips, and he wasn’t sure who he was angry at. Jeremiah, for the torture. The Dark Lady, for the lies. Tomás, for the trap. He felt like he’d been led by the nose, through the dark, and he was tired of it. Tired of playing other people’s games. Tired of being a pawn.
He looked to the shard in his hand. To the runes that whispered through his mind.
Some, he knew, were for resurrection. He felt them twining through his brain, hissing of the power of the open grave, the overturned casket, the dead spark brought back to life. Just as he’d seen in the vision of Calum. They could be used to pull back a soul from death. And even as he stared at them, at the shifting, jagged edges of the runes, he knew they were imperfect.
Jeremiah had been truthful in that, at least: the language of the Dark Lady, the words of the dead gods, hadn’t been completed. He didn’t know how he knew, only that they whispered to the deepest corners of his soul. The words were wrong.
The words were wrong, and he knew how to fix them.
He knew the shard was for more than bringing back the dead. The shard was for storing power. He could feel the echo of Calum’s flame within it. The shard had ripped out the last of Calum’s magic just as it had brought his soul back to life.
Stored it. The magic, not the soul.
And that magic, that fire, sat in his palm, begging to be released. It vibrated deep within, a flame at the heart of the void, and he knew the words that kept it locked away. Knew the words that were the key. Words to release the power. To set the world ablaze.
Words he knew that no one—not even the Dark Lady—had ever spoken.
Now, they were his.
“I’m not your brother,” Aidan said, glaring at Jeremiah. He didn’t know where the anger came from anymore. He had thought all rage had been beaten from him. Perhaps it came from deeper within. Perhaps it came from the stone. He didn’t care. All he knew was, he was done being toyed with.
Screw bringing the shard to Tomás. Screw bringing it to the Dark Lady. He was done serving. He was done kneeling.
He was done being anything less than King.
Behind him, the candles flared. “And I sure as hell don’t serve the Dark Lady. I serve myself.”
Now, it was Aidan’s turn to step forward, and Jeremiah’s to cower back. Tendrils of fire flickered from his fist, oozing from the stone and his fingertips. Flames coiled around his forearm like serpents, illuminating the raw wound of Jeremiah’s brand, the scrapes and bruises and slices from Jeremiah’s instruments. Reminders of what this man had done to him. What he’d done to others. What he’d made Aidan do. “You made me kill my comrades. You tortured me. Worse. You tortured my friend. And you made me watch.”
“She means nothing,” Jeremiah began.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Aidan cut in. “She means everything.”
The candles were torches now, the scent of burning blood thick in his nostrils.
“You must contain yourself,” Jeremiah said. “If you attack the Church, you will be forever hunted. You cannot complete her work if you are dead.”
“I don’t plan on dying.” He took another step. “And I’m not here to hide. Didn’t you know? I am here to rule. And I will start by bringing you and your bloody Church to its knees.”
Aidan didn’t speak. He reached through the shard and whispered the words that flickered in the shadows of his mind, words that went beyond language, that were more sensations than sounds. Words of power. Of release.
Of destruction.
The shard grew white-hot, searing his palm, flaring between his fingers, BURN highlighting in a promise. Liquid dripped between his knuckles. For a moment, he thought it was blood. Then he realized the shard itself was melting. Power seeped into him. A power so great his limbs shuddered. A power so great that even his starved Sphere filled past the brim.
Power flooded him.
Filled him.
A flame he held tight in his chest. A flame he couldn’t hold for long.
He glared at Jeremiah, fire sparking in his eyes.
“What are you doing?” Jeremiah fumbled backward in fear. Smashed into the table of torture instruments. They clattered to the ground, ringing like church bells.
“I’m accepting my destiny,” Aidan said. He smiled, and fire curled from the cracks his teeth. “I hope your faith is true, Jeremiah. Your Creator awaits.”
The words weren’t his. The words were never his.
Fire burned through him. Charred through his veins. Burned through his soul. Calum’s fire. Aidan’s fire. And a power even deeper, a strength even darker. Her power. The fire of hatred that burned so brightly on this godforsaken earth. The rage that coiled deep within the soil for every sin committed, for every treason, for every ache.
And oh, how that fire yearned to be released.
Flames flickered around Aidan. Swirled deep within his chest.
The fire wanted a voice. And now, it had one.
He opened his mouth. Opened his palms. Let the remains of the shard melt silver and black across his bloody palm. Let the Fire consume him.
And when he screamed, he gave all that pain, all that agony, all that hatred the voice it craved.
Fire exploded.
Everything went white. White and red. White and red and screaming.
Jeremiah’s screams.
Aidan’s screams.
As the world around them burst into flame. As the flames burst from his body. As the skin ripped from his bones. As he flared in the face of humanity’s rage. As his voice charred his lungs and burned through the corridors. As the flame burst from the building, stretched across the expanse of London.
As the rage spread. As the rage consumed.
As he burned atop his own funeral pyre.
As he burned the whole world down with him.