My mother reaches out a hand and her magic plunges into Nox’s chest, picking him up like he weighs less than paper.
She pins him to a nearby tree, squeezing his throat and tarnishing his skin. I drop my hold on the king, sending him plummeting back to the sand as Nox seizes.
Nox’s mouth stretches open, convulsing.
His soul, I think. She’s trying to tear out his soul.
My mother’s magic snakes through the air and I feel like I’m reliving the day Asden died all over again, watching him be buried alive inside himself.
No, I think. Not anymore.
I’m not a scared heir, trembling at the sight of a shadow king.
“This is your last chance, Selestra,” the king says in a breathy growl. The world darkens at the husk of his voice. “Bow to me and let Nox die peacefully. Or force him to suffer the same fate as his father.”
My mother fixes her eyes on mine, warning me to obey like she has warned me for my entire life.
To smile. To bow. To be the perfect heir.
But I’m not a child anymore and I don’t bow.
Nox once told me that I was descended from goddesses and queens. That only I had the power to choose who I want to be.
“I am Selestra Somniatis,” I say.
I clench my fists at my sides.
“Witch of the Six Isles and ward to the warriors of Polemistés. My family are descended from queens and goddesses and their magic lives on in me.”
“Selestra—”
“I bow to no one,” I tell the king. “Not anymore.”
“Then stand and die!” he growls.
“I don’t think so.”
For the first time in my life, I let go.
I know now that my magic is not just about death, but about life. About everything in balance.
So I take that balance and I knock it off-kilter.
I let the vines of my magic shoot out to my mother and curl around her neck. The wind and the air.
The breath of life, choking the life out of her. Using all of the magic Eldara gifted me with her final breaths. I grip tightly onto what is left of my mother’s heart.
Nox drops from her grip, his soul safe as the brightness of Asclepina seeps out of me.
My mother brings her hands to her chest, clutching at the claws of my power.
Seryth turns at the sound of my mother gasping for breath and Nox seizes the advantage to elbow him in the face, reclaiming his father’s sword.
I look up at the sky, darkening above us.
The Red Moon can’t be more than a few minutes away.
My head whips back. It’s as though I’ve been slapped across the cheek. The cold air of the beach hitting me as fiercely as a hand.
I look to see my mother glowering.
She presses her palms together and our family’s magic pools inside them. It absorbs her hands in a flurry of crackling shadows. Pure death that ravages the wind, turning the air around us stale and putrid, disintegrating my magic.
“I’ve tried so hard to protect you,” she says.
There are tears in her eyes as the smoke grows darker in her hands. The smell wrinkles my nostrils. She holds it in her palms, a capture of decay.
My fingers twitch by my sides. “You tried to make me a monster.”
She looks tired and the dark magic in her hand recoils, weeping at her hesitation. “I tried to make you strong, Selestra.”
“I am strong.”
My power gathers in me, an opposition to the death she carries. The power of Asclepina and Eldara, and every one of my ancestors, thrums through me and my skin glows in light. In life.
Years and years, of immortality and infinity, pumping like blood.
I don’t know if it’s a last spark of magic from Eldara, or if it has been inside me all along, but I’m bathed in the true essence of our magic.
If I send it toward my mother, it will kill her.
She watches me. Her hands quiver with the darkness of her own magic, but she keeps it close and away from me.
“Let us end it,” she says.
It almost sounds like a plea.
She looks over to Nox and a flash of something soft and delicate passes over her face as he defends a blow from Seryth’s sword.
But the minute I turn to Seryth, I feel the snap of my mother’s magic tighten around my wrist.
“I am your villain,” she tells me. “Your fight must be with me first.”
The words hit me hard, because it’s then I realize there is nothing of my mother in her voice. I come to the awful realization that there never will be again.
For years I’ve been holding on to the hope that she could change, but I see now how wrong I was. Some people can’t be saved unless they want to be, and my mother gave up on the notion of being saved years ago.
She is oathed and she can never be anything but.
Her magic tightens around me.
I struggle, but her grip is unwavering as ever.
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.