“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.