by Mary Duke
“But it was wrong. Looking back, I should have just accepted my fate. I have lived more than my fair share of years.”
“How can you say that?”
“Do you realize everything I have lost on this road to get my immortality back?”
Thanatos shook his head.
“It started with my grans when I made my journey through the Dark Mountain to get to the grove,” I said starting to explain. “Then my mother, Quint, and Jadea found her because I led them to her. I was careless. Then…”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“Let me finish,” I demanded looking at him. I wanted him to know everything. I wanted him to know every single thing I had done. “Then, when I finally went face to face with your mother, I handed over my father. At the time, I was blinded by rage and caught up in the lies I was told. Then…then,” I said fighting back the tears. “Then I agreed to help kill you. I didn’t even think twice about it then. I didn’t know who you were, I didn’t care that you had a story that I didn’t know, a future that you were fighting for.”
“Illiah,” Thanatos said, grabbing ahold of my hand.
I shook my head and pulled my hand away. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I do,” he assured me, as he once again took my hand in his. “But you’re going to have to trust me.”
Chapter Nineteen
SNO
I heard Kegan reaching out to me, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I don’t have a choice,” I replied.
“What do you mean you don’t have a choice? You have all the choices.”
“Kegan,” I said scolding him. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
“No, I am not. This is a choice you won’t be able to take back.”
“Most choices are that way.”
“You don’t know what’s going to happen. If you kill her, there are going to be consequences; if you fail…”
“If I fail, I die. I know.”
“It will be more than that, Sno. If you fail, she’s going to burn everything that ever mattered to you.”
“I have you, I have Eris here with me, fighting alongside me. I have nothing else,” I reminded him.
“Nyx is vindictive. If you fail, she will take it out on all Faye, all dragons, all guardians.”
“And if I do nothing, I am nothing more than a coward.”
Kegan again said my name, as he pleaded for me to change my mind.
“If you don’t want to be drug into this, if you don’t want the guardians to be brought into this, stay here.”
“I can’t.”
“If you’re not willing to stay here, then I need you to support me.”
Kegan looked past me, to the others. His silence telling me everything I needed.
I walked past him and back to the group as Illiah and Thanatos finally returned. “Are we ready?”
Ayana answered for them, “As ready as we will ever be.”
Enzo nodded. “Because no matter how much you plan, in a situation like this, you won’t find out what you have to deal with till it happens.”
“And that’s why,” Vera added, “we will be ready for everything.”
I smiled. “Care to fill me in on what everything is?”
“You’ll find out when the time is right.”
“Wait,” Zavery said. “You’re really not going to tell us?”
“We can’t,” Ayana answered for her siblings.
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“Your minds,” Ayana said, as she ran her hand through his shaggy hair. “They’re not safe.”
“What does that mean?” I questioned.
“It means,” Thanatos said. “That she can easily get inside them. Every thought you have she will know.”
“Oh,” I replied. Not too sure how I feel about that, I thought.
“Yes,” Enzo added. “The two of you already know too much as it is.”
“All you need to know,” Vera said. “Is that we are going to do everything in our power to keep you safe. We need you, just as much as you will need us. We get in, we do what we have to do, and we get the hell out. We will deal with the aftermath when the dust settles.”
“Aftermath?” I asked, but Vera had already begun to open the gate.
“All at once,” Enzo said. “We don’t know what we will be walking into.”
Ayana put one of her hands on my shoulder and the other on Zavery’s. “We will need to work together. You and I,” she said to Zavery. “We will use your dark magic to destroy her. I know they say that darkness cannot snuff out darkness, but in this case, it is the only way.”
Zavery swallowed hard. He knew that dark magic pulsed through his veins, and he knew others knew, but aside from his mother, no one had ever mentioned it aloud.
“Then, Sno, I will use your magic to contain the dark magic, as well as her soul.”
Enzo chuckled nervously. “I thought we weren’t going to tell them the plan.”
“Something told me I had to,” Ayana answered.
Thanatos smiled. “And your gut feelings are never wrong.”
Ayana smiled and pushed us forward as Enzo led the way through.
Nyx rose from a chair behind an old desk littered with books and papers. “What is this?”
“It’s over,” Vera said. “You’ve gone too far.”
“What?” she asked, not really seeking an answer.
Thanatos spoke next. “Your unjust reign is over.”
Nyx looked us all over before she laughed.
Ayana spoke next. “He speaks the truth.”
Nyx shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”
Ayana spoke again. “What you have done, all of what you’ve done…”
“I have done nothing wrong,” Nyx said as she made her way around the oversized desk.
Vera chuckled nervously. “You can’t honestly believe that.”
“I absolutely do. I have no reason not to.”
“You,” Thanatos said. “You’ve gone blind.”
“Excuse me?”
“You have become blinded by fear, so blinded that you fail to realize the damage you’ve done.”
“You dare to speak to me about the damage done?”
Thanatos stood his ground as she crossed her arms and leaned back against the desk. “And what do you know of the deeds I’ve done? What do you know of my fear? You’ve been locked in a mountain, duped by your own friends.”
“I know enough,” Thanatos said. “I’ve heard enough to make my skin crawl with shame, knowing that you are my mother.”
Nyx burst into laughter. “Now you know how I felt raising you and that twin of yours.”
Ayana put her arm on Thanatos’ shoulder. “Thanatos made his fair share of mistakes, but at least he can see that he made them, and he has accepted the consequences that came with them.”
“Fools,” she said standing back up and taking a step towards them. “Each and every one of you.”
Enzo spoke next. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I will end this quickly for all of you. Illiah, come to me.”
Illiah looked to us before she began walking towards her.
I grabbed ahold of her arm. “What are you doing?”
She jerked it free without saying a word.
“Don’t blame her, she doesn’t have a choice. Well, I guess you can blame her, she did make the deal.”
“Deal?” Vera questioned looking to Thanatos.
Thanatos just shrugged his shoulders.
“What, Illiah?” Nyx questioned. “Did you not tell them about our deal? Did you not tell them that you agreed to help me kill Thanatos?”
Illiah turned back towards us as she chewed her bottom lip, trying to keep the tears that welled in her eyes from falling down her cheeks.
“Of course she didn’t tell you. Why would she?”
“Illiah,” I said. “How could yo
u?”
“I didn’t know,” she said. “It was…”
“Enough,” Nyx said. “Why she did it doesn’t matter. I knew she was going to come to me; I had a vision, and though it was broken, I knew what I had to do.”
“You had a vision?” Ayana questioned.
“Don’t look so surprised. I’ve been known to get them on occasion.”
Ayana looked to her siblings and tightened her grip on our shoulders.
“I saw the day that Illiah would come to me, begging for my help. I saw how she would free you, and then I saw this day, this moment in fact.”
Thanatos took a step forward.
“Not another step,” Nyx said pulling a knife from her waistband.
“What are you going to do with that?” Thanatos chuckled. “It’s a mere blade…are you going to give me a paper cut?”
“It is no mere blade,” Nyx corrected him. “This blade will kill an immortal.”
“I don’t know if you remember this or not, but I too am a God.”
Nyx rolled her eyes. “Yes, however, you tied your life to hers. Do you remember that?”
Thanatos took a small step backward.
“That is right. She dies, you die.”
Vera turned to him and whispered under her breath. “We can’t do this without you.”
“And you won’t have to,” Thanatos replied back. “She’s bluffing.”
“Am I?” Nyx questioned as she grabbed Illiah by her hair and shoved the knife against her throat.
Illiah took a deep breath. This was her cue.
“Now,” Thanatos said.
Illiah began to mutter the dark magic spell that he had given her.
“What are you doing?” Nyx questioned, pulling Illiah back with her. “What is she saying?”
Ayana looked up to her brother; everything made sense now. This is how they would destroy her with dark magic.
After Illiah said the spell, she closed her eyes and grabbed ahold of Nyx’s arm, pulling the blade into her skin.
Thanatos looked to Zavery. “You’re up.”
“But,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I have suppressed my dark magic for so long.”
“Here,” Ayana said offering up her hand. “I will help you.”
“It’s not working,” Vera said, after a few seconds they were not strong enough.
Thanatos held his hand on top of Ayana’s. “Here, channel my magic.”
I pulled his arm away. “No, she can’t. This spell, it can only be channeled by one.”
“How do you know that?” Vera asked.
“I know a lot of things, many that I probably shouldn’t.”
“Let me help,” Hel said as she walked towards us.
Vera and Enzo took a step back.
“You can’t,” Thanatos said. “Sno just said...”
“She said that one person has to channel it, I heard her,” Hel confirmed. “Now if I take over the spell, and I channel all of you…”
“No!” Vera said, taking another step back.
Enzo following her.
“It’s the only way,” Thanatos said holding his hand out towards his sister.
“How can you trust her?” Vera questioned.
“I don’t,” Thanatos said. “At least not yet. This is her chance to prove to me that I can trust her.”
Hel held her hand out to Vera and Enzo.
Enzo sighed. “What do I have to do?”
Vera pulled his hand back. “You can’t be serious?”
“We’re running out of time. Ayana is barely holding her back right now,” Enzo said interlocking his fingers with hers. “This is our only option.”
Hel took Enzo’s hand and looked to Thanatos. “You’ll have to take Vera’s, and all of you will have to open up to me. Let me inside your minds, it will take less energy that way.”
Epilogue
SNO
“You did it,” I said, as their chanting stopped.
“No,” Ayana said. “We did it.”
“All I did was make a bubble,” I said, my eyes falling to Illiah, who laid on the floor.
“You contained dark magic fuelled by five gods and a Faye.” Hel laughed. “I would say that’s pretty epic.”
Thanatos wrapped one of his arms around my shoulders. “You know, you can’t read everything in books.”
“Okay,” I replied, not sure where he was going with that.
“Sometimes you learn more from talking to people…Especially when you're trapped in a God-forsaken mountain for countless years.”
“Okay,” I repeated, still lost.
“Just watch,” he said pointing to Illiah’s body as it laid in a heap on the floor.
“She’s breathing!” I gasped.
“Yeah,” Thanatos said.
“But how. That spell, it wouldn’t have worked without a sacrifice. Illiah was the sacrifice.”
“She was,” Thanatos agreed.
“Then how….I didn’t see you return her soul.”
“Because I didn’t. Like I said, some things you only learn from the source.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Dark Mountain has fail-safes, or at least you can think of them that way. You see, the mountain cannot go without a keeper, that’s is why the rights to the mountain get passed to the next of kin, upon the death of the oldest.”
“Right,” I said. “I know that.”
“Well, do you know what happens when there is no next of kin?”
I shook my head. I had no idea.
“The soul of the last of the line gets bound to the mountain.”
“No way,” I said. “So even without Nyx, Illiah is immortal.”
“She is.” He nodded.
“So now what?” Illiah said as she leaned back against the desk.
I laughed. “Wasn’t that enough excitement for one day?”
Kegan answered before she could, “It was for me, and all I could do was watch.”
“No, I mean now what as in where do we go from here? What do we do?”
“Whatever you want,” Ayana answered.
Illiah looked to Thanatos. “Does this mean you’ll go back to being King of death, or whatever it was you called yourself last?”
He smiled. “That depends on what you want to do.”
“Me?” she questioned.
I turned to Zavery when I tapped deep into my magic, the magic he and I shared with Ayana, I saw what he was thinking of, I felt what he felt, and he knew it. “Are you ready to start over?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have nothing holding you back. You’re a king, or did you forget that?”
“I didn’t forget, but I was hoping everyone else had.”
I smiled. “Others may have, but I have not.”
“Of course, you haven’t.”
“Seriously,” I said rolling my eyes.
“Everything is a mess… My family has nearly destroyed our realm.”
“Your mother, and your mother alone, holds that title. Your family before her was more than anyone could have asked for…and you, you’re going rebuild this realm and make it better than anyone could ever dream it could be.”
“Oh yeah? How do you know that?”
“Because I’m going to be right there beside you.” I winked. “And we both know I can’t do anything wrong.”
THE END
About The Author
Mary Duke
A true believer that there is magic all around us.
Mary Duke was drawn to the fantasy genre at a young age and instantly she found herself writing stories of her own.
For as long as she can remember she has longed for the knowledge of worlds that didn’t exist. This is in fact what prompted the creation of the Of The Realms Chronicles, a world made up of Realms filled with creatures both known and unknown, where the knowledge was limitless.
Mary Duke is a mother of three, fur mom to four, and resides in Ohio with her husban
d. When not writing, you can find her camping, exploring, or secretly adding another journal to her collection.
Best place to find me: https://www.facebook.com/groups/MarysRealmKeepers/
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Visit my Website: immaryduke.com
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Books By This Author
Bloodline: Hunted (Book One)
Get ready for the most unlikely alliance you've ever seen. What was once an Alpha line of Werewolves, the Hollow Wolves are now in scattered, fearing for their lives as they hide in the shadows. Narah Night, the last living Hollow Alpha, doesn't hide, it's not in her nature. After years of escaping the hunters, by pure luck, she teams up with a Dark Faye, and together, they set out to find what's left of her kind. With nothing to lose, Narah vows to bring vengeance to those who are leaving her kind slaughtered across the country. What she doesn't expect is to be kidnapped, by one of her own kind...Or to team up with death itself.
Bloodline: Warrior (Book Two)
When you have nothing left to lose, you become willing to do whatever it will take for hope.
Narah night can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and her friends are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure they reach it. However, what they don’t expect is a side trip to Kyrell’s home: Purgatory.
Then next step in order to free the Crescent Wolves will not be an easy one for Narah, and she will have to lay to rest her own demons before she can do it.
Bloodline: Queen (Book Three)
Coming face to face with the truth is never easy
For Narah the truth unravelled everything she believes in.
With the help of her allies, Narah uncovers the truth of the Crescent wolves, and the betrayal that lead to their downfall. The more they discover the more they realize how impossible their mission is.
Uncovering secrets, bringing back the dead, liberating an entire race, that is what it comes to down to for this werewolf, dark fairy, and reaper friends.
