Of Darkness and Crowns

by Trisha Wolfe

  Caben lies discarded on the marble floor behind her. A forgotten token of her phenomenal entry. I’m going for him.

  With a bound, I race toward the dais. I only partially hear Bax’s cry as I’m snapped up, my feet kicking the air. My throat constricts, and I grab at the unseen fingers strangling the air from my lungs.

  Bale holds her arm outstretched, her elegant but solid fingers curved into a claw. Her lips, coated with a glistening silver-blue, curl into a smile. It’s chilling. “Very fitting,” she says, her voice a soprano chorus. “That my first act in this form should be to kill you. Alyah had no right, the righteous little sprite.” She grips her hand tighter, locking her fingers to her thumb, and my vision dims. “Die now. And take with you that annoying spark of my humanity.”

  Her hand lashes out with a jolt, and I’m tossed like a weightless trinket across the sanctuary. Pain explodes in my shoulder as I hit the wall with violent impact, hearing a snap. Then I slide to the floor, gasping for air and clutching my neck. Kaide and Lilly are at my side, attempting to help me stand, but I cry out at the pain in my shoulder. Only able to open my eyes long enough to see past the black spots filling my vision, I glimpse Bale kneeling next to Caben.

  What is she doing? I open my mouth to shout at her, but the pain in my shoulder steals the air from my lungs.

  “Kal, please,” Lilly pleads. “It’s over. We have to go. She’s going to kill you, us, everyone…”

  That’s a truth I can trust. Bale will tear through us all, barely a hiccup in her schedule, as she builds momentum toward a worldwide massacre. We’re nothing but tiny irritants in her path. Little gnats buzzing in her ear.

  I swallow and clasp Lilly’s hand. “I want you to leave, Lills.” I glance between her and the others—they all have to go. “Get out. Get them out.”

  I don’t let her voice the next words already forming on her lips. With my good arm, I hook it around her neck and bring her close. Hug her tightly the way I should’ve done before this last moment. “Make sure my mother stays on her meds. Take care of her…both of them.”

  She trembles against me, releasing an audible sob, then I’m pushing her back. “Go.”

  Now, I make sure they all have no choice but to leave me behind with my next action. And I don’t know why I do this, other than the overwhelming desire to see the fear in Bale’s cold silver eyes when she meets her long lost, rejected other half.

  I’m sure this will kill me, but not before I’m able to summon some swift, powerful retribution first.

  Closing my eyes, I breathe deep. Focus on the mercury. The cybernetic clamp filtering it and driving it away from my heart. I think of my mother’s words: you’re blessed. Trying to convince me for years the mercury coursing through me was the blessed blood of the goddesses. All the goddesses’ lies fed to her and me, and the sliver of doubt I always maintained. It was a curse, after all.

  But it’s no longer my curse.

  It belongs to Bale.

  I grit my teeth and see the gears and wires against the backs of my eyelids. I hear the churning and grinding of the clamp. The pumping mercury. And I hear my heart. Beating. Stronger than the foreign cybernetics that don’t belong.

  I believe that with my whole being.

  You’re not a part of me.

  I will the clamp to break. See it shutting down. Gears stop spinning, the piston stops pumping. The technology grinds to a halt.

  Then I feel the rush of mercury hit my heart.

  Gasping, I open my eyes wide. A blast of air expands my lungs. I’m shaking, my hands seize my chest, trying to reach past the glass casing and grab the boiling poison hitting my organs at lightning speed.

  Tears fill my eyes. My heart aches at the pressure. And I’m sucked under with consuming emotions I can’t grasp. It’s too much…I want to take it back…make it stop.

  But it’s too late. My eyes shut.

  Then, I buzz, quaking with a pent-up need to unleash. No more restraint, my eyes fly open, and I’m pushing off the wall. I march toward the stone door and grasp the corner to throw it open wider, but it’s flung from the hinges.

  Bax grabs Lilly, forcing her to stand. His eyes rake over me, his thin mouth parted in mute shock. Then, “What have you done?”

  “I’m dying,” I say over his question. “Please, take my friends to safety. And take Caben…give him the proper—” I force the lump in my throat down “—give him the burial deserving of a king.”

  Bale’s blazing eyes find and hold me, narrowing. She’s on her feet, bringing herself up in one effortless move. I try to look only at her and not Lilly’s tear-streaked face as she clings to Bax, or Kaide’s bowed head, or Kai’s arms cradling a trembling Whip. In my peripheral, I glimpse Lena leading Aurelia alongside the wall toward the others.

  This is all I can offer them. A way to escape. They’ll be on their own from here, and I don’t know what will happen to them in the future—but in this moment, I want to see them live.

  Rolling my shoulder, I work it back into place. The painful pop only a slight annoyance. Then I stare down Bale. “Come at me, you hell bitch.” And I’m running, my feet flying over the marble so quickly I don’t feel their impact.

  I just need to get her away from Caben long enough for my friends to grab him and go. That’s it. A fraction of a minute.

  Balling my hand into a fist, I haul back and land a hard punch to her face. I’m surprised she let me reach her, touch her. But I don’t stop once I make contact with her flesh. Flesh. Something in me registers that. Human. A goddess yes, but in the flesh.

  She can be hurt.

  Still, she’s as hard as stone. An ice sculpture that refuses to crack. My hands light up with pain as she merely turns her head to the side, my fists grazing off her. I grab her headdress and yank her head down. It’s a dirty move, but the Cage fights taught me I have to resort to any means necessary to survive. In a way, Bale taught me that.

  A tinkling laugh falls from her lips. It crawls under my skin and stirs something primal within. Jerking out of my hold, she uses her forearms to break my grasp. I scream as her touch sears my skin from the quick contact.

  “You think you can contain all that power?” she asks, linking her finger into the strap of my harness and pulling me up to her height. “There’s a reason you were given that…shield.” She spits the word. “And now you broke it.” Her frown is fake on her mouth. “You’re only human.”

  Latching on to her wrist, trying to ignore the burn, I lock gazes with her. “So are you.”

  Her smile drops, and as her eyes widen in the quick second it takes me to reach for her neck, I have my hands sealed tight around it. She laughs, and I squeeze harder, but it’s like trying to strangle a stone statue.

  The veins of her face swirl, shifting position as she cackles…and before the thought fully enters my head, I remove one hand and slash my arm against the sharp feathers of her headdress.

  My tainted blood spills over her.

  Bale releases a violent shriek and drops me. I scramble on my hands and knees toward Caben, where Bax is already lifting him into his arms, Lena and Kaide grabbing his feet. My eardrums feel as if they’re about to burst, but I push through the pain.

  Before I reach them, Bax releases Caben and looks past me. I want to yell, force him to hurry and get Caben out…but the black mist curling around us forces me to turn my head. Just look back once.

  The dark tendrils twirl around Bale, cocooning her, as she raises her hands and summons the light of the moon. Somehow, through some link, I understand what she’s doing: healing. And fast.

  Lilly’s hand is under my arm and dragging it around her neck, pulling me up to stand beside her. “We’re all leaving—” Her words break off as a rumble echoes throughout the temple. The walls begin to shake.

  ♦ 31 ♦

  Kaliope

  THE TEMPLE IS COLLAPSING.

  Whatever power Bale is calling forth from her moon, it’s bringing the whole damn building dow
n around us. The walls tremble, sending blocks of stone and moonstone crashing and breaking apart the marble floor.

  I’ve only just been lifted, Lilly gathering me close, as a blast hits the main support structure. It hurtles toward us. The last thing I see is Bax covering Lilly before we’re thrust into darkness.

  A cacophony of noises—shouts, stomping, banging—clashes in my ears as I suck in a smoggy lungful of air and cough. “Find her!” I hear many voices yelling, calling to locate Bale. With somewhat little clarity, I realize the temple has been attacked. Either by the Otherworlders or the armies.

  When the rubble starts to clear above us, I glimpse a hand—a human hand—and release a heavy breath. The army. But that relief is short-lived. If they’ve defeated the Otherworlders and are now seeking Bale, they’re not here to help us.

  We’re the traitors.

  Before I can pull myself from the wreckage, a scream rips through the ruins. My head swings around, my gaze finding its source. Bale hovers above of the demolished sanctuary, black vines of mist and snapping currents of power coiling around her in a gathering vortex of smoke and light.

  Then with the clap of her delicate hands, another, more powerful explosion ignites. The blast clears the remaining rubble from the center of the sanctuary, only to pile more on top of us. But in the flash that it happens, I see it all as if in slow motion. A dip in the floor beneath her suspended feet. The floor bending inward, swirling like a whirlpool, then rebounding and sending a wave of debris spewing from all around her. Spiraling out and raining down…

  I lift my arms.

  And everything stops.

  Fragments of gold and copper leafing scatter the air, reflecting the moonlight and erupting fires, sparkling like molten sand. Above Bax’s head, a large cornerstone hovers mid-careen. A storm of moonstone and rubble surrounds us, wisps of smoke caught just as it begins to curl.

  Taking a labored breath, I ease myself onto my knees and slowly lower my hands.

  “Kal?” Lilly’s questioning tone sounds distant and distorted in our sheltered cocoon. Where, outside of it, the protectors and Bale move so slowly, they’re practically frozen.

  “I don’t know…” is my only response. Because I don’t. But I do understand whatever time we’ve been allotted, it’s not enough to shield us for long.

  As the others are hauling themselves from the ruins, I quickly account for each person. All are here, all are alive, if only banged up and bruised. Any substantial injuries will have to wait until later, when I might be able to heal—

  And with that sudden thought, I’m scouring the wreckage, tearing full-size boulders away from the pile like pillows, searching for Caben. I find him under a section of wall. How long has it been since Bale’s ascent? Since his death? Seconds…minutes? Like this frozen moment of time, the instant I saw him die, all time ceased.

  But it doesn’t matter. My hands are clearing away the flecks of silver leafing and debris from his face, away from his mouth and nose. I palm his cheeks, cold, but still giving off a small amount of body heat. The world around me slips away as I stare down at him. Feel his smooth skin, his soft hair. Tears cloud my vision. I don’t stop them from falling.

  I use every emotion welling within me. I call forth every memory I have of him—from my most infuriating to my happiest. From the second I first threatened his life, to the instant when I first realized I loved him, when he touched me in a way no other ever has. And when he kissed me, and then my deformity, accepting and loving—I use it all.

  And when my hands flare into that bright white light, I don’t fear it. I don’t see my father’s face as he was rendered to madness. I don’t envision the Dark Priest as he was right before I rectified the damage done to him. I refuse to think of all the fear that coursed through me with every patient I healed while trying to understand my powers…I only allow the warmth to spread, the glow to envelope us, and my heart to beat with no barrier blocking the mercury.

  “Come back to me,” I whisper, my voice breaking.

  As the glow spreads, seeping into his skin and illumining it, filling him with warmth and living essence, his chest bucks. I startle, a wave of hope crashing over me. I don’t hesitate. I send another high level of power into him, and this time, his eyes open and he gasps.

  My hands tremble, but I keep them anchored, unable to blink as I watch Caben breathe, cough, live. After the initial shock of being jolted back into his body, his blue eyes find me. And I finally release the breath stalled in my lungs as they look at me with recognition.

  “I feel like I’ve been hit with a building,” he says, his voice hoarse. I laugh.

  Tears streaming down my face, I laugh so hard my debris-riddled lungs ache. “That’s because you have.”

  His lips stretch into a smile. A full Caben smile that, oh my goddess, I haven’t seen in so long. My lips crash on his. And though he’s weak, he meets my greedy need for him with as much force as he can. But all too soon, the reality that we’re not free yet comes barreling back into my conscience.

  Breaking the kiss, I ask him, “Can you move?”

  He licks his lips. “I feel numb. I don’t know.”

  I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll carry you.” I stand and motion to Bax. “Everyone ready?”

  Eyes wide, he hikes his wiry eyebrows and clears his throat. “For…?”

  “We’re taking this thing”—I wave my hand around, indicating our shelter—“with us. But I don’t know how long I can keep it going.” After the intense healing session that was needed to restore Caben, my strength is waning quickly.

  Kaide links Whip’s arm around his neck and nods to me. “Her leg is broken, but we’ll manage.”

  I frown at Whip, who hobbles next to Kaide with her teeth gritted against the pain. The others are in the best shape they can be considering, so that leaves Caben to be carried. I kneel beside him and bring his arms around my neck. “Hold on as best you can,” I say.

  He groans as I lift him into my arms. “I will never live this down, will I?”

  A smile stretches my lips. “Never, Prince. Never.”

  His almost smile, the one not quite reaching his eyes, suddenly vanishes. “Please, never call me by that title again.”

  My forehead creases with my confusion, and I want to understand his reasoning, want to ask—but Bale’s figure blinks in and out of my fringe. A prickling sensation swims down my chest to my stomach, and I turn to see her stony eyes looking directly at me.

  She remains frozen, still in her pose of ejecting the wreckage…only she now faces us. She moves just as slowly as the units, but with one, disturbing difference: she is aware. And she’s working hard to break down my barrier.

  Her lips begin to move, the only part of her body gaining speed. She mouths: soon.

  Fear slithers down my spine, and I’m lifting Caben higher into my arms. “But not today,” I whisper.

  Then, we break for the remains of the entrance. My last action is to look back—to see the protectors left behind. My stomach bottoms out, my heart heavy. There will be nothing left of them soon.

  ♦ 32 ♦

  Caben

  “I’M GLAD I BUILT this place,” I say to myself, propping my leg up on the cherry oak table in my den. “You have excellent taste, Caben.” Although, I wish I’d have found another location for my hideout during my…possession. My treehouse feels tainted now.

  Lilly, graciously ignoring me talking to myself—as I still do at times, and to which I’m trying to overcome—grabs her transmitter and sits down on the couch opposite me. She’s been searching for new updates on Bale’s whereabouts for the past few days.

  Possession. I can barely think the word, otherwise voice it. Regardless of Kal’s acceptance, her declared forgiveness, I can’t forgive myself. For any of it.

  Though everyone is tired of hearing my apologies, I’m sure. Ready to punch my face in at this point. Hell, I’m so ill at hearing my own, whiny voice, I want to punch my face. B
ut something has to be done to account for all the damage I’ve caused.

  Bax, for one, continues to give me suspicious looks, unable to accept my recovery back to this living plane. I don’t blame him. Though we’ve researched it some, delving into tombs of ancient magics, nothing comes close to explaining what Kal has done.

  By all accounts, I should be a monster. Some creature of death who’s able to walk, breathe, and talk, but not think or reason. Not a fully functioning member of society—almost. I don’t think society is ready to have its banished prince back just yet.

  But, according to some lore, if death is brought upon by unhuman means—such as Bale’s ascension—then the soul never actually leaves this plane. It becomes trapped. Able to be summoned and returned to a body. Otherwise, a natural human death cannot be reverted.

  Somehow, I feel we’ve cheated fate. And I’m in debt to repay my existence—that should have ended the moment the trade for Bale’s was made. I believe we’ve yet to see the full extent of our consequences.

  Although, if Kal had not performed her miracle, then I’d be a wandering spirit of sorts. A chill creeps over my skin just thinking of it. I’m not sure I understand or believe it all, but after everything we—I—have been through, how can I not?

  And how Kal survived the full blast of mercury to her heart… I don’t know. We’ve debated and speculated, only to raise more questions. But what it does prove is clear: she was always Bale’s intended vessel. No other could’ve sustained the dark goddess—except one already harboring a part of her essence.

  Even though I put up a decent fight—I try to console myself—only one protected by the goddesses, someone so strong and capable, could live with a pure, poisonous mineral pumping through her heart. I shake these thoughts from my head, earning a curious glance from Lilly, who quickly goes back to flipping through her transmitter feeds.

  I’m nearly reflecting on everything again. Slicing open half-patched wounds and feeling myself slip into that dark place.