The thought froze her soul.
Jinji would never feel that way again. She would never again run through the forest, letting the dirt soften beneath her feet. She would never again dive deep into the ocean, sensing the water close over and cocoon her. The night would never again be filled with stars. The warmth of the sun would never again seep into her skin. The spirits were far out of reach. She would never weave her magic again, would never wrap the elements around her, would never feel the mother spirit dance with her soul once more.
Rhen, she knew she would miss.
Janu, she knew she would miss.
But Jinji had never before thought of the world as a person, as a loved one she didn’t want to let go. But it was.
All too soon, they landed in the courtyard at the top of the Gates. At its pearly center, the shadow already waited, watching them curiously. Jinji noticed a bird by his side, undoubtedly woven by the spirit at a time when Jinji wasn't aware. How long had they been speaking? How long had they been plotting this together? How long had the spirit been lying to her?
Ignoring Jinji's questions, the spirit slid from her bird's back, making both animals disappear with the wave of her hand. And then she paused, facing the shadow from a distance.
"Hello," she said softly.
He grinned. "You did it. I'm impressed. I wasn't sure if you would be able to take control."
"Whatever you told her last night must have worked," the spirit murmured, shrugging. And Jinji suddenly realized something, something that shocked her.
The shadow doesn't know, she mocked. He doesn’t know that you had to use Rhen to get to me, that the only reason you have control is because of some poison you gave me. He thinks you were actually strong enough to do it yourself. Or does he?
Be quiet, the spirit sneered silently.
Jinji snorted. You never were.
"All I told her was the truth," the shadow said. "You know I don’t deal in lies. That is your game, not mine. And right now, my phantoms are gathering beneath this earth, preparing to rise, preparing for destruction should you back out of our arrangement at the last minute."
The spirit shook her head, denying the accusation. "I assure you, my days of tricks are over. I'm ready."
Jinji searched for a sign beneath those words—a tremor, an increase in their heartbeat, a flash of heat across their skin. Nothing came. The words were truth as far as she could tell. But still, Jinji didn't believe it. The shadow didn't either. He raised his brows pointedly, but said nothing, turning with a shrug. He walked to the rail, gazing out at the brilliant sea stretched out beneath them. The spirit followed, coming to a stop by his side.
"I've always enjoyed this view," the shadow commented.
The spirit placed her hand above his on the rail. "That's because it reminds you of home."
The shadow looked at the spirit, brown eyes softer than Jinji had ever seen them. It was a look Janu would have given her, so full of love, so full of affection. "Can we go there?"
The spirit nodded, turning to face him fully.
In each of their hands a dagger appeared. Plain iron. Long and sharp. Bright from the reflection of the blazing sun.
Jinji tensed.
No!
But the spirit ignored her.
No!
Jinji pounded her invisible fists, but the barrier locking her in didn't budge. The wall was solid, immobile. She shoved it with all of her might, until the entire length of her soul hurt from the pressure.
Rhen! she called, trying to reach him.
Rhen!
It worked last time, it worked once before. He would find her. He would save her.
Rhen!
But no response came. Jinji couldn't feel him. Couldn't feel the dragons. The elemental spirits were out of reach. The world and everything in it was out of reach.
The shadow and the spirit stepped closer together, each raising their hands and placing the point of their dagger against the other's heart. Jinji continued to fight, to scream, to stretch her soul around the entire length of her body, searching for a spot of weakness, a way to regain control. Nothing worked. Nothing changed.
"You promise to remove your gateway to this world?" the shadow asked darkly, eyes flickering with mistrust. "You will let the dragons do what they were created to do, maintain the balance of your world, and you will interfere no longer? You will never leave me again?"
"I promise," the spirit said, confident and without hesitation.
Lies! Jinji shouted. But her words held none of that same confidence, and the spirit didn't bother to respond to the accusation. She knew there was no need. She was in complete control. And in a matter of moments, she wouldn't be connected to Jinji any longer.
"And you will promise to keep your phantoms from this world from this moment on?" the spirit asked. "You will bring the souls from your realm as you were meant to do, bringing death and bringing new life in the way you were created for? You will help maintain the peace of my realm and will never again try to destroy it?"
The shadow nodded. "I promise."
"On the count of three?" the spirit questioned. Her heart felt pure. Her words felt untainted.
No! Jinji screamed.
The sight of a blade against Janu's skin made hers crawl. The spirit had to betray the shadow—she had to. Jinji needed her opportunity to save Janu. The shadow had promised to give Jinji the chance to let her brother live, he'd promised.
We had a deal! she shouted.
But the shadow didn't hear. He just nodded his agreement to the spirit, not acknowledging the deal he had made with Jinji—not acknowledging Jinji's existence at all.
"One," the spirit said.
"Two," the shadow confirmed.
Their eyes met.
In that moment, Jinji knew the spirit wasn't lying. She wasn't going to betray the shadow, not this time. And without that betrayal, the shadow had no obligation to follow through on his deal to keep Janu alive. To keep her alive.
The battle was over.
Let me see him, Jinji whimpered in the silence.
She was done. She was exhausted. There was no fight left in her. If this was the end, she would accept it. If this was how the world had to be saved, Jinji could pass on knowing her death made a difference. But she wanted to see her brother. She wanted to say goodbye. She wanted one more moment of life before it was stolen from her.
Please, let me look into his eyes one last time.
"I'll see you in the ether," the spirit murmured to the shadow, ignoring Jinji's plea. She pushed her hands forward, bringing a bead of blood to the center of Janu's chest.
"I'll see you at home." The shadow pressed the blade into Jinji's skin. Distantly, she felt the prick of the metal, the pierce of pain.
They paused.
And then together they said, "Three."
20
RHEN
~ RAYFORT ~
Rhen circled the city of Rayfort, soaring on Firestorm's back, fighting the sense of déjà vu threatening to overwhelm his system. In his eyes, he saw flames. In his heart, he felt the pain of all of those he once burned. His fists clenched at the memory, at the promise he'd made. To save them all. To save the world.
And he'd done it.
Right now, the spirit was meeting with the shadow. They were carrying out their compromise. The world would soon be at peace once again.
So why was his chest hollow?
Why was his soul broken?
Why did it feel as though he had nothing left to fight for?
Rhen blinked, clearing his thoughts, pushing the doubts away as he brought Firestorm lower, closing in on the front gate and searching for a fellow man with red hair whom he desperately wanted to see again.
Whyllem.
There he was. At the front of his guards with a crown on his head, eyes wide at the scene before him. The dragon landed. Rhen slipped from his back, sending Firestorm into the sky, and turned to his brother instead.
"Rhen," Whylle
m said, words full of relief. "What in the gods is going on?"
He followed his brother's eyes to the open fields outside of Rayfort, to the hundreds of immobile bodies standing as still as statues waiting for the enemy to come. He understood the horror filling Whyllem's gaze, filling the gazes of all the guards around him. He understood their revulsion.
But to Rhen, those empty shells of bodies represented hope. The spirit had told him the truth. She had done what she could—woven bodies to help capture the phantoms, to hold them off for as long as possible until the compromise was met. And if she had told the truth about that, she must have told the truth about everything else as well. Why lie? There was no reason.
"The phantoms are coming," Rhen said solemnly and then pointed to the field. "Those are our only defense against them."
Whyllem narrowed his eyes, shaking his head. "I don't understand."
Rhen sighed. "There is too much to explain in the time we have left. The phantoms will be here any moment, I'm sure of it. All you must know is that when they arrive, they will get sucked into those bodies below, and in that form you can kill them. Send word across the wall, fight to kill—but not to maim. Those men out there, they will come to life again and again, as long as their bodies have form, the phantoms will reanimate them. But we want that to happen. Because the longer they are trapped in those empty shells, the longer it will take for the darkness to descend upon us."
Whyllem nodded. He had learned not to question Rhen, at least not about matters like this. Within minutes, the whisper rose to a murmur as word spread to the left and right, commands shooting across the wall. Heads turned upward to watch Firestorm cast a blaze wherever he flew. The people of Rayfort knew their prince was there, knew their Lord of Fire had come to save them once more, and they had hope at the sight of those flames.
Whyllem watched too. But on his lips was a frown instead. "Where are the other riders? Lady Jinji?" he asked, turning to his brother. "I told you if the time came again to choose between us and your soul, to choose yourself. I don't want the destruction of another brother on my conscience. I would rather die than have you sacrifice yourself for me, for us."
Rhen placed a hand on his older brother's shoulder, squeezing affectionately, more thankful for those understanding words than Whyllem would probably ever realize. "They are by their families' sides as well," Rhen said, voice full of confidence, not at all torn. He was where he was supposed to be, they all were, and they had made that choice together. "This is what our dragons were made for, to fight this foe. And this is what the riders were made for, to do whatever is necessary to save the world."
Just as Rhen finished speaking, a collective gasp filled the air.
He turned quickly.
It didn't take long to notice the ebony film gathering on the horizon.
"They're here," he murmured darkly.
Whyllem's fist closed around the hilt of his sword.
"Get me a bow," Rhen ordered, speaking to the guard to his left. The man ran off in a hurry. Firestorm roared into the sky, blasting an inferno into the air, catching his rider's attention. Rhen glanced up, finding his dragon's eyes.
The truth was he would rather be up there, he would rather be flying, be blazing. But right now, he was needed on the ground. Right now, it was not the time for fire. In one swoop, he and Firestorm could wash the grounds before them in a sea of smoldering flames, burning the bodies to a crisp as soon as the phantoms were trapped inside. But today, Jinji was not by his side to create more. The bodies the spirit had woven were all he had, and he had to do whatever was necessary to preserve them.
Firestorm understood.
But he didn't like it—which was why Rhen watched with a small grin on his lips as his dragon flew into the gathering mist, separating it with a blast of hot fire, letting the phantoms know he was there waiting for any opportunity that might come his way. But as the darkness continued its unrelenting approach, Rhen tightened his fist around the body of an arrow, testing the strings of his bow. He would rather hold the hilt of a sword, but he wanted this to be a game of distance for as long as possible. If it came to swords, it came too close.
The men watched him, switching their gaze from the expanding black cloud on the horizon to the firm set of his jaw, back and forth and back and forth, waiting for a command. It was an unspoken understanding—Rhen was the leader now. Rhen was the one whom they trusted to keep them safe, to understand what it took to defeat an evil they never thought they would see outside of their nightmares.
He lifted his hand, waiting for the perfect moment to drop it.
The blueness of the sky was beginning to disappear behind the ebony film. The ghosts billowed closer, as though blown toward Rayfort on an invisible breeze. Thin tendrils stretched out, and Rhen held his breath.
Just a little closer, he thought, eyes intent.
The bodies at the far edge began to move, to twitch with life as the smoky tendrils touched them and disappeared within. The mist separated into individual circles, shapeless men that floated across the fields. The ghostly army spread wide as each phantom searched for a body of his own. Through it all, Rhen waited, watching the dead come to life before him. They were clumsy, awkward in their movements, and had they been alive, they would be no match for the armies of Rayfort. But they weren't alive—everything about them was wrong, was unnatural, and made his skin crawl. Fear tightened the air of the wall, but not a single guard spoke, not a single knight ran. Dread was there, but courage was too. When nearly every body on the field thrummed with stolen life, Rhen dropped his hand.
Without hesitation, a volley of arrows soared.
The battle had begun.
Rhen released the string of his bow, listening to it vibrate with liberated tension as his arrow flew. The metal head landed squarely in the chest of an enemy soldier below. The man went down. From a distance, Rhen watched his eyes clear and held his breath. But a moment later, the man rose again with the arrow protruding from his chest and took a step forward. A shiver raced up Rhen's spine, making him twitch. But he fired, sinking another arrow into the man's flesh. Darkness swarmed over the fallen man as soon as he touched the ground, and the mist disappeared inside his body. Despite the blood dripping down the center of his breastplate, he rose again with unnatural life filling his eyes.
Gasps and cries filled the air.
All around him, the protectors of Rayfort watched corpses return to life over and over and over again. Arrows flew. They landed true. But they did little to slow the approach.
Every second, the enemy came closer.
Every second, the scene grew more and more gruesome.
The dead were descending, and the living were powerless to stop them. It was worse than anything Rhen had ever witnessed before—worse than the vision Firestorm had sent him of the battle long ago, worse than the massacre that occurred in the city of Brython, worse than the battle outside of Roninhythe. With perfect clarity, Rhen realized that everything he previously experienced had been a mere glimpse of the shadow's real strength—just enough to scare them, to taunt them. But this was something else entirely. The shadow was using his full force, and if the spirit did not finalize her compromise with him soon, there was no doubt in Rhen's mind that the world would be destroyed.
"Stay strong!" he yelled, sensing the changing tide of despair. Firestorm flew close to the wall, setting a blaze above the battlefield, hoping to instill faith. He torched the mist and forced the phantoms to swerve and bend around his fire, but without Jinji and without the other dragons, there wasn't much he could do.
The undead reached the city gate.
The guards dropped rocks on their heads, bashing in their skulls. But every time one man fell, another stepped over him to press against the door, ramming his weight into the metal and wood, trying to force it open. Brains oozing out, the phantoms crept forward. They could sense the souls of the living, and the only thing filling their minds was an uninhibited need to rejoin the world. The sha
dow had abandoned his control of them, Rhen realized, he wasn't holding them back as he had before, wasn't trying to stop them. The phantoms fought to taste the thrill of life once more, to be surrounded by it, to steal it no matter the cost of their theft—and the shadow let them.
The mist pulsed as more phantoms oozed free from the soil of the earth.
There weren't enough empty bodies to fill.
There never would be.
Smoke slipped over the edge of the wall.
A guard in front of Rhen fell, twitching on the ground, seizing and foaming from the mouth as a phantom sank within him, trying to steal the place of his soul. He would be dead soon. And in Brython, that would have been the end of it. But not now, not this time, with the shadow unleashing his full fury. Another phantom would soon reanimate the corpse, and the fight would continue. There was no way to stop it.
"Retreat!" Rhen shouted.
But as the word left his lips, the gates beneath him burst inward. The undead swarmed through, filling the streets of Rayfort.
The wall was compromised.
The city was compromised.
There was nowhere to go.
Refusing to give up, Rhen grabbed the hilt of his sword. He had hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, but the time had come. He ran down from the wall, slashing at the writhing, bloody bodies of the living corpses pouring into his beloved city.
They had no weapons.
They were defenseless, and yet, no matter what Rhen did to stop them, they kept coming. Limbs fell to the street, so they walked without hands, without feet, crawling as far as they could go, as long as they could go. The guards were beginning to fall. The darkness was descending, sinking into the streets, and following the path the undead created. The defenders of Rayfort were becoming the enemy, bodies consumed by floating death at the moment of their soul's parting.
The Phoenix Born (A Dance of Dragons #3) Page 23
