The Darkest Night

by Emma V. Leech

  Corin listened as the old, familiar words were recited, but there was no meaning to them in the way Auberren spoke, no heart, they were merely repeated. The force of the words had long since been lost to the man who spoke them. As he came to the end, he sank his fingers into the soil, and the silence around him seemed to ring as loud as the bell had just moments before. Suddenly, there was a rush of power that rippled towards him over the ground, and fire exploded at his feet. There were gasps from the crowd and Corin turned away, closing his eyes as the horrific screams of the old king rent the air. He frowned, sickened and shuddering as the crowd began to jeer and celebrate.

  “What’s the matter, boy?” The mocking voice drifted to him over the field and the noise of the crowd. “Are you afraid to die?”

  He looked up to see King Braed sneering at him. Corin laughed and shook his head. “I will not die this day, and if you cannot yet see that, you are blinder than I have ever believed.”

  “Maybe you are the King of the Light,” Braed admitted, his tone grudging despite the obvious power that had rushed to Corin as he had taken his place. “But you will never be King of the Dark Fae, and when we are done here, I will make you pay.” The was loathing and violence glittering in his dark eyes, but Corin just shrugged; of all the things he faced today, this man did not frighten him. He was already dead, he just didn’t know it yet.

  “Think what you like,” he said, giving Laen’s father a pitying look. “But you won’t be leaving this field today. I hope you have made peace with the gods,” he added, giving the man a taut smile. “For you are about to meet them.”

  The king glowered at him as the bell rang once more, and the two contenders readied themselves to fight for control, Braed simply for his own land, though he would take the Light Fae if he could, and Corin for all three kingdoms.

  Now that the moment was finally upon him, Corin’s nerves settled. There was no doubt in his mind that he could take the land, all of it. All he must do now was to endure. Nothing lasts forever, he thought before turning and giving King Braed a nonchalant wave of his hand, gesturing for him to go first despite the fact it would give the man an advantage. The king scowled at him. Nonetheless, he began and as he recited the same words that had burned Auberren to ashes, the back of Corin’s neck prickled as power began to swirl around them. The sweet scent of magic rose as it coiled and twisted, the white light dancing around the king as the might of his words began to bind the land to him.

  Corin took a breath, taking one last glance at those he loved before he closed his eyes. Taking a moment to centre himself, he began to speak the words of that same prayer, but his version was older, so very much older, and long since forgotten by any that stood around him today. Instinctively, he had never spoken the words out loud before, far too aware of the power they possessed. He had no idea how he knew them, he only knew that they had always been there, in his head, for as long as he could remember. Power surged around him and he felt the land sigh before rushing towards his call like a long-lost lover as his magic gathered strength and sank into the ground beneath him. It buried into the earth, twisting and claiming as it coiled and spread like the roots of a vast tree, growing at incredible speed, and stretching out and out, farther and father. He began to lose himself, the idea of himself, as he became one with the world around him. The earth was his skin, the rivers his life’s blood, and as he stretched out his fingertips, he felt the mountains rumble as life returned to them with a burst of magic that lit the skies. The long-silent caves of the green-eyed ice bears vibrated with the roar of the huge beasts as they stretched and clawed their way free of the earth, once again to prowl the mountain ranges. Sanglier the size of oxen thundered through the forests as rauorfire lions snarled, and every magical creature that had been lost to the realm burst once more to life. He felt the regeneration of every extinct life, felt his powers rise and grow to impossible heights and his mind expand past the limits of possibility. He was consumed by the land as the land belonged to him, was him, and he did not hear Braed’s screams as the fire consumed him, burning him to nothing, or the screams of the crowd … as their own fear began to grow.

  ***

  Claudette had held her breath when Auberren burned. The smell made her stomach clench and churn, and she clung tight as King Edard and Queen Audrianne both tightened their grip on her hands. Laen stood at her back, his hands on her shoulders, and she was grateful for his solid presence. Her brother and Bram and the others were there, too, but she could not tear her eyes away from Corin. She hardly dared blink for fear that if she took her eyes from him, he would somehow cease to be. She told herself over and over again that he was the true king, and she believed it, knew in her heart that it was true, but fear still held her heart in a vice.

  When they saw King Braed begin to bind his ties to the land and Corin simply stood watching him, all of them held their breath.

  “What in damnation are you waiting for, you bloody fool!” Laen raged from behind Claudette as he began to pace, one white-knuckled hand grasping the hilt of his sword with anxiety.

  Corin’s father shook his head, his frail hand clutching at Claudette’s for all he was worth. “He’s showing off,” he grumbled, his voice as much full of pride as fear and frustration. They watched with their hearts in their mouths as Corin finally began to speak, and his voice, soft as it was, seemed to roll over them, laden with power. They could feel it brush their skin as it rose around them and then pushed out over the land.

  Claudette let go of Audrianne’s hand to stifle a scream as King Braed disappeared behind a curtain of flame. She turned to glance at Laen, whose face was impassive, though the tension in his jaw was clear enough. She reached up and took his hand and squeezed it as Audrianne took hold of the other, and he held onto them both in his iron grip as they watched Corin take control of the land.

  Magic boiled around him now, swirling high into the air as the sky darkened and clouds gathered overhead. The crowd began to back away as the power of it started to prickle and burn against their skin. The air felt heavy, charged and hot, scalding lungs as the crowd gasped for breath, and fear made them huddle together. Lightning lit the skies, which had turned a strange blood-red as panic rippled through the people. They knew there was nowhere to run, this was not just happening here in this place, but in every part of the three kingdoms.

  The crowd froze as Corin stopped speaking and sank to his knees, driving his hands into the sickly soil beneath him. The roar of sound that exploded through the air sent them diving to the ground with pain ringing through their ears as the horizon crackled. White light that seared their eyes burned along the earth and made them turn away, covering their eyes and cowering on the ground in fear. That fear turned all too quickly to terror as they saw the flames begin, rising along the skyline, rushing towards them at impossible speed. The flames devoured everything in their path as the landscape burned. The city blazed, the fire licking up into the dread, red sky, and the dead trees of the forests lit up like tinder to a match as the inferno leapt higher.

  The people clung together, screaming and praying, weeping for forgiveness for their sins and begging the gods to have mercy.

  “Edard!” Audrianne screamed over the din as the power of the land was ripped away from her. She passed out, sagging against the throne as the old king rushed to her side. Claudette got up from her seat and ran to the edge of the platform where the royal family had been seated. She clung to the balustrade, trembling and watching with fear and awe as the land burned around them, and crept ever closer to the would-be king trying to claim it.

  She was shaking hard and crying, tears streaming down her face, though she didn’t make a sound. A big hand covered hers on the balustrade, and she looked up to see Laen’s face was a mirror of her own. They stood side by side, both of them sending silent prayers to the gods, both of them knowing they would never recover from the loss of the man before them, should he fail.

  The flames burned higher, hotter, cleansi
ng and purifying the taint of the soil. Metals liquefied, dissolving as the magic tore through their flimsy man-made strength, chemicals hissed and spat and ceased to be, and the bodies of the dead burned and returned their strength to the soil they had once trod, tilled, and died for, and still the fire hungered and consumed.

  Claudette’s scream tore through the air as the flames reached him at last and Corin was enveloped, burning before the horrified eyes of the crowd. Laen grabbed a hold of her, pulling her face against his chest and holding her fast. “Don’t watch,” he shouted and they clung together, bound by fear. “He would not want you to see this,” he said, his voice strong and sure, though he was trembling as hard as she was. “He will live, Claudette, I promise you. He knew this was coming. He will live! He will live!” They both wept as they heard Corin cry out in pain, heard his screams of agony as he was burned alive, and wondered how it was that he could possibly survive.

  ***

  Corin gasped as the pain stopped abruptly. He had gone far beyond the limits of what he could bear. The flames had melted his flesh, boiled the marrow in his bones, and still he had clung to the land, praying she would punish him no further, but it was too much and he could take no more, he had relinquished his hold, and he knew that he had failed.

  Opening his eyes with caution, he looked around, and his heart broke as he realised he was right.

  He was standing in a meadow.

  The meadow stretched out around him in all directions, perfect and still, as far as the eye could see. No breeze stirred the grasses and no insects or birds flitted in the air, for this was the realm of the dead. The sky was a deep, bruised purple with no stars, no moon, and yet it wasn’t dark, for this was the eternal night of Erebus.

  Corin sank to the ground as his knees gave out. What a fool. What an almighty fool he had been. He dropped his head into his hands and wept for everything he had lost, for everyone he had failed, and prayed that someone would save them, for if he had failed, the land would perish and die, and them with it.

  “Don’t cry.”

  He started at the voice and looked up to see a young girl looking at him. She was beautiful, no more than fifteen, and wore a simple white dress.

  “You’ll have plenty of years to cry,” she said. “Don’t waste them now.”

  Her voice was gentle, but there was a hard edge to her face, and Corin gasped as he saw her eyes. He scrambled away from her, but she shook her head and held out her hand. “Come.”

  “I don’t want to,” he said, too afraid to move. Those eyes spoke of the kind of age and power that did not exist on earth, not in the human realm, nor among the Fae. Not anymore.

  “What has that to do with anything?” she replied, irritation in her voice now that boded ill if he disobeyed her. Corin swallowed and got to his feet as she reached out her hand. He took it with reluctance, flinching as her power washed over him.

  “Am I dead?” he asked, dreading the answer.

  “Perhaps.” She turned away and began to walk, pulling on his hand to make him follow. “Come.”

  He walked beside her through the dead meadow as shadows flitted around them, always just out of sight, always watching. They walked for hours, and suddenly she paused and Corin looked up her to see she was no longer a girl, but a woman, her belly full and round with child. Her eyes, though, they remained the same.

  “Wait,” she instructed and vanished from sight.

  Corin did as he was told and watched the shadows with growing anxiety as they flickered closer, always just out of sight. He tried to take hope from the fact she had not said that he was truly dead. Perhaps rang in his ears with a beautiful uncertainty that he clung to with all his might.

  “At last.”

  He gasped at the sound of her voice in his ear and swung around to find a woman facing him. Still dressed in white, her hair was long, almost to the ground, and fell over one shoulder in a thick braid. The lustrous dark tresses were streaked with white, and knowledge and power shone from her eyes. The meadow had gone, and around them was … nothing. A vast expanse of nothing at all, a no man’s land between this world and the next.

  “Nerthus,” he whispered and sank to his knees. “Forgive me, for I have failed you.”

  There was a laugh, rich and warm, that wrapped around him and made him feel as though he was home, loved, that he belonged. It was a tantalising sensation and yet one that he did not trust. He had been the god’s plaything too many times to take anything for granted.

  “No,” she said, her voice gentler now. “Not failed, though you have tested my patience to its limits, along with my existence.” He looked up to see those eyes that had made him so very afraid were full of warmth.

  “I am so sorry,” he said, meaning it as his voice cracked with emotion. “I am so desperately sorry that I did not heed your call, I should have listened, I should have come sooner.”

  She smiled at him, a strange, rather mocking glint in her eyes. “And yet if you had, you would have failed.”

  “What?” he demanded, blinking at her, shocked to his core by her answer.

  “You had lessons to learn. You have many more to come. You will win or lose as the fates decide.” She paused, calculation in her eyes as she looked into him, not at him, but into the very depths of his soul. “Unless you are clever enough, strong enough, to outwit them.”

  “But ... then why?” he demanded, not yet understanding if he had been forgiven, if he had lost or won, or if there was still more to come. “Why did I burn, if I could not have come sooner? If I am king, why am I here with you?”

  The serene face hardened and her voice became harsh. “Because it is time you accepted just who and what you are. It was not just the three kingdoms you ran from … was it?”

  Corin took a breath, shaking his head as he lurched to his feet, backing away from her. “No.” he said, holding his hands out as if to defend himself. He was willing to accept he was king, that he was destined to unite the three kingdoms, but he would not lose himself and become a monster. No.

  “You cannot deny it any longer,” she said, moving towards him as he found he could no longer move away. “You remembered the truth as you burned. You remembered your true name, even the people begin to suspect, and now with the power you wield, you will become the creature you have always been, once again.”

  “No!” he said, his fists clenched with suppressed rage even though it terrified him to defy not only a god, but one of the first, the oldest. “I will not.”

  “Tell me your true name, Bright One,” she commanded, her voice implacable.

  “No.” He shook his head as sweat and fear prickled down his spine, sending his heart into overdrive. “No, I won’t speak it.” The swirling mists of nothing pressed in on him, stealing his breath, suffocating him as her anger grew and she stood toe-to-toe with him, her power enough to melt his bones, if she desired.

  “It won’t leave you just because you won’t say it,” she hissed, her words searing his skin. Corin stared back at the goddess, staring into infinity as he gazed into those terrifying golden eyes.

  “I won’t do it,” he replied, holding onto his courage by his fingertips. He would not lose himself, he would not allow the power to consume him and become the monster he had always feared lurked inside of him.

  She tilted her head, considering him, his defiance, with amusement. “Do you truly believe you are strong enough to change things, to change yourself?” she said, mocking him, undermining his determination.

  “Yes,” he said, holding firm, keeping to his own beliefs. Defying the gods all over again. “Yes, I do.”

  She smiled then, her amusement growing as she clearly believed him deluded, so far out of his depth that he may as well drown himself and get it over with. “Well, then,” she said with the slightest lift of one eyebrow. “This should prove entertaining.”

  “I do hope so,” he replied, knowing he had won nothing more than the ability to try, to see how long he could hold out agai
nst the power that would eat him alive and spit out the pieces if he let it. “I would sorely hate to disappoint you.”

  She chuckled, approval glinting in her eyes, as though his defiance had pleased her. “Go then, Bright King. Go and lead your people to a new age, but know this. There are those that will work against you, and you will need all of your powers to keep the kingdoms together, or the gathering tide will drown you all.”

  ***

  The fire had died. Claudette stared, numb and silent as the land smouldered around them, sending thick black smoke curling in acrid plumes, high into the sky. It lingered low, hanging thickly on the air, choking lungs and making eyes sting and water, though no one had passed the hours without weeping and begging to be spared. Laen held her still, both of them too stunned, too afraid to speak or move. They still believed, but their hopes were harder and harder to cling too as the dead world lay silent.

  The crowd trembled, cowed and silent but for the sobbing. All three kings dead. All failed. The land had died with them, and now … the people would perish.

  The change was so gradual that at first, they did not notice it.

  The smoke began to disperse little by little as the clouds thinned and finally fled from the sky. A strange rippling sensation flickered over the ground, shivering over flesh and field and forest, and then the ground shuddered beneath their feet. The people looked up, murmuring in fear as they wondered what could possibly come next. Would the gods devour them now? Would the fire return? They stilled as a strange hush fell over them, the need to be silent instinctive as the premonition of power stole the cries on their tongues and their breath. Laen’s grip on her tightened, almost painfully, though she didn’t care, as they held their breath as one.

  All at once, the blackened trunks of the charred trees shuddered as life burst through them once again, the sap rising and sending out new growth as the landscape erupted to life. The ground gaped and yawned open, the cavernous jaws swallowing down the last traces of the war as the earth sighed and smoothed her wounds, as gently as a girl settling the skirts of a new dress. The people gasped, turning in wonder as they laughed and exclaimed at the world born anew at their feet. Magic leapt from the ground to touch the people, sinking beneath their skin, rushing through their veins and into their very bones as it chased the taint of the human world from their bodies. They wept and embraced each other with joy and swung their children high in the air as the bloom returned to their cheeks and their eyes shone once more … and then all eyes turned to the platform where the kings had stood.