by Kristen Pham
“My old friend, however much you try, I fear that I am lost,” Rastelli said. “Even now, the veil of darkness in my mind envelops me.”
Rastelli groaned, and Valerie shuddered at the pain in the sound. Then he broke his staff over his knee. Valerie thought maybe he’d triumphed over whatever darkness was within him, until she saw him drive the broken staff into his heart.
She raced to Rastelli’s side, ready to unleash her vivicus power to save him, but Dasan held her back, pinching her arm gently in his beak.
“I have seen inside his mind, and this is what he wants. He cannot live with the darkness Reaper has created within him, and it cannot be cured,” Dasan said.
All of the shouting and movement in the room had ceased. Even though it might be cowardly, Valerie couldn’t watch any longer, and she turned away as Rastelli uttered a last, gasping breath.
She leaned down and slung Jack, who was still out cold, over her shoulder.
“I apologize for the interruption,” she said in her most authoritative voice, hoping that it didn’t wobble. No matter how many people she’d seen die, it never failed to unravel her.
Al stood squarely in her path, his snarl in place.
“If you have a score to settle with me, I welcome the chance to give you the beating you deserve,” Valerie said, and when she brushed past him, he didn’t move to stop her.
With as must dignity as she could muster, Valerie walked from the room, out of the Capitol building, and down the steps, nearly tripping over the spot where the crack was the widest.
She deposited Jack on the grass in the middle of The Horseshoe. He woke up when Valerie shook him, and shrugged off her touch. Then he stood up and began walking back to the Capitol building, in spite of the limp he was now sporting.
“You want to kill yourself, like Rastelli did?” Valerie shouted after him. “Then go back! But don’t kid yourself that you’re honoring Dulcea by doing that, because it’s the last thing she’d want. She didn’t give up on living after both of her parents were murdered when she was a kid. She kept her faith in other people and made the Globe better by helping people. What you want to do is essentially easy, and selfish. Go ahead and give up.”
Jack stopped walking, but he didn’t turn back. His entire frame trembled, and Valerie moved to stand next to him. He leaned against her, and his hollow eyes found hers.
“I thought I’d finally found where I belonged. That I’d found a home,” he said.
“I think life is mostly suffering, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t little moments of happiness mixed in. You have to believe that there’s another moment like that waiting for you,” Valerie said. “We both do.”
Valerie took Jack to Cyrus’s dorm room. Cyrus opened the door and assessed both of them.
“Jack needs to channel his rage into something other than taking on a room full of Grand Masters,” she said, striving for a light tone.
Cyrus picked up on her intent, like he always did.
“I think you need to shoot something,” Cyrus said. He squinted at Jack. “Maybe even make something explode.”
Jack didn’t smile, but he rolled his eyes, which Valerie took as a sign of life.
Outside the dorm, Valerie hugged Jack and then turned to Cyrus. “Get ahold of his gang. I think they’re staying in the Actors’ dorm with Jack. They’ll make sure he doesn’t go looking for trouble again.”
Then she squeezed Cyrus a little longer and harder than she ought to, knowing how he felt about her, but she needed to borrow a little of his light before she faced Reaper.
Chapter 28
Valerie returned to the entrance to Plymouth that Willa and Steven had blasted open, hoping that no one would be nearby. She was relieved to see that glade was empty. She walked across the scarred earth, where the dynamite had created a huge hole, and turned the wheel on the ancient door.
It was dark inside, but not completely without light. The gems embedded in the walls of the cave held a faint glow, a remnant of Cyrus’s magic. Valerie remembered the tunnel well enough to follow the path back.
She climbed down the ladder and approached the city. It had been quiet the last time she had come, but now it was completely empty. She was relieved that Skye had managed to evacuate the Groundlings who lived here so quickly. It was probably the only city in Plymouth where the people weren’t enslaved by the Fractus.
As she followed the river and approached the cave, she saw that the debris from the cave-in she’d created at the mouth had been cleared away.
Inside, Valerie couldn’t hear anything. She was forced to unsheathe Pathos to light her path, even though she knew that it would make her a target if there were any Fractus stragglers still in this part of the cave.
The space was empty, and Valerie decided to follow the river. She suspected that the location of the greatest concentration of Carne was somewhere deep in the caves.
The ground beneath her feet was slippery with black slime that gave off a faint hum of power. It smelled like the dank spot underneath an overpass where she’d huddled during the year she’d been homeless in Oakland. It was the scent of desperation and fear.
Valerie sheathed Pathos, only pulling it out occasionally to check that there weren’t any obstacles in her path. The sound of the river moving and her own breath made a kind of soundtrack, and Valerie’s heartbeat ratcheted up as the closeness of the tunnel bore down on her.
It was an acute relief to make out the distant sound of shouting. The hum of power that surrounded her increased in volume, and she began to jog.
Valerie stopped when the cavern widened into an enormous room that was dimly lit by balls of light suspended in the air. The rock face looked like it had been painted with pitch. An enormous lake was in the middle, and it was pure black, so dark that it seemed to absorb the little light in the room.
Everywhere were Fractus, overseeing the Groundlings as they scraped and scraped the walls of the room. The sludge they gathered was carefully deposited into the lake. They wore magical chains that chafed at their wrists. Reaper must have tightened his grip on his source of slave labor after Valerie had fought the Fractus at the mouth of the cave.
She reached into her pocket and squeezed the little ball that Skye had given her. He had a matching one that would vibrate from her touch, signaling him that she’d found the source of the Carne in Plymouth.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? The perfect blackness?”
Reaper’s voice in her ear made Valerie want to jump, but she forced herself to hide her reaction.
“This Carne was created from the bodies of hundreds of Conjurors, dumped here during the early wars on the Globe. Time degraded the magic left in their corpses into something pure, something that can be manipulated with the right power.”
”I’m glad you’re here,” Valerie said, drawing Pathos from its sheath. “I think it’s time we settle this between us for good.”
Reaper grinned. “You shouldn’t tease me. I’m beginning to think you’ve outlived your usefulness, now that I have what I want, and it doesn’t look like your brother will be much use to anyone now that he’s given up on living.”
“Then we agree,” Valerie said.
“I think it’s a bit arrogant, even for you, to think that in addition to defeating me, you could take down all of the Fractus in this room by yourself, don’t you?”
“It would be. But I’m not by myself.”
There was a colossal boom as the ceiling of the cavern exploded, and fragments of black rock shot everywhere. Valerie crouched on the ground, protecting her head with her arms.
Light poured into the cavern, and the black lake of Carne shivered. The liquid retreated from the center of the room, sliding down the various tunnels that led into it, as if seeking to escape the light.
Groundlings and Fractus scattered, and chaos erupted. Soldiers of the Fist rappelled down through the giant hole created by Willa and Steven’s explosion of dynamite.
Valerie had kept her grip on Pathos, but
her target had disappeared. When she heard Reaper’s voice shouting instructions, he was already across the cavern.
Two soldiers of the Fist attacked him, but their determined expressions morphed into screams as he unleashed his power on them.
With their leader in charge, the Fractus regrouped. Valerie saw the eyes of eight or more of the Fractus turn black, and the light from the hole in the ceiling dimmed, though it wasn’t entirely extinguished.
Magic hummed in the cavern, and Valerie saw the Carne sliding back into the center now that the light was dimmer. But instead of reforming a lake in the center of the room, it was drawn to Reaper the way light was drawn to Cyrus.
The darkness pooled at Reaper’s feet and then covered his legs and torso, working its way up his body until it poured itself into his mouth. Valerie stared in revulsion as he gulped the substance greedily.
Around her, Fractus engaged with the soldiers of the Fist, and black weapons met light. But Valerie didn’t engage in the fight. There was no one else who could take on Reaper and have a chance of surviving.
Valerie let her full power flood her, until her magic was singing in her veins. She was ready for Reaper’s usual tricks—his ability to reorient her sense of direction and the burning pain when he tried to dissolve her body.
But when Reaper embraced his power, instead of a hum of magic, there was a rumble, like an earthquake. He saw her charging toward him with Pathos blazing, and his face lit up with anticipation.
He opened his palm, and a sword grew from it, pure black with edges that glinted like polished metal.
“Let’s use your weapon of choice,” Reaper said. “I wouldn’t want you to claim that you didn’t have every advantage.”
Valerie gritted her teeth at his condescension, but refused to let it distract her.
When Pathos met Reaper’s blade, they clashed with enough force that Valerie’s arm ached. Any other weapon she’d hit with that combination of her magic-fueled strength and Pathos would have shattered, but Reaper’s sword absorbed the blow.
Valerie’s magic surged, and she let it completely own her. Reaper moved fast, but she was faster, dodging his thrusts and parries and managing to land the occasional glancing blow.
The smile had left Reaper’s face, and his lip beaded with sweat. But she didn’t have his full attention. It reminded her of when she’d fought him before he’d taken her father to the Black Castle to kill him.
The memory of her dad bleeding out in Reaper’s throne room made Valerie impossibly faster and stronger, as if she’d tapped into a well of magic within her that she hadn’t been aware she was growing.
Rage blasted away any of the fear in her heart, and on her thumb, the Laurel Circle blazed. This was the bastard who’d taken her father’s life, who had stolen her brother’s peace. He wouldn’t take her down today.
Valerie backed Reaper toward a wall of the cavern, and he kept glancing behind him, as if he was searching for an exit. She had the briefest flash of hope that she was winning before a sticky substance clinging to her feet made her insides rumble.
Reaper had maneuvered his way to a black pool of congealed Carne. When it touched him, his sword morphed into his signature weapon, the scythe.
Valerie had to abruptly switch tactics. Reaper’s reach with the scythe was longer, and the blade came within a molecule of nicking her skin and pouring its dark magic into her.
Was it her imagination, or was Pathos dimmer? The Carne that formed Reaper’s scythe tugged at her magic, leaving her breathless.
Scythe connected with sword in a crushing blow that made Valerie drop to one knee. But before Reaper could follow up with another swipe, a high, keening sound filled the cavern, and Reaper pulled back.
He opened a portal in the air, and through it, Valerie saw the wavering image of a desert. There was no way she would let him go through alone.
Valerie jumped on Reaper as he stepped through, making him drop his scythe. Contact with him was agony, like touching Zunya. Her body was being shredded while her magic was ripped from her soul.
She released her hold on Reaper and fell into burning sand. It got in her mouth and hair and eyes, and Valerie spit it out. The weight of the rules binding magic on Earth made her limbs like stone.
Reaper kicked her in her stomach.
“Stay down,” he said.
He must not know her.
Reaper moved to turn from her, and she grabbed his leg. It wasn’t elegant, but it had the desired effect of making him trip.
“If you get in my way, I will make sure you, your brother, and all those you love suffer before they die. I swear it,” he said, and then kicked her viciously in the face.
Valerie saw stars as her head snapped back, and she tasted blood. A tooth cracked, but the pain was distant. Something in her took over. Something that wasn’t magic. It belonged to a deeper part of her.
She wiped the gritty sand from her eyes. Reaper moved toward a blue flame that flickered silently in a shadowy cloud of darkness, like a sunny day in the middle of winter. It was sundown, the time of day that the rules binding magic on Earth were typically at their weakest, and Valerie had no doubt what he was here to do.
Next to the flame were two Fractus, and both of their eyes were black. Even with their combined power, the light from the flame blazed, in spite of the darkness that hugged it.
“We made the flame visible, master, but we cannot dim it. Spare our lives for this failure, we beg you,” one of the Fractus said.
“You’ve done enough,” Reaper said. “I will extinguish it myself.”
“Quickly,” the other Fractus groaned. “I can’t hold so much of this power for much longer.”
Valerie staggered toward them.
“Turn your magic on the vivicus,” Reaper said.
Pathos lay on the sand next to Valerie, an impossible gift that she couldn’t make sense of. She wasn’t sure if she reached for her blade or if it leaped into her hand, but its familiar weight was with her again, completing her.
The Fractus turned their gaze on her, but Pathos held the darkness at bay, like the flame in the desert had. Neither man appeared surprised. They drew weapons of their own, a short, sharp dagger, and a bow and arrow.
The man with the dagger attacked first, and Valerie parried with him. He was skilled, but not a match for her, and she kicked him in the head, knocking him unconscious. However, his attack gave the second Fractus the chance to load his bow, and he launched two black arrows at her in quick succession.
Valerie sliced the first one mid-air, and ducked and rolled to avoid the second. By design, her roll brought her closer to Reaper. She raised Pathos to bring down on him, whatever the consequence, when Reaper dropped to his knees.
He vomited the Carne that he had swallowed in Plymouth onto the flame. It poured and poured from his mouth. The flame flickered once, then again and again, rapidly, madly.
Valerie shoved Reaper aside to try to wipe away the disgusting sludge, but it resisted her touch.
The flame collapsed in on itself, and there was a perfect silence. The wind on the sand, Reaper’s shouts, even her own ragged breathing was swallowed by the vacuum created when the flame went out.
A spot of red where the flame had been still smoldered, and Valerie hoped it might spark again. Instead, the red spark spread, blanketing the Atacama Desert with a blazing red glow. When it faded, the desert shone like ice. Valerie touched its smooth surface. The sand had turned to glass.
Valerie’s magic surged within her, but for the first time, she didn’t welcome its presence. The rules binding magic on Earth were broken.
Reaper turned on her, his cheeks flushed. A new scythe grew from his hand to replace the one he’d dropped.
“I thought I was above petty vengeance, but there is poetry to the idea that you will be the first to die now that magic has been unleashed on Earth,” Reaper said.
His eyes were a little unfocused, like he was seeing past her.
Valerie r
aised Pathos as Reaper struck, but fighting him this time was different. The desperation and rage that had fueled her were gone. She’d already lost, even if she beat Reaper in this fight.
Valerie reached into her pocket to grip a chip from the pathway of The Horseshoe that she kept with her for her travels between worlds.
“No you don’t,” Reaper said.
He gripped her wrist, and as the Atacama Desert faded into the guilds at the heart of Arden, she screamed from the contact with his skin.
Valerie thrust upward with Pathos, and Reaper was forced to release her to block her blow with his scythe. Around her, The Horseshoe was alive with the sounds of battle.
The fighting in Plymouth had spilled into Silva, and now the Fractus and the Fist were present in full force. Arrows of light rained down on Fist and Fractus alike, turning dark weapons back to simple metal.
Valerie saw Skye trampling enemies with his hooves, but before she could make sense of what she was seeing, Reaper was attacking again.
“You wanted this to end today. I’m ready to grant your wish,” he said.
Reaper’s scythe flashed, and it was all Valerie could do to evade his blows.
“Val, wake up! It’s like you’re fighting underwater!”
Cyrus’s voice was barely loud enough for her to make out over the sounds of the battle, but it brought her back to herself as Reaper raised his scythe and brought it down with the full force of his magic.
Valerie threw her own power into her counter-blow, and when Pathos met the scythe, her entire body rang from the impact. A dark crack appeared in Pathos at the same time as a fissure of light appeared in his scythe, turning it to ash in Reaper’s hand.
The dark crack spread down her blade to the hilt, and then Pathos shattered into a billion sparks.
Valerie couldn’t fathom that Pathos was gone. She looked from her hand to Reaper, too late to see that he gripped a dagger in his other hand. He slammed it into her heart in one powerful thrust, and Valerie saw Cyrus’s face contort before her world narrowed to a point, and then was swallowed by darkness.
