Of Darkness and Crowns (26 page)

Caben

O
NCE THE GROUND STOPS
quaking and what’s left of the temple no longer trembles, a bright cylinder of light blasts down from the sky and surrounds the marble dais.

I’m thrust backward. Scrambling, I try to move farther out of its way. Only I’m shoved toward the dais and the light. Hands force me forward. The light hums. Signaling me to step inside.

Lord Arnik and the other dark priest clones form a circle as they chant. Swathed in black robes, they hold their hands pressed together before them, sending their prayers to Bale. Their glowing beady eyes, lit by the snapping, light-filled spires in the sanctuary, judge me. Deeming me a worthy vessel for their goddess’s rebirth.

No shit.

But I keep what little thoughts are still mine to myself. It’s almost done. All I have to do is walk into the light, which looks damn close to the spires lining the gold and silver leafed walls, and this will all be through.

Lord Arnik, the pale hunchback who first selected me for the Cage fights, raises his pasty hand toward me. His sharp, boney jaw works, like it’s nearly ready to fall off from age and decay, as he chants louder. Then he produces a small silver bottle. Holding it above his head covered with white stringy hair, he begins to fling droplets at me.

I flinch and look down at my robe they dressed me in. Mercury. The goddesses’ conduit. I doubt I really need any more help here. Bale is coming whether I want her to or not. It’s all moot now. And I thought I’d be completely gone—my mental state fully diminished—by this point. But for some cruel reason, I’m more myself and more aware than ever.

“The Goddess Bale is separating herself from your being, My Liege,” says Arnik, as if in response to my unspoken thoughts. I guess my face is pretty transparent. Not as transparent or
translucent
as his, all thin skin about to melt off by the sheer force of that light. But there’s no hiding my fear.

“Enough. Stop that,” I tell him, snatching the bottle from his hand. I chuck it at the platinum moon hanging above the dais. “Let’s get this over with.”

I step toward the spire of light, sucking in a deep breath like I’m about to submerge myself in water. Just going for a swim, I talk myself into it. What choice do I have? It’s gone too far. All of it. There’s no backpedaling. No apologies I could offer Kal. Or my kingdom, my people.

I’m a destroyed man.

As long as Kal stays far away, she’ll remain safe. That’s my one consolation.

My foot inches closer to the ring of light, my booted toes just penetrating it, when a shout sends a million shivers prickling down my spine. And then,

“Caben!”

My head jerks up. Kal bounds over a crack in the marble floor, sprints past the priests clawing for her, her elbow nailing one in his feeble head. In tow is my mother, Kal only releasing her to punch another priest in his face.

No.
No!
She’s can’t be here. Dammit! Why can’t she ever just stop. Being.
Stubborn?
But I don’t have any time to be angry, or scared, or even elated to see her and my mother…it all happens too quickly.

As Kal takes out each of the four priests easily—she doesn’t even need to rely on her subhuman strength for those old crusty fools—my mother stands against the wall, covering her ears against the cries and rising sounds of battle. I’m only able to think of Kal’s beauty, seeing her for the first time with clear vision, a clear mind—before the thought is ripped from my head.

Lord Arnik is next to me in a beat—
how did he move that fast?

Kal stops suddenly in the center of the sanctuary. Her chest rises and falls, her green eyes solely on me, and Arnik’s hand. The one holding a dagger to my throat.

“I will kill him, Protector,” Arnik wheezes. “It makes no difference to me who the vessel is. But someone in this temple will bring our goddess forth tonight.”

I watch as Kal swallows. “I’m going to kill you, painfully, before you even have a chance to inch that blade one fraction across his neck.” She clutches her hand around an object and brings it to her chest—a syringe?—then she leaps forward and is running.

“Kal—
No!
” It’s the last words I’m able to force out before I’m swallowed by the light.

One hard push from Arnik, and I tumble. Sucked in and paralyzed.

A deafening silence whirrs in my ears. A warmth envelopes me, stemming from my chest and spreading outward. It wraps every bone, muscle, molecule of my body in a silky balminess that slides through me like I’m made of some weightless, watery matter. It’s euphoric.

My gaze travels slowly, almost like time has stopped. But I find Kal on the other side. Through the light, I see her hair whip wildly around her face. Her mouth presses into a determined line as her hands shove Arnik’s attempted attack away. She knocks his dagger from his hand, then anchors hers to his head. With one swift move, she snaps his neck.

As he falls to his knees and then splays out on the floor, her chest heaves. Then, slowly, her eyes lift and her gaze captures mine. I try to reach out to her, but my limbs are numb. I can no longer feel them or my body.

Tears fall from her eyes as she turns, still moving too slowly, toward me. I want nothing more than to touch her. Wipe away the tracks of tears staining her cheeks. Tell her that I love her and this was meant to be. Even though I know how ridiculously cliché that sounds…I just want her to know I’m all right. I’m not afraid. There’s no fear here, and I’m ready to let go.

I just wish I could feel her one last time.

She reaches the light and is jolted backward. She advances on the spire again. Like hitting a stone wall, she slams her fists against the beam enclosing me over and over. Her skin ignites in swirls of glowing silver. It radiates from her face and hands like she’s filled with the light of the spire. Only she’s brighter.

And as she mouths something to me, her lips forming the same words repeatedly, her fists beating the wall of light, I’m finally able to do one final act. I reach out and palm the light, cool as glass in winter. It should be warm, I think, but I meet her there.

Her shoulders and lips tremble as she stops her attack. She splays her fingers against mine, palm to palm. And it’s all I want. Just feeling the warmth of her body heat on the other side—one last connection.

Then, my chest explodes with a fiery burst of pain. A scream rips from my mouth, and I’m on my knees, praying for Bale to kill me quickly.

And she does.

♦
30
♦

Kaliope

“N
O!”

My mind whirls, unable to hold on to a coherent thought, as Caben lies in the center of the light. Unable to accept that this is it; he’s gone—I continue to pound against the solid force field…whatever the goddess is separating me from him.

He’s not breathing. Not moving. My hands ache, but I can’t stop their abuse. All this strength for nothing. “Alyah!” I shout. “I swear, I will hunt every last goddess in the heavens if you don’t bring—”

Before my threat is fully voiced, the spire splinters, sending shards of fractured light through the room. One blinding flare, and I cover my eyes. Peeking through the slats of my fingers, I watch as Caben’s body is lifted into the air. My breath ceases. Then I’m back on my feet and punching the wall of light.

“Don’t you take him, you fucking beast!” I kick at it now, jab my fingers against it, trying to find a crack in its armor. But Bale’s moonlit casing holds strong.

I faintly register footsteps in the room over the roaring in my ears. The static in my head. Someone says my name, but my sole attention remains on Caben as he’s elevated higher…and then he stops.

Suspended in the air.

I wipe at my face, trying to clear the tears so I can see. A black mist emits from first his ears, then his eyes. His nostrils and then his mouth leak the dark substance. It quickly fills the light, bleeding mist-like tendrils into the air. I shake my head.
No
. “No—” I don’t know who I tell this to, but damn it all, someone is listening.

“Kal!” Lilly is yelling close to my ear. “We have to go. Move!”

But nothing and no one is removing me from this temple. I will be damned if I’m going to let that devil goddess have his body, too. Caben leaves with us.

Even as I’m reconciling his loss, trying to accept his death, my soul won’t believe it. I cannot accept that he’s
gone
.

“She’s here.”

I whip my head around to see Bax staring ahead, his lens-covered eyes set aglow by the ultraviolet light consuming the sanctuary. Then following his gaze, I look back at the spire. A solid form is arising from the black mist. Taking shape. Becoming corporeal.

I don’t know what I was expecting—I never allowed myself to think further than this moment. But the woman gathering the tendrils of mist into herself to form a solid, living being, is not what I imagined.

An ugly, ghastly, demonic creature with horns and scales—this is what I envisioned. Not the beautiful woman that appears suddenly amid the smoke. Her skin is pale, the color of cream, or rather, the moon. It’s the first shape to appear. Coloring in, and then dark blue swirls veining over the canvas. This should look hideous, deformed. Only it’s striking. They branch out like thin bare limbs of a tree in winter. And that’s the best my mind can comprehend.

Bale is a beautiful, ethereal winter creature bathed in moonlight.

She steps forth, and her legs are suddenly covered in black and silver boots reaching to her thighs. A dress begins there, its train extending to the ground in the back. Her shoulders and arms are bare, revealing the faint blue rivers of veins swirling her body. As she lifts her delicate chin, a headdress forms atop her head. A crown. A mixture of black and blue, silver and crimson feathers.

And her eyes…glowing silver rays that stare right through me.

Getting to my feet, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m not leaving here without Caben. I reach for my sword, but my wrist is clasped and my movement halted.

“Don’t,” Bax says, his tone severe. In my peripheral, I see him standing beside me, his gaze trained on the goddess in the center of the room. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“I’m not leaving him.” I jerk my arm from his grasp. “Get the others out while you can.” Bale is becoming corporal, but she’s taking her time doing so. Studying her arms, hands, fingers. She’s like a newborn, transfixed and curious, only entering this world the wrong way.

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.