Bringing my attention to her, I noticed her body trembling. “What is wrong, chickadee, are you cold? It is probably best for you to go back to the cabin and—”
She shook her head violently. “No! It’s not that…they hurt,” she whispered looking back at the Sanguine shadows now quickly approaching us.
I dropped down in front of Riella, gripping her shoulders firmly and fixating on the torment swirling in her eyes that I didn’t recognize before. "You hear them?" I breathed and glanced up at Emon.
He frowned, crouching next to us. “What do they say, my cub. It’s okay, just tell us.”
She looked over my shoulder, her face pinched with pain. "They are saying…it takes and takes,hungry, draining," she let out a shaky exhale and looked back at me with tears, "it kills, lost, forever. Release. Release us."
I stood, whirling around and gazing harshly up into the storm at the corrupted lilin.
“Lass, what be ye orders? We dinnae have much time.”
The winds stung my face."Emon?"
"Little umbra," he said wearily, his darkness rising to meet mine.
Shea’s words from our last dinner together crept into my mind. There were two ways to defeat the lilin. One I did not have yet, and the other—he had said was a myth. A myth that was standing next to me, a rising growl rumbling in his shadowed chest.
A soul wraith.
"If they are in pain," I whispered, "then the Sanguine, it is draining them, killing their souls forever, and feeding its power. The blood crystal did the same in The Under, it devours any essence for power."
Emon spun me to him, gripping my shoulders tightly, "What are you asking me, Remnant?"
I closed my eyes, my chest splitting into two. There was no saving my lilin. "They are souls and they are in too much pain. End it."
He snarled. "No. The umbras…they are a part of you. To kill them, would be to kill a piece of you. We will simply defeat them, the Sanguine will retreat back to their master. Deirdre would not risk losing her new power."
"Better to be the hand of a merciful death,” Lir joined the argument. “Ye lass be right, soul wraith.”
Emon bared his teeth at him, the ship lurching at the same time."There has to be an answer in The Well."
I shook my head, unable to meet his eyes, knowing my resolve would break if I did. "This is what Deirdre is expecting. She thinks I don’t have it in me, that I will fail. Leading the Sanguine to The Well, where it can grow even more powerful. It is why they have not attacked outright, why they linger just beyond."
Riella cried next to me. “Maedere, they are begging.”
Emon released me, snarling, "Fuck."
Barely able to inhale, my chest splitting into two, I spoke along our soulmate bond, feeling the vows of darkness etched on his skin, ordering them, "I command you, Emon. Be my hand of merciful death, release my shadows to eternal peace."
A long pause, waves crashed over the sides of the ship and poured over our feet. Riella clutched harder to me.
"So be it," Emon snarled, then roared. A sound of defiance, of anguish, of fury, and of death.
I opened my eyes to see his soul wraith blur into shadow, rising high above us, unaffected by the elements. Lir raised his head with me, no longer jovial, grief etched even into the strands of his beard.
Sensing his powerful presence the Sanguine shadows turned towards Emon, hungry for the infinite power he held. I watched his darkness waver. Both of us sharing this loss, the heartache doubled along our bond.
Waving his hand, Lir wove a huge wave from the very depths of the ocean and Emon shifted. The bright flash revealing his massive panther, perfectly poised onto a platform of water. Regal and powerful, his tail curled around him and his fangs flashed brightly through the storm when his jaws opened wide.
He roared, a terrifying and horrible sound, quickly followed by a pure white light, the same light Ethereal used to destroy worlds. The goddess’ power that he had been blessed with since birth. Without his weakened body, Emon's soul could access it easily, even without Ethereal’s presence.
My breath held when his white light hit the Sanguine shadows, and I stumbled when I heard their screams, collapsed when their darkness was burned away, fell when inch by inch my beautiful darkness died.
Tiny hands reached for me, rolling me to my back with begging cries but I could not tear my eyes away, watching in agony as a piece of my soul died with every death of my loving shadows.
When Emon's second wave of light hit them, I threw my head back and howled. I felt my innate power call to me. Infinite shadows, from the seas and skies rose from their hiding, silently watching the exorcism of the Sanguine from their kin. Like attendees at a funeral, they hung suspended in the roaring winds of Wrath’s territory to bear witness to the death of darkness—my most loyal friends.
