But she was already up those steps. Already had a hand on each side of the mirrored box. And before I could take another breath she cracked the seamless lid, and?—
Santorina swore. “It’s empty!”
“By the fucking Spirits,” Tolek cursed as he took out another corpse.
“What do you mean?” I yelled.
“There’s nothing here, Ophelia.”
“But I could feel it. My blood?—”
But that pulsing sensation in my veins wasn’t tugging toward the box at all. It wasn’t the beat of a nearby emblem as I’d thought.
No, that second pulse was lurching toward the remaining dead warriors.
“I can’t…” I mumbled.
“What?” Tolek asked.
“My power. It wants…it wants to be used.”
They were pressing in. Closer, closer, closer. Tolek and I were both so worn, so injured. Somewhere, Lancaster and Mora might be bleeding out. Blood trickled down Santorina’s cheek, her human healing not nearly as quick as ours.
For them, I would do what scared me.
“Stay behind me,” I said.
And without another thought, I answered the call in my gut. I tugged not at the five threads tangled through my soul, but at the thing unnamed. With the strength of the Mystique Angel himself, I lashed it out across the chamber like a violent snake striking.
The dead screeched as their brethren had.
As the magic tore from me, it searched.What do you seek?
It was full of possibility, full of life. But it couldn’t find whatever it hungered for.
Instead, it wrapped around the remaining corpses. And beneath my light, they burned and howled. Bones charred to nothing but ash.
My magic writhed through the air, longing for more, more, more. Begging to consume.
You cannot have anyone else.
It tried to tug me forward, to take and gnaw, breathe and expand.
In my mind, I pictured myself back on that plane Jezebel and I had traversed, where we stood among the power of myths. I cupped a steady hand around the magic and absorbed it back into my vacant spirit.
It rioted against me, but drop by drop, the waves of gold cascaded into me. As they did, my mind flickered between here and elsewhere. Somewhere with a misty plane and gray-coated skies, another land of grand, sweeping mountains that kissed the clouds.
My knees buckled, wounded ankle barking, and Tolek caught me around the waist. Silence screamed in the wake of the dead, my panting breaths and rioting heart fighting it. Greedily, I leaned into Tol’s grounding warmth and fought to remember what was going on. To remain here.
“I don’t…it’s not here,” I muttered. Even to my own ears, the defeat in my voice was crushing. “The emblem. It was all for nothing.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Tolek said, scooping me up. “We’ll figure it out later.”
We found Lancaster and Mora nursing their injuries and the five of us made our way back to the entrance of the catacombs in wounded silence. Heavy with the scent of jasmine, the night breeze winding through the air was a welcome relief to the crushing stench of decay below.
“Just a second,” I said as we reached the archway atop the stairs.
I gazed up at that stone curve and the fading Endasi atop it.
