The questions Emma asked created a snake of unease that wriggled in my belly. I stood then walked over to the window behind us, looking out at the shadowed trees and below. The window cutouts were large and lacking panes of glass like the car with legs. The sigils painted on the treehouse not only repelled magic, it seemed to repel the violent creatures who might try to creep into the treehouse for a delicious meaty meal. I wished Emma would stop her questions, but she carried on.
“And what does your order plan to do with me?” she asked. “Since I’m supposed to live, what am I to do now?”
Regina and Phillip exchanged a look.
I only barely caught it. I turned around to face them. “Answer her question.” When they did not, I said, strain tightening my jaw, my hand moving to the broadsword at my side, “If you do not tell the truth, I may start the killing with you.” It was an empty threat but I was out of patience.
“We do not lie.” Regina stood, offended. “We are the order of Veritas, the wheel house of truth. It is your precious house of light that seeks to bend the truth to whatever whim they see fit.” She turned to Emma. Her birdcage-sized ribs puffed up with pride. “It is with your life that we destroy the coming darkness. You will be able to fight back the demons.”
Emma looked over at me like Regina had gone insane before turning back to her. “I’m pretty sure if anyone is qualified to fight dark demons it’s tall, soulful, and handsome over there.” She jerked her thumb toward me.
I suppressed a smile. So much had been going on, I hadn’t fully considered that my options with Emma were so very different now, since I had a soul. And if my parents were to protect her life, we would finally have a place to be together. Maybe we could all fight the Stygian together. Like a family. My mind moved awkwardly around the concept. I’d had an Order, but it wasn’t the same as a family. My understanding was that families took care of each other before their own needs.I could do that, a small voice inside of me cried out.
But I would have to kill someone. I tried to brush off the idea that I would be killing my father, but it was difficult seeing as Master Ylang was the closest thing I had to one. He lied to me and used me, but I didn’t know that I wanted to kill him. My temples throbbed from all the conflicting wants battling it out in my head. I pressed a finger to my temple hoping to relieve some of the pain.
Phillip took a step forward. “You would be conditioned for battle.”
Emma wrinkled her nose, then stood, shifting her weight back and forth between either foot. “I’m not really the bootcamp type.”
Something about the way Phillip said it didn’t indicate to me Emma would be forced to do pushups. I dropped my fingers from my Temple. “What do you mean, conditioned?”
Regina walked over to the fire, setting a hand along the narrow ledge above it, she stared into the flames. “To fight darkness, you must know its truth. It is not enough to see the dark, you mustknowthe dark.” When she brought her head up, the light was behind her, casting shadows over face, making her expression indistinguishable. “When the time comes, you will become the dark to defeat it.”
A chill scraped up my spine. Emma stepped closer to me as if she too had gotten inexplicably cold.
“Yeah, but what does that mean?” Her hand wrapped around my bicep as if steeling herself for the answer.
Phillip folded his hands together. “We shall call a reckoning.”
“Okaaay.” Emma drew the word out. “Still don’t know what that means.”
But I did.
“No.” It came out just above a whisper, ripping its way out of my throat though I wanted to scream at them. It felt like I was falling into an abyss. My stomach clenched as if it could stop its invisible descent but I kept plummeting.
Emma’s hand tightened on my bicep, frustrated to be left out of the conversation. “Tell me.”
Even the thought of it tore my heart in two. “The reckoning is punishment for those who have turned away from the Light.”
Regina’s head snapped up. “It is not a punishment as they would have you believe.” Her chin rose with haughty pride. “It is an honor bestowed upon the bravest warrior in the gravest of times. It gives the warrior strength to defeat the darkness by becoming it.”
Emma said carefully, “Uh yeah, I don’t think I want to become darkness.”
I turned to Emma and held her gently by her shoulders, belying the tension wracking my body at the very idea of what they were suggesting.
“They will lock you in chains and call forth a malevolent spirit from the Stygian. It will pass through you over and over again, giving you a taste of its hell, infecting you, until you are driven mad by the darkness.”
“It is not an infection.” Phillip frowned. “It shares its energy, its powers with the chosen one.”
Without turning away from Emma, I said, “It will strip her of her humanity. She will become a savage beast, an unholy weapon as you put it. Correct me if I am wrong.”
Silence fell.
I licked my lips. They were suddenly so dry, it was hard to speak. My voice was as hard as a cold stone at the bottom of a river.
“I have seen it with my own eyes. A member of our Order had been found a traitor to the Light. Though I did not know his crimes, we were all made to watch his reckoning. For his crime of choosing the darkness, the Luxis proclaimed they would grant him passage straight into hell, since that was what he desired.” I closed my eyes against the memory of his screams as the dark spirit passed through him over and over again until his eyes had turned wild and red. When he was no longer human, he snarled and hissed, lunging when they tried to move him, attempting to rip the guts out from anything and everything. They confined him in chains in a shack at the edge of the jungle. After three days, they found him dead, having chewed off his own arm to escape, he bled to death in the process.
A giggle broke through the silence. Then another louder one, until soon, Emma was doubled over laughing.
