“Good.” She grinned though a tear rolled down her cheek. “Sanguinisui, open a portal to the Abyss.”
Beneath Damien’s hands, there was a rumbling in the earth, and then, all too easily, it split. Not a true split, not a crack into the soil and rock, but in all of existence. Amma pulled him to his feet, away from the fissure that spread through the garden, and they both could only stare into it. There was nothing inside but forever darkness, worse than even the pits they had encountered before.
Yes, It panted, practically giddy.Destruction.
Amma’s fingers threaded into Damien’s, a whipping wind hitting them both as they stood at its edge. She would be pushinghim in, he knew it, the minor manipulation to make things easier something he instantly forgave her for. He wouldn’t stop her, nor would he allow E’nloc to. It was at least less messy than being stabbed. He turned to her. “Thank you,” he said, squeezing her hand.
She squeezed him back. “Sanguinisui, purge E’nloc into the Abyss.”
Damien’s chest tightened, and his breath stopped. If It got out, It would destroy everything, but he had no choice. Once again on his knees, the noxscura inside him pummeled and prodded, fighting luxerna. The voice of E’nloc laughed, it screamed, it cried, it shouted in triumph, and for a moment Damien was plunged into cold, lonely darkness once again.
The pendant hovered before him, and Damien was reaching out to it, taking it in his hand, and he crushed it into dust.
His vision returned, and two halves of an ugly gem on separate chains were in his feeble grip, and then they slipped, tumbling into the Abyss and swallowed up by the dark. His connection to E’nloc was severed, noxscura rushing to mend and heal his innards. It was freedom and light and goodness, but Damien’s stomach still sank, because it wasn’t only his freedom that had been given.
Inside the long fissure reaching away from them, blackness rose up, toppling the living things that teetered on the edge and reaching out with hundreds of tendrils. It had the voices of too many, and it spoke in Key and Chthonic and Empyrean all at once, and it said onlyDestruction.
Amma took Damien by the back of his tunic and drew him away from the fissure. “Stay here,” she said, quickly pecking him on the lips. When she pulled back, there was her liathau staff in her hand, blossoming with tiny, pink buds on dark wood. She was covered in gore, hand prints of blood on her face, hair a mess, ragged circles under her eyes, and she was the mostbeautiful and powerful thing he’d ever seen. She turned from him and stepped up to the fissure, slamming the staff’s end into the ground.
The garden burst into life under the red sky, grasses growing, limbs reaching, even the wooden statues bending. The flora creaked like trees in an oncoming storm, the wood twisting, limbs flourishing to reach out to one another and catch on. Together, the frenzy of plants joined in a spiral at the garden’s edges and closed in on the tendrils of nothing that clawed at the edges of the Abyss, rooting for escape. More magic joined the fray, divine and irritating, but it was there at Damien’s back, the earth rumbling with arcana.
Damien stood, and noxscura pooled in his hands. His body had been flooded with mending, urgency to fix what had been broken by E’nloc’s containment, and just as it had been begging him to do for moons, he released the noxscura fully.
Shadows wove themselves into the branches and blossoms, urging them on to close any gaps and fully come together. The vines and grasses and bits of statue coalesced, growing upward and over the fissure in a spiral. E’nloc’s voice, that smattering of languages and terror, weakened to a din, muffled beneath the earth as the rift was encased.
And then, finally, silence.
The gardens were ruined, and yet better. In their place stood a single, massive tree. Its twisted trunk was nearly as wide across as the keep, branches bare, and it clawed upward, triumphant as the redness began to clear from the sky.
Amma fell to her knees, her staff disappearing. Damien went to her, falling at her side, and to his relief, she was smiling. “It’s done,” she breathed, taking his face in her hands. “And you’re alive.”
CHAPTER 36
HAPPY ENDINGS AND WHAT THEY ENTAIL
WE ARE HERE TO EXTEND AN OFFER.
Amma blinked, hearing the voice that was one and many at the same time. She looked out on the ruined gardens, now simply a tree, and standing at its base were five figures, swathed in heavy robes and looking terribly ominous with an even more ominous cloud hanging over their heads. Their faces were completely obscured, but that didn’t make it feel any less like they were looking directly at her.
“That’s the Grand Order of Dread.” Damien swallowed, swinging an arm around her from their spot on the ground and drawing her close.
THERE IS NO NEED TO BE CONCERNED—THE TASK IS COMPLETE. HOWEVER, WE REQUEST AN AUDIENCE WITH THE FORCE THAT DESTROYED DESTRUCTION ITSELF.
Damien shook his head. “I didn’t—”
NOT YOU.
“Me?” Amma asked in her meekest voice. She still had a hand on Damien’s face, but her grip shifted down to his tunic, holding it tightly.
YES. THE SIXTH SEAT ON THE DREADCOUNCIL REQUIRES FULFILLMENT. WE WOULD LIKE TO OFFER IT TO YOU.
“Oh, uh, that’s really sweet,”—Amma laughed nervously—“but no, thank you, I’m good.”
I TOLD YOU SHE WOULD NOT BE INTERESTED. WELL,IT WAS WORTH ASKING. WAS IT, THOUGH? THIS IS VERY EMBARRASSING. YES, AND THIS CONVERSATION IS EVEN MORE EMBARRASSING.
“Um, actually, Dreadcouncil?” Amma sat a little straighter, Damien’s grip on her tightening. “Since you’re here, do you think you can break a demon out of prison for us?”
There was a short pause as the council members traded unseen glances.NO. HOWEVER, WE CAN CLEAN UP THIS MESS. CONSIDER OUR DUTIES MET. YOU MAY WANT TO GO INSIDE.
