“No.” Her voice was nothing but venom as she tumbled back into her haunted memories. “He wanted my child. To raise without me, feeding it nothing but darkness to survive.”
I stilled, horror and disgust wrenching through my gut as I began to understand. “He?—”
“Children cannot survive the influence of power so bleak.” Her voice faltered, jagged breaths cutting through. It was the most vulnerable I’d seen her—true pain over the child she’d wanted tearing the words to shreds.
For a moment, I was sad for the queen. For the teenage girl who had not meant to bear a child yet loved it fiercely. And had it ripped from her.
“He claimed he didn’t know, didn’t understand the magic he sought to usurp. I told him he was a fool for toying with things he did not grasp. Then, I killed him. And with the swinging of that blade, IsworeI would never feel such pain again.” She prowled above where I lay, the press of her power weighing down further on me with each step.
“I promised to take back everything I lost and more. In my distraught state, I went to the dark pools and offered up a piece of my own soul—the mortal piece capable of feeling agony. I asked the magic to give my child a second chance at life in exchange, but the pools insisted it was impossible. Death could not be undone.” She grimaced, a flash of distrust passing through her eyes, but continued, “They offered an alternative. A way that I would never suffer pain again. Never love that way again. Never be swept away into the darkness that took over my life when my child was stolen from me. Never fall to the cruel hands of Mistress Death.”
Realization struck me—the power emanating from her, the vacancy in her eyes, the way she extended her control over her army—and I gasped. “You’re immortal?”
It was wrong among warriors—it was unnatural for us to live forever since our power grew over time. She had gone so far as to break the magic binding our lives to mortality out of pain from her loss and the agony it rooted within her soul. Escaping that terror—that had been all she’d wanted.
Though it was a vile decision that led us here, and I could never begin to grasp the exact pain she had experienced in losing her child, a piece of me understood the desperation that consumed her.
And I understood—Kakias was composed of fear and grief.
Every decision she had made in her war with mortality was staked in one or the other. She had once been a girl in love, and the betrayalsof a greedy man had tainted her future, her heart, her soul. Set us all on this bloody trajectory where no one could truly win. Kakias could be immortal, but she’d never return the broken pieces of herself. And if she died—if I killed her tonight—I would be bathed in her grief, my hands stained with what her life could have been had fate not cursed it centuries ago.
Had she even wanted this future? Or had the sentience in the pools recognized an opportunity to manipulate her? She’d been willing to sacrifice herself, but without the influence of darkness warping her, maybe she wouldn’t have chosen this. Her autonomy was compromised the moment she stepped foot into those pools.
It didn’t redeem the decisions she made, the lives she took, but dammit, the Angels were cruel at times.
Kakias stalked toward me, stopping near my head and leaning down, winding her fist into my hair. “I am not immortal yet, dear girl.” She yanked me upright, crouching down to look me in the eyes. “But after tonight I will be.”
“What—” My question faded into a scream as Kakias sliced my arm open.
Blood gushed from the wound. She lifted a chalice I hadn’t noticed and held it to my wrist, the cut burning. My blood trickled into the silver basin.
I waited for the flow to stanch. For the wound to stitch itself up.
But the rivulets continued down my arm, dripping over my fingers until the silver rim was nearly overflowing.
Kakias tossed me aside, pain ricocheting through my bones. I could only stare at the gash, trying to make sense of why the mountains had not yet begun to heal it.
Nausea washed over me as I realized.
Kakias’s blade was laced with power, too.
Not only had the queen been gifted—she’d gone as far as to ensure her weapons were unstoppable. Her army, unnaturally skilled and moving like the wind, was the first defense.
The dagger the second, creating wounds that magic alone could not heal.
My gaze snapped to her shadowed form as I struggled, still in her power.
With slow, careful movements, she moved to the edge of the Rapture Chamber and lowered the chalice to the ground, directly in the center of a ring of moonlight. She circled it, bending to drag her fingers along the marble, smearing some kind of oil on the ground.
“Tonight,” Kakias’s voice echoed, “you help me finish what was promised to me centuries ago.” She continued her lap. “The blood of the Chosen, transformed under the light of midnight, stirred with elements of sacred land, and spelled with the dark power of the Fallen.” Her words chilled my bones, the pool of blood growing beneath me.
“Tonight”—Kakias stopped walking, turning to face me—“you make me immortal.”
White light flared from the oil she’d drawn, burning a ring through the pillars and shooting into the heavens, dimming the stars. Kakias stepped into the circle.
I blinked against the light, my eyelids growing heavy, but I could just make out the movement of her lips as she recited the words the dark pools had given her for this ritual.
Quickly, she sprinkled whatever ingredients were demanded into the chalice.Elements of sacred land. I’d bet my last breath that those items were what she’d been after these months, traveling the continent to obtain the ritual’s puzzle pieces. Waiting to attack until she had them.
