Something within me knows what to do, even though I have no idea what is about to happen: I put out both my arms, look down upon the skin revealed as the sleeving rides up, and strip from my eyes all that I was programmed to not see—
There it is.
The shimmer of magic that coats me, hides me, protects me. It’s all over my body, a magic shield put in place, long, long ago.
I look to Lavante.
This horse, this beautiful horse, must survive tonight. Not because I’ll ever see him again and don’t want his death on my conscience, and not because of all that I owe him for his efforts on my behalf. No, it’s because the mercy I showin this moment is the last I will give to anyone and anything. His protection will be the gravestone to mark my humanity.
With a flex of my will, I send the shimmer to him, the magic tugging at my corporeal limbs as if it intends to resist the eviction. I prevail, however, the energy leaving me through the tips of my fingers, and traveling through the gathering darkness in heat waves that warp the night air. As the spell reaches the stallion, he jerks and throws his head, then rears up and paws at the distance between us with a whinny of alarm—
There’s a clap of thunder, and a flare of prismatic light. Then the shimmers fall all over him and coat his everynicand length, as if a rainbow has been broken over his head and back.
The light show fades and he throws his head one last time.
Though I have to deny my emotions, I reach out and stroke his muzzle. “You are the very best horse ever to roam Anathos, and now you must go.”
As he nickers softly and nods as if he understands, I’m struck with a fresh loss, and then he’s gone, his snow-white tail swishing, his hooves beating the ground while he trots off into the trees, never to be seen by demons or humans alike, free to roam, no master to dictate his future…
Or the long life he will lead because I have made it so by giving him what has hidden me for millennia—
A lingering tingle makes me pull up my sleeve and I frown.
My skin is a different color, far darker, and as I pull a lock of hair over my shoulder, the waves are no longer white. They’re jet-black, just like Merc’s.
I did not have freckles, after all. The masking magic deposited a pale pattern onto my skin and leached the color of my hair out.
Given that I’m someone other than the person I knew, it seems right that I look like somebody altogether different—and that’s when I see my own marking. TheSPon the insides of both my wrists.
Claimed, by the Dark King himself. The whole time.
As this all resonates deep within my soul, I become one with the shadows, just another among the congregation that forms the night and dims the landscape.
Except I am more than shadow. I am demon, the thing all people fear, the soulless undead who roam the forests and mountains under the command of their master—
No, I’m even worse. I am my father’s powerful daughter, his next generation, finally vested with the dark magic into which I was born, from which I have been hidden.
And unto my destiny I must go.
As I walk forward and step off the shore, the pond before me does not giveway underfoot. Now, the water rejects me, that which welcomed me into its sweet, cleansing cradle only moments before becoming as packed dirt. With the spell released from my skin, my true nature is no longer denied to the elements, and they identify me as unholy and unwanted.
With every stride, I feel myself becoming harder and harder, like molten steel losing its warmth and finding its permanent form. By the time the opposite shore arrives, I have been birthed in a new way, stripped of the lies and deceit that coated me along with my camouflage. And as with my truth, and my intrinsic nature, I am fully revealed as I step onto the ground once more, fully vested in my power.
I cast my hand out and split the forest before me, the trees and undergrowth commanded to bend away.
And that’s when I see the demons.
They are threaded throughout the trunks like ticks in a dog’s fur, black beasts that have the form of men, the hide of abalas, and the oblong eyes of a snake. The abrupt disappearance of their forest cover causes them to wheel about toward me.
They do not attack.
Instead, they fall to one knee and bow.
With my will, I freeze them thus, anchoring them to the ground as if I have staked their dead flesh into bedrock. Keeping them here in this location is not to protect Julion and whatever forces he will be bringing here to fight.
It’s to deny my father’s aims simply by thwarting the evil.
Two can play at control, can’t they.
