Then, with an unearthly scream, Onoril whirls on his cloven hooves. Black virulium tendrils erupt in the air around him, no longer under his control, no longer restrained. The voice of Ashtarath rises from below, echoing against the stone walls of that chamber:“Pour out blood unto me! Me! Me!”
As though in obedience, Onoril tosses his head. With an arc of his powerful neck and swift plunge, he impales his horn, straight through Shanaera’s eye. She shrieks and hangs a moment, suspended. Her feet dangle in the air.
With a roar of pure rage, he tosses her wildly. Her body flies like a limp doll, over the pit. On impulse, I reach out, catch hold of her arm, drag her to me even as I fall to my knees. She lies,broken, panting, on the lip of hell, clutched in my grasp. Virulium tendrils crawl out from the pit, swarming over her, pulling her body apart. Her one unruined eye stares up into mine, filled with the terror of her second death.
“What have you done?” I snarl, my arms trembling as I hold her. “Shanaera, what have you done?”
Her mouth twists in a mad smile. As her face disintegrates into dark motes, she whispers, “You will be a greatluinar . . .and I, yourmaelar . . .”
Then she is gone. Vanished from my arms, pulled apart by the raw virulium and dragged away to her eternal home. On my knees beside the pit, I stare down into that darkness, knowing I will join her soon, possibly in mere moments.
But not yet. Not just yet.
Onoril’s scream drags my attention away to where the mighty licorneir staggers, burning withvelrhoarflame and dark energy alike. He collapses to his knees, falls to his side, writhing and convulsing as un-song fills him up, inside and out. I start to move toward him, only to hear a gurgling sound.
My father, lying on the lip of the pit, raises one hand. Still alive.
“Father!” I crawl on hands and knees to his side, pull his failing body into my lap. “Father! Father, I am here.”
Thalor’s eyes search as though through impenetrable darkness. His hand, quavering with shock, reaches out, touches my face. “My son,” he whispers. “I . . . I . . . oh, my son! What have Idone to you?” Comprehension twists his features with pain far worse than his death agonies. He presses one hand against my chest, where my heart no longer beats. “Nornala, forgive me,” he pleads.
I grasp hold of his hand. “I cannot speak for the Goddess,” I say, my voice thick with tears I can no longer shed. “But you have my forgiveness. Do you hear me? I forgive you,luinar.”
I don’t know if my words reach him. He breathes out a last, agonized rattle, and his spirit slips free of his mortal frame. I do not know where it went, whether into Ashtari or carried beyond.
I know only I am suddenly alone . . . alone save for a convulsing licorneir, whose screams bellow hearttorn fire into the hell-stricken atmosphere. And darkness pours from the Rift unchecked. This time never to lift, never to end. The final doom of my world.
36
ILSEVEL
Tassa writhes and twists on the ground while her soul hovers in the ether above her, half-connected to her body, half-torn free by thenecroliphonspell. Her screams rip the darkness of thevardimnar, which triumphs in her torment.
“Stop it!” I turn to Morthiel again, struggling against the wall of un-song, which keeps me at bay. It shudders in reaction to the soulfire in my heart, but for the moment, without Mahra beside me, I am not as strong as I was. “Please, don’t hurt her!” My eyes seek the mage’s face through the whorl of dark power surrounding him. “I’ll do anything, whatever you want from me. Just spare her life.”
Morthiel smiles. The tattoo marks, the spellcraft written into his skin, dance with brilliant red light. For the moment, that is the only light I can see in this dark place. I cannot hear Mahra or the voices of the other licorneir—they are all too far from me. I am alone in this hell with this madman, surrounded by un-songfar deeper than the darkness of night.
“We have a deal, Princess,” he says, and closes his hand. The death spell cuts off abruptly. I turn just in time to see Tassa’s soul snap back into her body. Tassa drags in a great gasp of air, alive, but unable to move. She lies where she fell, quivering, vulnerable to thevardimnar.But her licorneir, no longer driven back by the death-magic, appears through the darkness and stands over her, soulfire shining fiercely in a sphere of protection.
Morthiel drops the barrier of un-song he’d raised against me. I turn to look at him, and see the red light twisting in the gaping space in his torso where my blade pierced him. I’ve seen this before, seen the dead corpses repair themselves from wounds that should have felled them. He reaches out, grabs the front of my gown, drags me toward him. “I need you to sing, Ilsevel,” he snarls, his unnaturally young face warped with too much magic. “I need you to sing the balance to this power I wield. Make whole what I have wrought in part. I have pushed back the hand of death, restoring my flesh to youth. Now you must make it real, make it last. Fill me with the song of creation.”
I shake my head, cringing away from the glare ofnecroliphonmagic and the pounding throb of un-song, which threatens to overwhelm my senses. “I don’t know how to do what you ask.”
His lips wrinkle back in a smile. “You’d best start figuring it out.” Still gripping me by my bodice, he holds up his other hand and reveals the churning enchantment still held there, the connectionto Tassa’s soul. “Her life is at my fingertips. Sing now, or she dies.”
In that moment, I find myself standing in a space of memory—in the center of my father’s receiving hall, before him and his guests.
“Sing,” he commanded with a wave of his hand.“Show my friends what the gods saw fit to gift you.”Then he would turn to them and loudly declare,“She’s useless enough, but her voice is fine, you will see. Go on, Ilsevel. Sing for your father.”
From there I see myself kneeling at his feet once again, when he told me I should marry the Shadow King. “Your wishes are of no concern to me, daughter,”he’d declared when I protested.“You will do as I say, and we will speak no more of it.”
I stare into Morthiel’s eyes, seeing my father’s face overlayed above his enchanted features. Yet another man who wishes only to use me, to control me. Who perceives me as nothing more than an instrument for his own purpose. Everything I have fought against, everything I have resisted, even to the point of my own destruction. I feel the force of his control over me, the power he wields. And yet . . .
And yet, he is not the only one empowered here.
I open my mouth and let song pour forth.
At first it is a weak, thin sound, quite unlike my gods-gifted song. The un-song is so dense in the atmosphere, so thick and cloying, it seems to coat my tongue, trickle down my throat, eager to swallow my voice and prevent me from singing as I should.
