He’s right. I am struggling. I don’t feel like some magical divine being like everyone believes I am. I just feel like me. Nora. No one else. I’m not only missing my memories, I’m missing the power I had before that makes everyone so sure I’m something special. Right now, I’m just a mortal. Until I die, apparently, which means for now and while I’m here I’m useless to Nyx. That, at least, brings me a little comfort. I push back my shoulders, willing hope and happiness into my heart, knowing now isn’t the time for doubt or fear. I’ll be strong and brave for him. For Kairos, I’ll do many things, because I know he’ll do anything for me. The man is a saint.
“I’m sorry. It’s just been a long day. A long week.” I sigh. “I’ll be okay,” I nod, remembering what he told me that first day here about fear.
I will not let fear of failure or fear of the future rule my mind.
“It’s just a lot of pressure and I don’t want to disappoint anyone,” I whisper, facing forward and putting one foot in front of the other as he follows my lead.
My whispered words carry so much more meaning than he realizes. It’s not just the soldiers I worry about disappointing, I fear disappointing this entire realm and everyone in it. I worry that I’ve already disappointed Ere by being who I am, and it won’t be long before I disappoint Hekate and Olivia, too. If someday I have to permanently leave them to live out my life here, I’m not sure how they’d feel. And then there’s Kairos, looking at me with hope in his eyes and trust in his heart, even knowing Nyx can use me as a weapon against them all if she one day chooses to. How the hell do I not let everyone down?
Kairos offers a tight-lipped smile. “You have never disappointed us, Nora. You never could. Trust me.” His wings shift behind his back and the feathers glisten as the blue stars made of my divine light peek out from behind dark clouds.
The torches imbued with celestial light that line the pathway here and surround each house flash to life as the last of the sunlight fades away. Darkness was not allowed to exist here even for a second. It sensed it. It felt it. It immediately chased it away.
“I trust you, Kairos. It’s myself I don’t trust,” I admit, pinning my eyes on the marble steps coming into view.
“You’ll learn to trust yourself.” Clasping his hand around mine, he pulls me to a stop in front of the steep steps leading up to the front door.
“I was created with darkness and it’s not going anywhere. I’m fated to carry it with me until I no longer exist. How could anyone trust me? Why would anyone even create me? Nyx was born with the same darkness within her and look what became of her.”
He pauses, turning to look at me with furrowed brows. “Sometimes being so close to something gives you an advantage—a way to learn it’s weaknesses and eventually control it. I believe you’re better equipped to take it down than any of us since it runs in your blood.” His eyes drift away to the celestial orbs of light that have taken over completely now that the day has come and gone. “Darkness believes you belong to it, but I believe your fate is dependent on what you choose. Whether ultimately you let it win or choose to let it burn.”
Making our way up the steps, a tight knot of fear coils in my gut, because as soon as he says those words, I feel the darkness within trying to push its way back up to the surface. I had convinced myself it couldn’t reach me here, that I was safe, but I’m not. Maybe none of us are. I take a deep breath and hide the shock and terror with a smile. I don’t want him to know that I feel it returning. Or that it suddenly feels like the light here is only a temporary shield that will soon be useless against it. The shield is cracking. It’ll soon splinter to pieces, letting darkness completely consume me.
Even with Kairos next to me in this realm so far away from Nyx or The Underworld, I feel darkness calling my soul back home. Although, it is much easier to ignore with Kairos’ endless positivity and his shield of light that he keeps around me. But darkness hasn’t given up on me yet, and I don’t believe it will.
“I choose to let it burn,” I tell him as he opens the door, and we step through together.
Something deep within smiles wickedly at the lie I tell him and at the lie I tell myself. I feel her dark power creeping closer, hissing and unfurling as it pulls back to strike. I will never escape her. I shake my head, trying to clear the thoughts that I’m not sure are even my own.
This is not your home. You do not belong here. You should be where darkness reigns and shadows chase the light.
I shouldn’t be here. I led the celestials straight to darkness once and their black wings are proof of that. The reality, whether Kairos wants to admit it or not, is that I could very well become just like the Queen of Darkness. Just an evil, vile creature who haunts and tortures for fun. If Nyx takes full control of my mind and my power, then there’s no hope for me left.
Maybe one day my wings too shall burn with holy fire.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gods Save Me
NYX
OCTOBER 6TH, 1848
I cannot fight it any longer. The darkness I let in the moment I first opened that wretched grimoire has seeped into every thought and broken fiber of my being. I was a fool for ever believing I could wield such darkness and not let it drag me deep into the pit where it was born from. It wanted this. It knew I would try anything to prepare for it to come for me, and now it’s too late. It owns me. The moment I was born I felt it within, clashing against my light, but now…now it is all I feel raging inside, scraping and clawing at my mind. My light is unreachable now. The celestial parts of my soul have vanished. And my wings, the shimmering ivory feathers replaced by silky onyx are proof that I have nearly lost myself entirely to whatever lurks and waits deep in The Underworld. The scent of brimstone fills my room as eyes made of blood on a silhouette of thick shadows haunts me from the forgotten realm below. He is ready. He has been waiting for so long.
I haven’t left this room in days, or maybe it has been weeks. Partly out of shame for what I know I am becoming, and partly out of fear of what I might do if I were to leave. For days now after drifting off to sleep I awoke in the middle of doing something I cannot remember beginning to do. The lurking shadow is playing games with my mind. I cannot even trust myself any longer. The bright white walls I once loved burn my eyes now that darkness has made its home here. It is like my body and soul are repulsed by the same blinding light that once brought such comfort. The dim flicker of candles and the creeping shadows they cast along the walls are all that soothe my blighted soul.
Books are scattered around me on the floor, pages upon pages of ancient spells and cleansing rituals that have all proved to be useless. There is no healing me. The celestials sense a change in the Realm of Light, a change within the one most of them believed would inevitably succumb to her dark power, and they have begun plotting what they might do when the celestial part of me slips away completely. They do not know I can sense their every feeling and hear every thought that passes through their minds now that I have let darkness in. Even from here within this cave of isolation I have created so far away from the others, still I hear their minds hoping and praying for the gods to end me before I end them. I do not blame them.
They do not even know about him, the one who lies in wait in the fiery, gaping pit of The Underworld. The way he has patiently waited for his chance to devour the light out of each one of them. Or how he drags his claws down my subconscious, informing me of these things and pleading to allow him to seize control of me. I am a danger to this realm if he succeeds. I am a danger to everyone.
Conjuring my bright orange flames in my trembling hands, the darkness pushes its way in, suffocating my light. Flashes of ebony replace color for brief moments, a constant fight of light versus the absence of it entirely in the palms of my hands. My power grows dimmer by the day. Soon all light left in my magic and even my soul will be siphoned out and fade away as it follows the shadows into oblivion. I shift my hate and my anger to the grimoire on the floor, the book full of promises of death, rebirth, and power greater than any being should ever possess. I send my flames spiraling toward it. I need it gone. I need for it to disappear before I disappear instead. My power is useless against it. A barrier of protection on the cursed pages sends my flames surging back toward my face, barely missing their target as I duck to avoid them.
It opens back up to the page. The same vile page it always opens to, the one it will not let me avoid looking at no matter how hard I try. There are words scrawled on the weathered paper in blood that speak of unlocking the Abyss, the flaming pit in the Underworld where a cruel and vengeful death god lives trapped and secluded from the realms. The gods of light and the witches joined forces and banished him there centuries ago, sealing the pit with magic after my birth. Doing so ended the dark gods reign of terror over the realms for good.
My mother knew him. She not only knew him but was foolish enough to bind herself to him for eternity. All of it is written in the book. This evil, wretched book. I am his daughter, what is left of the bond he severed with my mother the day he slaughtered her. They called him the devourer of light. He feeds on light, devouring it to make himself stronger until the one he drains is nothing but an empty shell of a person. The darkness calls to me, whispering my name and urging me to do what it asks or risk everyone I love being slaughtered. The celestials who were kind enough to take me in. Hekate, who returned to the Earth Realm to be with her coven. I cannot let it get to them. I must unlock the Abyss which holds demons, despair, and a dark god who wishes to use me, beneath it. I have no choice.
The darkness will slaughter everyone I love.
