Soul Fire (Darkling Mage 8)

“There’s a reason you’ve come. Just as there’s a reason I’ve been thinking about you. A lot has happened, between failing to get anything out of the Great Beasts and the awakening of Agatha Black.”

I knew I didn’t need to explain any of those things to Hecate. The gods are gossips, Dionysus’s voice laughingly said in my mind. But Hecate, even as she kept to herself, always knew what was going on, one way or another. I would have guessed that her enormous book of magic had something to do with it.

She nodded. “Yes. We have heard of what has transpired. Most unfortunate. We have also heard of your recent reunion with your beloved Dark Room. What a happy occasion.”

I grimaced. “It’s a more complicated situation than that, and you know it. I can barely use the Dark Room without letting it take over my mind – no, even my body now. It’s grown wild, too strong. And speaking of bodies, did you know about Agatha and how she has thirteen of them? The Coven of One?”

Hecate chuckled. “Sweet fleshling. Who do you think wrote the ritual?” She tilted her head, and two other copies of the goddess appeared along the cushions on the couch, all three starin

g at me with lopsided grins.

I held my breath. “Then you must know how to stop them.”

“Indeed, we do,” the three goddesses said. Two of them faded, leaving one sitting in the center of the sofa. “You would destroy a witch as you would any other mortal, of course. By slaying her.”

“So you’re saying that we can only win by killing all thirteen copies of Agatha.”

She shrugged. “We said that destroying them was possible. We did not say it would be simple.”

I flopped onto the couch next to her, surprised at my own sudden comfort with her presence and proximity. The cushions dipped, and Hecate made a small giggle, as if pleased at being ever so slightly jostled.

“I don’t know where to start, Hecate. The end hasn’t begun, but it feels like everything is funneling towards that. The world is quiet right now, but I just know that things are going to crumble around my ears before long. And I don’t know how to stop it.”

Her hand was surprisingly warm when it patted the back of mine, a strangely human gesture coming from someone as alien as Hecate.

“In the end,” she said, “it is up to mankind to protect its home after all. You have always known this, Dustin Graves. What have you learned in all this time of dealing with gods and demons and monsters?”

My heart twinged. “To expect nothing.” Depressing, but true. “I’m so tired, Hecate. I never asked for any of this. I’m not some super powerful chosen one. It’s not like there’s some secret weapon out there that’s just going to change the game for my side. I – I never asked for any of this.” My voice trailed off.

Hecate nodded in polite agreement. “Everything occurred to you by happenstance. And yet, this is your role now, to be caught between the earth and the Old Ones. Who else but you could help win this battle for your realm? You could walk away, fleshling, but you know the consequences. The world will wither. The Old Ones will come. And then there will be nothing left.”

I rubbed my fingers into my temples. “I hate that I have no choices here. No way to really, properly decide on an outcome.”

“It is the way of the universe, after all.” Hecate sighed, shaking her head. “Very little is within your control. But what few decisions you do make, fleshling, will change the course of reality.”

I scoffed. “You mean about the world ending if I walk. Of the Eldest coming if I so much as consider sitting out a single fight. That’s not choice, Hecate. That’s inevitability.”

“No, no. There are other paths to choose. Other ways to influence your destiny, by improving your chances. That is, if you are willing to take matters into your own hands. To truly sacrifice everything.” She lifted her head, as if to impress the importance of things upon me. “Everything you love. Even your humanity.”

My blood went cold. “What do you even mean?”

She leaned forward, her nails digging into my skin, the smell of her breath like wilting flowers, like the pages of an old book. “It is the price of true power, fleshling. To leave the worldly behind, to become something other than human. To evolve beyond your limitations. To ascend.”

To ascend. I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that.

“You told me to sell my soul to the Midnight Convocation, once. Remember? And that didn’t work out so well, did it?”

“And as you did then, you now still have the freedom of choice. Of whether or not to explore the paths we show you behind the mists.” Hecate rose slowly from the couch, the material of her robes spilling like dark water. “We are a supreme force of magic, Dustin Graves. Not of coercion. There are many, many paths to power. Will you stand at the crossroads, paralyzed by indecision?” She walked away from the couch, her body beginning to fade, leaving only her face and her Cheshire smile. “Or will you walk down one of those paths?”

She vanished completely before I could answer. The question wasn’t rhetorical, though. It didn’t matter to Hecate what I’d pick. All that mattered was her own satisfaction in seeing me struggle to find an answer, to choose. I knew I was being manipulated, in a sense, the way that the Dark Room liked to tug its own strings from within my chest, how it almost felt as if it had grown a kind of sentience. I did wonder how much or how little Hecate really cared, though.

It was strange, having such a capricious goddess for a fly-by-night, informal kind of mentor, one who reveled in seeing me grow in power, but who also seemed to have very little regard for my personal safety. That was her domain, after all: the supreme, unrelenting dominion of raw magic. Carver would sooner take his own life than encourage me down the path of lichdom, and the ritual of the Coven of One had turned Agatha Black into her own special kind of monster. But what did giving everything up even mean? What kind of sacrifice would Hecate have me make?

I slumped into the couch, too tired and too annoyed to head to my bedroom. Back to square one, I thought. Give up my humanity indeed. Ridiculous. That would never happen. I had too much to live for, too many that I loved and cared for. I reached for my phone, remembering that I’d meant to text Herald before the call from Dad and the visit from my scary godmother.

A phone call, I thought. He’d still be awake. I stretched myself out along the cushions, feeling my joints pop, my muscles unfurl. Hearing his phone ring, just the anticipation of talking to him made me smile. See, I valued that about myself, maybe more than anything. My humanity.

Give it up. As if.