Soul Fire (Darkling Mage 8)

Their curse, I thought. Their corruption.

“You were reborn that day, sweet one, little one. To be a servant of the Eldest themselves, to be one of their most beloved children. To be their avatar, and harbinger, and heir.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t ask for any of that. I didn’t want it then, I don’t want it now.”

There it was. I knew it would happen. Agatha’s sunny, matronly face dropped, her forehead wrinkling, features forming into a mask of disapproval, displeasure.

“How ungrateful you are, even as the Old Ones gift you with their blessings. How ungrateful is the heir to the Dark Room. Have you not enjoyed your power, little one? Your freedom?”

What freedom was that, I thought? What agency did I really have in my own life? One way or another, even those who meant me well had done things in the background, all because they only wanted what was best for me, as if they never had agendas of their own. My head spun, and I couldn’t decide if I was thinking of Thea, or Hecate, the Eldest themselves, or Bastion, or even Carver.

“This has been a burden as much as it has been a gift,” I said, understanding that it was genuinely the truth. “I don’t know who I am anymore, what I am. The knife that drove through my heart should have killed me. No matter how you see it, me being here, being alive – it’s unnatural. Thea, the Eldest, you – you took my mother from me, then my life.” When I spoke again, I choked. “You broke me.”

I shuddered and flinched when Agatha hovered closer, stroking her long, clawed fingers against my brow, brushing hair out of my eyes. Her eyes were patronizing, yet somehow full of sadness.

“Yet you were always meant to be broken. It was your destiny. You will never be complete. Always fractured. Do you understand?”

Something flickered in the air around us just then, and for the briefest second I thought I saw wavering images, all arranged in a circle. Twelve faint, flickering shades of Agatha Black. They were there, for a moment, and then they weren’t.

“Ah,” Agatha said, smiling. “So you did see them. Us. My sisters are only mirrors. My reflections. My shadows. Do you understand?”

“I really, really don’t.” More puzzles. More myths. More mysteries.

“I slew many – very, very many, to create my Coven of One. And I have slain so many more these past weeks.” She lifted her head back, taking a careful sip of air, savoring it, smiling.

“Who did you kill, and why? How many more are you planning to murder?”

Agatha lifted a finger to her lips and shushed me. “Do not trouble yourself with fruitless concerns. That is for me to know, little one. Now – do you understand? You have the potential to do as I have done, to do as your master has done, to amplify, magnify, and multiply your power. My sisters are merely shadows. Do you understand?”

“I told you,” I grunted. “I don’t.” I wrenched myself away from her, but what good did that do? She had me in her sway, frozen in place under her thrall.

“Is this not easier? To succumb to the power that is your birthright? Thea Morgana gave you a gift. The Eldest gave you a gift. Use it.”

“Contrary to what you might think, I’m not going to switch sides just because you’re asking so nicely. You can threaten me all you want.”

“I am not asking you to join us. Only to embrace who you are. Fight me, then, if you will. Defeat me.” Agatha grinned. “Then replace me.”

My blood curdled. Replace her?

“Here I come,” a second voice pulsed in my mind.

Vanitas?

I glanced down at the darkness beneath us, at the tiny, tiny dots that were my friends. Among them came a sparkle of red light, Vanitas’s garnets as he issued a battlecry that only I could hear.

“Vanitas,” I thought. “No. Don’t.”

Agatha followed my gaze. “Ah, your plaything, the flying blade you call friend. How irritating.”

She held out one clawed hand, splaying the fingers on it, and a pulse of white light flared from her palm, forming into a dome. Vanitas kept on flying.

“Vanitas,” I shouted. “Stop.”

He didn’t. His collision with Agatha’s force field hardly made her flinch. It took her no effort at all to deflect Vanitas charging full speed from what must have been hundreds of feet away. I heard his cry of shock as he rebounded, thrown violently back to earth by what had been a simple, thoughtless flick of Agatha’s wrist.

I narrowed my eyes, as if that could help me pinpoint where he’d gone. No sign of him, and the distance meant that our telepathic connection was lost. Then a loud, uproarious bang, followed by a cloud of dust. He’d crashed full speed back in the Boneyard. I could only hope that he was safe.

“Take our discussion into consideration,” Agatha said, her voice colder. “You could have so much more, little one. Oh, to receive the blessings you have, to be an heir of such power. You could rule this new world of the Old Ones, as a keeper of the realm. No mere servant, but a king.”