Chapter 76
Aris wasn’t sure what had happened at first. It had been too quick to see. Everything was a mess of confusion. What had just transpired?
The mad Emperor had been reaching for little Cillia, ready to abandon his body and pour his essence into hers, violating her very being. He had watched in horror, desperately trying to force his body to move and save the tiny girl, but he had been too slow. Had lost too much blood.
Aris been so close to stopping the monster, making all the lives sacrificed worth their cost, but he had failed. He failed at the last second, not able to save them from Evrain’s new transformation, and now, he would have to somehow find the strength within himself to kill Cillia, Kestrel’s ward, right in front of his eyes.
The blackness that had exploded from Evrain’s demonic transformation cleared. Exploding away, rather, imploding into Evrain’s new host body.
Aris’ bleary eyes transfixed on the little redhead.
Cillia remained untouched.
The darkness had distilled into someone else.
His gaze shifted to see Corrine, his Corrine, staring down at him, a look of horror and confusion written across her features that, even as he watched, was etched away by the mind of Evrain and the demonic parasite that had allowed the swapping.
Aris’ soul screamed at the sight. Pain distilled into a black-hole of agony. Everything that he knew of his wife was being eaten away by the monster she had sacrificed herself to save Cillia from.
*****
Corrine’s feet had propelled her forward. She desperately wanted to do something, ANYTHING to help, but she couldn’t. If she were to throw herself into the midst of the battle, she knew she would only end up getting herself and the rest of her loved ones killed quicker.
She had gone to her daughter’s side and ripped fabric from the hem of her dress and pressed it to the large gash on Sephira’s arm and whispered comfort to her as she went to work. Her daughter gone into shock and Corrine focused all her attention on stopping the bleeding and keeping her from dying.
Her words reached her daughter and Sephira had relaxed at the sound of her voice. She had calmed just like when she was a young child and she’d fallen and sprained her wrist. Her husband Van had tried everything to calm their daughter down, but nothing had worked.
A small part of Corrine had wondered if it was due to his Memory Magic that Sephira hadn’t been able to relax. She had always been sensitive to it, but little Sephira had calmed the moment that Corrine had wrapped her arms around her.
Why was she remembering this now?
HOW was she remembering it?
It was as if the darkness that had enveloped her mind like a blanket smothering all light had had the corners lifted, letting in strands of light and illuminating the world around her in a milky cataract vision, where, before, there had been nothing but inky blackness.
The memories of her life with Van didn’t come spilling out. They didn’t even come close to the surface of her mind.
But they were there. She could recall them.
They were THERE.
Tears started spilling down Corrine’s face. She hadn’t realized how much had been stolen from her. She had always felt as if there was something missing, but she had never expected to be THIS much.
It was as if an amputated leg she hadn’t known she’d lost had been restored to her and she was learning to walk again for the first time.
Corrine knew in the moment that she dredged up the memory of giving birth to Sephira, her precious Sephira who was curled in agony in front of her now, that she would do anything to protect these precious memories.
The memories of the life she had made with Van and Sephira.
The memories of her life with the man she now loved more than life itself, Van’s younger brother, Aris, who Evrain had engineered their marriage through manipulation of memory to feed into this moment, helping fuel the chaos that was tearing the city apart below them now.
It would be his undoing though.
He should have never placed them together. She would gladly sell her very soul to protect her husband Aris, and she knew that the strength she gave him would fuel him. He would stop Evrain no matter what. He would kill that monster, and she would be the spark that lit the fires that would burn down his demonic effigy of humanity and his desperate clinging to a life long overdue for death.
Corrine glanced up from her ministrations to her injured daughter and saw Evrain send a knife flying into her husband.
She screamed.
It was lost in the thrumming.
Another knife and another slammed into her husband Aris. Still he tried to get up. Still he tried to fight.
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But he was losing too much blood.
She needed to get there. She needed to be beside him. He needed her strength. She couldn’t let him die.
She found her footing and rushed forward.
Evrain reached forward.
He was trying to kill her beloved.
No.
No he wasn’t.
He was reaching for the child. Reaching for Cillia.
She knew in that moment what would happen if his hands fell upon her.
He would take her. He would take her essence. He would rape everything in the child’s mind and heart and his essence would seep through the defenseless babe. He would violate every part of her being and he would keep doing so to other precious children for centuries.
He would damn the world to hell in his mad pursuit of the pinnacle of magical power.
Corrine twisted.
She drove herself towards the outstretched hand without a second thought.
*****
For a split second there was nothing.
Corrine didn’t feel anything.
The world disappeared. Everything faded to a creamy off-white.
Had she died? Was this what the end felt like?
Then it hit her.
She felt him there. She felt the weight of centuries and the stifled cries of the past host bodies for whatever daemon Evrain had become screaming a chorus of the agony of the damned. She felt their memories pour into her.
Then Corrine felt him. He was like a virus. First she felt him in her forehead, then it spread. She could feel his presence in every cell in her body. The wrongness violated her and it was insidious. It was as if her very soul were being raped.
His presence.
His force of memory.
His hatred and his lust.
They all poured into her. She could feel EVERYTHING. She remembered everything from the man.
She remembered.
She remembered her childhood spent on the coast. They had been so small then. She remember how they had hated the smell of fish. How they had equated it with the poverty the bigger, richer, merchant’s children always mocked him for.
No! No! NO!!! That wasn’t her! That WASN’T her!
But Corrine remembered it so clearly. It was as if it were yesterday. She could feel it in her every pore. It was her. It was right. It was real.
It was the TRUTH, that gravelly voice she’d heard emanating from Evrian just second’s ago was sweet in her mind. It cajoled her. It whispered into her memory. She need to do nothing but surrender. She could fight, but she would lose. She knew it. She could feel her hold on her own body lessening with each heartbeat.
Corrine’s mouth moved and she heard her voice speaking. It growled. It hadn’t wanted this body. Such a well lived life was always harder to control. They had learned their lesson after the second host. They wouldn’t make that mistake again…but the power from the chaos had gone.
The transformation had happened.
They would have to make due. They would have less time this time to prepare for a new host body, but they could do it. They had done it before.
They needed to clean up.
This last body had deteriorated far too quickly. It had barely been more than ten years before the first symptoms had appeared.
They would need more than just the small fires and battles to fuel their next transformation.
They would need the death of a whole nation. They were a sacrifice that the magic demanded. They had to die. She needed more fuel. She could feel it. This body wouldn’t last. It had been too deeply touched by magic.
It had been taken from and given to.
Given to?
The tiny part of Corrine that still remembered herself, and was shrinking with every beat of her throbbing pulse, latched onto that word.
Given.
She knew she had been taken from.
So much had been taken from her.
Her husband. Her family. Her choice. Her freedom. Her own body. They had all been taken from her. Corrine had nothing of herself left. Every single atom in her being had been taken from her and Evrain’s presence only continued to ravage her. It would only ever consume. It was a wildfire. It burned down anything in its way. It only ever thought of sustaining itself. To think of anything else; to think of anyone else, would violate who it was. It was Evrain’s nature to destroy. It was his nature to consume. It was his nature to lust for more and never be quenched in his thirst.
His essence was damnation.
He took and he took and he took.
But Corrine had been given something.
She surged forward in her soul. She surged forward even as she saw her body picking up a blade from one of the fallen guards. She pushed against Evrain’s memories, building the echo of her own essence even as she took that blade, stepped forward. and slammed it through Wallace’s chest.
“NOOOOOOOOOO!” Corrine screamed in her mind as her free hand reached forward and pulled the old soldier closer to herself, each inch driving the sword further through, then out of the grizzly man.
Corrine fought back with everything she had inside her. Her soul struggled against the bonds that enslaved her from inside. She tore herself from the shackles of centuries of malice and magic and she found it.
She found the gift she had been given.
There, deep in her spirit. Deeper than she even knew herself. She found it. Van’s last words to her.
He had taken her by the hand and he told her, “remember me. They will take everything from you. They will tear your world apart. You will be thrust into the very depths of hell. They will tear me from your mind. But you will remember me.”
His life had poured into her then. Every memory was soaked with his essence. His love had permeated every facet of her being. His memories of them. Of their child. His memories of their life together. His memories of his childhood with Aris. His memories of the monster that he had come to see Emperor Evrain as. His memories of the rebellion. All of it became a part of her.
Then it had disappeared.
Van had done something. He wrapped it in walls upon walls of magic. He had protected it with a thousand layers. He knew that his essence would be taken from her thoughts. From her mind. So he had gone deeper. He had poured himself into her soul. He had put his very essence into her.
Corrine looked up. She saw Wallace’s eyes gaping and wide like a beached fish. He was gasping and looked oddly resigned as his eyes looked from her back to the sword. It was as if he had always expected to die this way.
Corrine saw her husband then. She saw Aris. She saw the man she loved for more than a decade now. She saw the father of her twins.
It was Aris’ brother that had let her force her way through Evrain’s will that strained against her with the fury of a caged typhoon and swelled with the crashing energy of a thousand tsunamis, but his gift had given her strength. He was there with her. Van was there with her.
Van bolstered her, but it was Corrine’s love for Aris that guided her voice.
It was her overwhelming LOVE for Aris and her life together with him that gave her the strength to give her last command to Wallace. “Do it. Please,” she strained and looked down to the knife he had strapped to his side.
She fought with everything inside of her to take her free hand from his shoulder to guide his own hand to the blade and help him pull it from its sheath.
“Do it. Please do it now,” she could feel herself fading even as she spoke.
He nodded weakly, every heartbeat poured blood from his body into an ever growing puddle that pooled beneath their feet. “It’s been an honor my child,” were his last words before, with the last of his quickly ebbing power, he surged forward and drove the short, sharp dirk into the side of her neck, severing her carotid artery and chipping into her spinal column.
She smiled at him as she fell forward onto him and they died, leaning into each-other like some tragic sculpture carved to encapsulate the mystery of peace in the midst of the most hellish of pain.