In the silence after Galvyn’s death rattle, Shadesorrow lifted her head and sniffed the night air, her snubbed nose widening. Her overly large eyes widened and she whipped around, following the scent of nature magic, her long silver-white hair flying around her in a cloud of moonlight. Her enormous black wings stretched and she bared her teeth as she crept from the grave, following the earthy, smokey smell of nature.
Deep within Shadesorrow, Alira was watching. Trapped inside her new form, unable to direct or control the monstrous new body, she screamed and thrashed but nothing happened. Darkness, everywhere.
She could feel Henry, albeit barely, just a hint of his green-ish essence. The wild side of him was under the control of Shadesorrow and he had abandoned any semblance of humanity. He was enthralled by the wildness of the goddess’s senses, her sensitive skin, her eyes that could see in the dark. He was more at home in the wildling form than he had ever been as a human and Alira despaired at his abandonment of her.
As she watched Shadesorrow track the scent of magic, she thought of her father’s spirit, buried alive inside his rotting, broken corpse. His heart had been removed, maybe still beating, his blood pouring into the glass container as it was sealed inside him. Had he been aware of what Erin had been doing when it was happening? Had he struggled or given his life for the woman he loved? Had he been forced to write his own suicide letter, aware of what would happen?
Her mother had done that. Her mother, the woman he loved, had bound him to that grave to protect…
The book.
The book had been there. And a chest. What had been in the chest?
She felt a hot panic rising in her at being so close to the book, to the clues she needed to send Shadesorrow back to the spiritual realm. The injustice of being within reach of the thing she so desperately needed and to have lost control at the last minute…
But had she lost control or just ceded it? Had it been taken from her or had she allowed it?
She asked herself if that even mattered, given the current state of things. She was bound inside the body of a monster goddess, hellbent on the destruction of all humans.
You’re still conscious. She told herself. You’re still Alira.
Do not give in. Her father had said. Do not give up.
Shadesorrow took off at a run, breaking into the line of the trees, leaves whipping past her as she followed the scent. She tucked her wings tightly to herself as she ran, her claws swiping the branches away as she sped along. Dark, joyous abandon filled her as she hunted. Man was near…
Alira surveyed the place her soul was kept and noticed it seemed to be the secret area that she had created to keep herself separate from Henry. It was lit brightly, a single dot of visible brightness. All around her, Shadesorrow seethed and convulsed, slipping off her like oily darkness, unable to keep purchase on the small scrap of Alira’s soul that she had carefully secreted away.
The depth of the goddess’s power was staggering and threatened to drown Alira if she was not careful. The vastness of the darkness stretched on forever in every direction, an endless night that held no stars, no light. And in the middle of that darkness sat Alira, a speckle of golden light on the expanse of blackness.
Bright green vines with sharp, red pointed leaves wound around herself, binding her to the small island of light in the middle of Shadesorrow’s power. The leaves twined and writhed, small white blossoms opening and closing, and Alira realised with a shock that this was part of Henry. The vines tightened and loosened, a slow pulsing breath, as they slithered across her intangible flesh.
The spirit had not thrown himself completely into Shadesorrow’s well of darkness. He had wound a fraction himself around Alira, protecting her from the might of that black swell, masking her human light. She felt that light around her brighten, and the leaves of the spirit unfurled, wider, bigger, hiding her glow.
Light like Therin’s holy Light.
Light like Galvyn’s holy Light.
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Watching the way the leaves covered her glow, she flared the brightness once, pulsing it in time to the way Henry’s vines twisted. Together, they found a rhythm. A pulse of light, a flash of greenery to dim.
Shadesorrow had slowed and stopped. Alira watched through the enhanced eyes as the goddess shot up a thick tree, her claws and talons easily finding purchase. She perched on a branch and held perfectly still. Alira tried to see what she was focusing on but it wasn’t until the raven flickered its wings that she saw the blue-green sheen of its black feathers on a low branch of a tree a few feet away.
Shadesorrow cocked her head, listening and watching. She drew in a deep breath through her nose, tasting and smelling the heady, spicy nature magic around her marred only by the hot blood smell of a human. The raven was glowing purple, ever so slightly.
Suddenly she pounced from the tree, her wings flaring. She grabbed the bird in her hands, squeezing it tightly. Alira felt a rise in the darkness as Shadesorrow forced the raven to morph, to return to its own form. It pressed in around her but Henry’s vines tightened, compressing her even smaller, his leaves hiding her.
With a loud caw, the raven burst, feathers of black smoke dissipating.
There, struggling in terror in her claws, was Noran.
A grin split Shadesorrow’s face in two as she held the thin man, his own white hair sweaty and in his eyes.
“Man,” Shadesorrow growled and her voice contained every sound of nature possible. It was the rustle of wind through grass, the howl of a wolf, the deep rumble of thunder. “Why do you hunt me?”
Noran stopped struggling and stared at Shadesorrow with wide-eyed horror. Shadesorrow hissed and whispered and black bands of dark vines wound around the man. She released him and dropped him to the floor of the forest with an undignified crash.
He did not speak, merely shook in fear as she stood back, crossed her arms across her ruined shirt, the scraps hanging off her in tatters, waiting for his answer. He gaped back at her, his eyes finally finding purchase on her enormous black eyes.
“Your hubris has summoned me,” the goddess said, her multi-layered voice terrible even to Alira so far removed from reality.
Noran merely trembled and shook his head. Shadesorrow’s eyes caught his blade and she uncrossed her arms, leaning down and drawing a claw down the wicked, black metal with a horrible metallic scream.
“Morinn,” she said and Noran merely nodded.
“Y-yes,” he said finally.
“But you are male,” Shadesorrow said and watched as sweat beaded across his unshaven lip. “Males are not allowed Knives.”
“Y-yes,” he agreed. “But I’m…unable to sire.” He shivered and Alira felt Shadesorrow’s confusion. She touched a claw to his forehead and slipped into his mind. There, she laid bare all his life. Images flickered and spun, never sitting long on a single thought. People’s faces and places passed from him into her and she read him like a book.
His mother.
Poverty.
Devan.
The Light.
Therin.
Mara.
Illness.
Therin.
The Temple.
Blood.
The High Lord’s home.
Therin.
Pain.
His Witch Knife.
Blood.
Mara.
Therin.
A whip.
Therin.
Alira.
Therin.
Therin.
Therin…
The monk’s face, each image a different age, became an obsessive repeat, crowding out any other thought and Shadesorrow disengaged.
In an instant she had read his entire life and understood. And Alira, hidden in the middle of the darkness, had also understood.
“Illness,” she said simply and Noran nodded.
She waved a hand and the ropes dissipated. He remained exactly where he had fallen, unwilling to move. Shadesorrow bared her teeth again and leaned toward him, her wide black eyes staring into his.
“Gather the Morinn and tell them…” she said as she straightened and flared her wings, snapping them out into their impressive span. “That the Unmaking comes. Now, leave me an offering and go.”
Alira watched as Noran staggered to his feet, his fear making him ungainly. He drew his blade, sliced it down the palm of his hand and offered the wounded hand to Shadesorrow. HIs hand was shaking so badly the blood spilled from the cupped hand he offered. She took his hand in her pale, clawed one and meeting his eyes as she did so, she licked once at his wound and healed the cut.
Without waiting for another word, he burst into a cloud of blue-green feathers, a black raven flapping wildly. Alira watched as Noran fled to tell Morinn all he’d seen and a small part of her cried. Not for the danger he posed, though that itself was not insignificant. But for Noran himself.
For she had seen everything Shadesorrow had seen inside him and the last image he had offered was the memory of a fifteen years old boy, sitting alongside a pond, an arm draped across his knee. The wind lifted a blond curl as he looked at Noran who sat beside him, taking the likeness of the boy he loved with all his dark, broken soul.