Chapter 45 THE SLAUGHTER
CHAPTER 045: THE SLAUGHTER
Luna moves to Mira first, fumbling with the chains on her wrists.
"These won't budge," she says, pulling harder.
"Break them," Kieran orders, grabbing one chain.
He yanks with wolf strength and the metal snaps. Luna does the same with the other wrist. Reyna handles the ankle restraints.
Mira slumps forward and I catch her before she hits the ground. Her pulse is weak but steady.
"Mira," I say, patting her cheek gently. "Can you hear me?"
Her eyes flutter open. They're unfocused, glassy with whatever drug he gave her.
"Mom?" she whispers.
"Not your mom. I'm Thalira. Luna's sister. We're getting you out."
"No," Mira's grip on my arm suddenly tightens. "No no you can't. He wants you here."
"We know it's a trap," Luna says. "But we're getting you home anyway."
"You don't understand." Mira's breathing gets faster. "He kept me alive on purpose. Said when you came for me he'd be killing everyone else. That was the plan. Make you choose between me and them."
My stomach drops. "How long have we been down here?"
"I don't know. Time moves different in the mines." Mira coughs. "But he left hours ago. Said he had a party to attend."
Kieran curses viciously. "We need to move. Now."
He tries the sealed tunnels again, slamming his shoulder into the invisible barrier. It doesn't give.
"We can't break through," Reyna says. She's cradling her broken arm against her chest. "Not without magic."
"Then we use magic," Luna says.
"And power the weapon," I finish. "That's exactly what he wants."
We stand there in terrible silence. Above us the weapon pulses steadily, waiting.
"What if we destroy it?" Kieran asks. "Right now. Before he can use it."
"How?" Luna demands. "It feeds on magic. Every spell we throw at it makes it stronger."
"Not if we overload it." I look at the massive construct of bone and shadow. "What if we feed it so much power it can't contain it? Force it to consume more than it can hold?"
Reyna shakes her head. "That would take enormous amounts of magic. More than the four of us have."
"Maybe not all four of us." I meet Kieran's eyes. "Luna, get Mira out. Find a way to break the seals from the other side. Kieran and Reyna, help them."
"What are you talking about?" Luna asks.
"I'm staying here. I'm destroying this thing."
"Absolutely not," Kieran says immediately.
"It's the only way. You three focus on breaking through the barrier. I'll handle the weapon."
"Handle it how exactly?" Reyna demands. "By getting yourself killed?"
"If that's what it takes."
"No." Kieran moves to stand in front of me. "I'm not leaving you alone down here."
"You have to. The pack needs you. Luna and Mira can't get out without help and you know it."
"Then Luna can destroy the weapon."
"She's injured and exhausted and she doesn't have time magic. I'm the only one who can reverse something like this."
His hands curl into fists. "There has to be another way."
"There isn't and we both know it." I touch his face gently. "Please. Trust me."
"I do trust you. That's not the problem." His voice cracks. "I can't lose you again."
"You won't."
"You don't know that."
"No. But I know if you stay here we all die. If you go you might be able to save the pack." I force myself to step back. "That's an order. Go."
He stares at me for a long moment. His eyes shift from human to wolf and back again as he fights with himself.
Finally he nods.
"Don't die," he says.
"I'll try."
He kisses me hard and desperate, then pulls away and shifts. His golden wolf form moves to Luna's side.
Luna looks at me with tears streaming down her face. "I just found you. I can't lose you now."
"You won't. I promise I'll find a way out."
"You better." She shifts too, letting Mira climb onto her back.
Reyna shifts last, moving awkwardly with her broken arm.
They disappear into the tunnel leading back toward the surface, Kieran breaking through collapsed sections with brute strength.
And I'm alone with the weapon.
It pulses, almost like it's pleased.
"Alright," I mutter. "Let's dance."
I close my eyes and reach for my time magic. The moment I do the weapon reacts, tendrils of dark energy reaching toward me hungrily.
Instead of pulling back I push harder. I let it take my power but I also push into it, trying to feel the structure underneath the corruption.
Pain explodes through my skull.
Memories that aren't mine flood in. Girls screaming. Bones breaking. Blood pooling on stone floors. Every death that fed this thing is suddenly playing in my head at once.
I see my own deaths too. Burning in the courtyard. Drowning in the fountain. Falling from the tower. Each one feeds the weapon's hunger.
I grit my teeth and push deeper.
The weapon was built in layers. Bone foundation. Blood binding. Soul corruption. And at the center, a heart made of crystallized pain.
I try to unmake it. To rewind time around each piece, reversing its creation.
But it fights back. For every second I rewind it reconstructs itself in two.
My knees hit the ground. Blood drips from my nose.
I'm failing.
It's too strong, too old, too full of death to be undone by one person.
Then I feel them.
Through the bonds. Miles away but suddenly present.
Alaric's cold vampire energy.
Cassian's phoenix fire.
Zev's dream magic.
They're feeding me power even as they fight for their lives.
And beneath that, another bond I didn't know existed until recently.
Morgana.
Her shadow magic wraps around mine, steadying me.
I take all of it and channel it into the weapon.
Time magic mixed with vampire speed, phoenix transformation, dream manipulation and shadow corruption. Five different types of power slamming into something designed to hold only one.
The weapon shrieks.
Not a sound exactly but a vibration that makes my bones ache.
Cracks spread across its surface. The dark energy that held it together starts to unravel.
"Come on," I gasp. "Break."
It pulses one more time, violent and desperate.
Then it explodes.
Dark energy erupts outward in a wave. I'm thrown backward, slamming into the stone wall hard enough that I hear things crack.
Everything goes black.
I wake up to silence.
My body screams with every breath. Broken ribs definitely. Maybe a fractured skull. My left arm won't move right.
But I'm alive.
I force my eyes open.
The chamber is destroyed. The weapon is nothing but ash scattered across the floor. Scorch marks cover the walls where the dark energy hit.
I try to move and immediately regret it. Pain shoots through my entire right side.
Broken bones. Internal bleeding probably. I need help.
I try to call out but my voice comes out as a wheeze.
Footsteps echo from one of the tunnels.
Relief floods through me. They came back. They found a way through.
"Over here," I try to say.
The footsteps get closer.
A figure steps into the ruined chamber.
My relief turns to ice.
It's not Kieran.
It's not Luna or Reyna.
It's Marvin.
He looks exactly like the projection. Tall and lean with dark hair and those red eyes that glow in the dim light. He's covered in blood but none of it seems to be his.
He smiles when he sees me broken on the floor.
"Hello Thalira," he says, his voice gentle and terrible. "I've been waiting for you to wake up."
He steps closer, crouching beside me. I try to move, to reach for my magic, but my body won't respond.
"The weapon," he says, looking at the ash. "I'm impressed. I didn't think you had it in you to destroy something that powerful."
"The pack," I rasp. "What did you do?"
"What I promised. I slaughtered them." His smile doesn't fade. "Not all of them. That would be wasteful. But enough. Your boys put up a good fight though. Almost made it interesting."
"They're alive?"
"For now." He tilts his head. "But that depends entirely on your cooperation."
"I won't help you."
"Won't you?" He reaches out and touches my broken arm. I scream. "I haven't even begun to hurt you yet and you're already breaking."
Tears stream down my face but I glare at him. "You're going to kill me anyway."
"Kill you? No." His expression shifts to something almost sad. "I'm going to save you. Save us both. That's what family does."
"You're not my family."
"But I am." He stands, looking down at me. "Mom didn't tell you did she? About the third child. The one she gave away because he was born wrong. Born corrupted."
My stomach drops. "What are you talking about?"
"We're triplets Thalira. You, Luna and me. Three pieces of the same soul split apart before we were even born." He laughs but it sounds broken. "And I'm the piece that got all the darkness."
"That's not possible."
"Isn't it? Why else would the prophecy mention twins when there were three of us? Why else would Mom's sacrifice create a weapon from the son she abandoned?"
He kneels again, grabbing my face with blood-stained fingers.
"I'm going to fix us," he whispers. "I'm going to put us back together the way we were always meant to be. One soul. One being. Complete."
"By killing more innocent people?"
"By killing the part of us that's weak." His grip tightens. "The human part. The part that feels guilt and shame and mercy. Once that's gone we'll finally be whole."
He stands and pulls something from his pocket.
A syringe filled with black liquid.
"This won't hurt," he lies. "Well, it will hurt a lot actually. But you'll thank me when it's over."
He moves toward me and I realize with perfect clarity that I'm going to die down here.
I was just alone in the dark with my brother's needle in my arm.
The chamber door bursts open.
Luna and Kieran explode through in wolf form, snarling and vicious.
Marvin sighs like they're disappointing children.
"I really hoped we could do this without violence," he says.
Then he shifts into a wolf.
Into something worse, something with too many teeth and eyes that look like coals and wings made of shadow and I realized he wasn't lying about being corrupted.
He's not human anymore.
He's not even supernatural.
He's something that should never have been born at all.