Chapter 16 16
LUCIEN'S POV
I didn't think. Didn't hesitate. One moment after Seraphine’s soldiers crashed into the temple I was running too.
Shadows erupted from my hands, darker and wilder than anything I had conjured in hundreds of years. I yanked straight from the Abyss—summoning creatures that hadn’t trudged its realms since before Celeste had split them apart.
"Protect her!" I roared. "Don't let them near the coffin!"
Ronan changed shape in a flash and his giant wolf self lunged at the shadow things. Draven was a streak of motion, blurred by his vampiric speed and almost impossible to keep up with. Kael’s magic flared to life, and he conjured shields and weapons.
But there were simply so many of them. For every one we wiped out, two more seemed to appear.
Seraphine took a step back from the fighting, directing with cold purpose. She had moved her warriors to force us from Aria and the child, between us.
Demons made a path for me as I cut my way through them toward her. If I could bring her down, the attack might unravel.
She saw me coming and smiled. "The demon king. I was hoping we could get the opportunity to speak.”
“This isn’t a conversation, and I’m not here to talk,” I snarled, throwing hellfire at her.
She dodged easily. "Pity. I have so many questions about your arrangement with the Fifth King. The one that this is all about.”
What she said was a greater punch than any thrown. Because she was right. This was my fault.
"That's right," Seraphine continued. “I’m fully aware of your little deal. The Fifth King knows all your failures, what each of you are ashamed of."
She moved closer. “He knows you feel guilty about the curse. That you’ve been trying to make up for it for a thousand years. That you’d give anything to make it right.”
"Shut up," I growled.
"He also knows that you are in love with her. Truly, madly in love with a woman who might never forgive you.”
I snapped. Shadows of pure destructive energy surged outwards in a wave. Seraphine threw up a shield, but I eyed her foots knees sliding back.’
"Touched a nerve, did I?" she asked.
I started to answer, but Aria screamed at me.
A shadow monster cut through our defense and came directly at her. Acting on reflexes alone, I appeared right in front of the monster and Aria.
Its claws shredded through my chest, into flesh and muscle. Shadow weapons were one of the few that things could 100% kill a demon king. The pain was sudden and horrible.
I sunk to my knees and I heard Aria's scream. It towered over me, ready to strike the death blow. Ronan was there though, his jaws rending it open.
"Lucien!" Aria dropped beside me. "Oh gods, no."
“I’m good,” I lied, the taste of blood on my lips. "Just a scratch."
“You’re not O.K.,” she said, weeping. "You're dying."
Maybe I was. The wound was severe, of the sort that would require weeks to heal.
But I did not regret it when I looked at her face.
"Draven, Ronan, drive them back!" Kael shouted. "I'll pursue Seraphine!"
I still heard the sounds of combat all around us, though it somehow felt far away. I gave all my attention to Aria, to her hands against my injury and the rune that sparkled on her wrist.
"I can even make you get better," she pleaded. ”The power, it’s there and I can feel it.”
The energy flowed from her hands directly into my chest. It stung at first, and then it was heat, was healing.
The mark was pumping her power straight into me, leveraging the connection between us to mend injuries that should have been fatal.
"It's working," I gasped. "Keep going."
She did, giving me more energy. But the closeness of it shattered every barrier I had put up.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted it out. "I'm so sorry for what I did. For the deal I made. Because I was too jealous and stupid.”
"Lucien," she said.
“I observed how you viewed others. Draven with his intelligence. Ronan with his passion. Kael with his charm. And I thought I was less. Thought I was only the dark one, the dangerous one.”
The wound was nearly closed.
So when the Fifth King's agent approached me about a way to make you need me, I took it. And that choice damned all of us. I looked up at her. "I don't deserve your forgiveness. But I can't stay away."
Aria was crying openly now. “As to you I don’t remember enough to forgive or condemn. But the Lucien before me is making an effort to do better. That must count for something.”
Before I could reply, there was the child’s voice in response to it amid all that hell.
"ENOUGH!"
Power was emanating from the crystal coffin, it was so powerful that even the battles ceased. Everyone froze.
The child’s eyes were shining silver.
“The Fifth King’s men are a diversion,” it said. “They’re there to keep you occupied while he does complete the crossing.”
"What crossing?" Aria demanded.
"Mother turned me into a live seal with magic." I am not merely an extract of the Fifth King. I am the key that binds him to the Abyss. As long as I'm stuck here in stasis he can't fully come across. But the stasis is failing."
The kid looked us over. "You have three choices. First, you can wake me. Shatter the stasis altogether and release me. But using it will also release the Fifth King. He'll emerge at full power."
"Second option?" Draven asked.
“Leave me here and let the stasis be. Which will be in days.’ The Fifth King will be released still, though in diminished form."
"And the third option?" Aria asked.
"I can return to you, Mother. You absorb me back into you and I feel you siphon away my power, a portion of the Fifth King's essence I carry with me. It will lend you strength to defeat him. But it involves holding darkness within you. And there’s no guarantee of being able to control it.”
Aria looked at each of us. “So how much time do we have to make a decision here?”
“Not too long,” the child replied. "Because I wasn't entirely truthful. The stasis isn't failing naturally. Someone has been sabotaging it."
The child’s stare fastened on Seraphine. "Her. She’s been feeding it shadow magic, corrupting the seal. That’s how the Fifth King knew where I’d be.”
Kael swung away, magic raging. Golden chains coiled around Seraphine before she could react.
"You," he snarled. "Everything. You've betrayed everything."
Seraphine laughed. "I haven't betrayed anything. I've chosen the winning side."
"Never," Ronan growled.
"Then you're fools," Seraphine said. “The Fifth King is done with the blood moon. I have paved the road for him. He's coming now."
Its temple shuddered violently. Not from an earthquake, but reality ripping.
A tear appeared in the center of the room just over the crystal coffin. It began humbly but grew quickly. Through it I glimpsed the Abyss, infinite black so… painful to see.
And in the darkness of that black, something stirred.
Two eyes opened. Not eyes in any literal sense, but blazing foci of consciousness that faded on us. They were so old, so older than ancients, they held millions of years of rage and hunger.
The Fifth King.
A hand jammed through the tear in reality. It was huge, as big for sure as the coffin in its entirety, a great denizen of shadow borne into substance. Claws extended toward the child.
"He is coming," murmured the child. “Mother, you’ll have to decide now. Either way, act fast.”
Aria's eyes were drawn toward the hand reaching for her child. Looked at each of us. She glanced at the mark on her wrist, where four sigils had begun to glow.
Then she looked at the child, and I watched her decide.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."
She placed both hands against the surface of the crystal coffin. The sigil on her wrist exploded with light.
"Mother, no!" the child cried out. “You don’t know what you’re taking into yourself!”
But Aria didn't stop. Power arced between her and the child, and a crack formed in the crystal.
The hand of the Fifth King came faster, as if clutching at the child.
And I knew that the next few seconds were going to decide everything.